Climax!: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on AllMovie

Telecast live from Hollywood, this hour-long version of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde stars Michael Rennie in the title role--or rather, roles. Obsessed with his theory that every man has two distinct personalities within him, the kindly Dr. Henry Jeckyll (Rennie) begins to experiment with a drug that will release the dark side of his soul. He succeeds all too well, created a hedonistic and ultimately murderous human monster named Edward Hyde. Breaking away from the traditional staging of this material, the production is offered in flashback form, with the reading of the late Dr. Jekyll's will--whereby a strange bequest, and a stranger story, is revealed bit by bit. Adapted for television by no less than Gore Vidal, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of a handful of episodes from the CBS dramatic anthology Climax! that still exists in kinescope form.