EDGE OF SANITY

UK, 1989, 84 minutes, Colour.
Anthony Perkins, Glynnis Barber.
Directed by Gerard Kikoine.

Edge of Sanity is yet another version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. This time Anthony Perkins brings his Psycho and other manic performances to the role. Dr Jekyll seems at times as manic as Jack Hyde.

Filmed in Hungary, with good locations and settings, the film also offers a prurient look at Victorian England. Aberrations are suggested - sadism, blasphemy, homosexuality as well as the abuse of prostitutes and their murder. The solution is that Mr Hyde is Jack the Ripper.

With an English cast and Hungarian support, the film offers the surface of the Jekyll and Hyde story without the depth - and it presents an ugly picture of Victorian England.

1. The popularity of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde? The tradition of film versions? A version for the 80s? Prurient shock tactics?

2. The production values, Hungarian sets and locations? Period? Special effects? The star and his performances - his manic Jekyll and Hyde?

3. The title, the comment on Jekyll and Hyde, the treatment? Jekyll and Hyde: 19th century Victorian setting, Victorian manners and repression, the development of science, philosophical attitudes towards freedom, the subconscious emerging, the Dorian Gray stories?

5. The link with Jack the Ripper and 19th century violence? Jack the Ripper as a Jekyll and Hyde character?

6. The prurient style of the film: sexuality, sadism, blasphemy at the brothel, homosexuality, violence, bizarre behaviour? The credibility of the treatment?

7. The introduction: the young boy and Jekyll's dreams, the Freudian explanation for Jekyll's behaviour and what was within? The edge of sanity? The freedom emerging - and the killing of prostitutes and his wife?

8. Dr. Jekyll and his reputation, his experiences, experiments, the anaesthetic with the eye, his charity work, love for Elizabeth, their friends, social life? Experiments with the monkey? The cocaine (crack)? The change, his appearance as Jack Hyde, evil, the streets, Madam Flora's, with Johnny, the prostitutes and sexuality, his impotence, slashing the prostitute, taking the prostitute to the roof and the boy watching her, killing her, the manager finding the body? violence and strength? Going to Madam Flora's, seeing Susanna, the memory of the dream, forcing Johnny and Susanna to sexuality? His orgiastic behaviour? His wife discovering him? At home and his turning, his killing her? Henry as ordinary, tired, his developing his theory of freedom the party? Going to the police, helping them with their investigations? Going to the sauna, the men? A doctor of Victorian society? (The visualising of his transformation?) The irony of his surviving and looking out the window at the end?

9. His wife, Victorian wife and love, concern, charitable work, the prostitutes at the church for protection, the dinner, her seeking out her husband at the hospital, the truth, his abusing her, Johnny turning on her, her death?

10. The prostitutes, Madam Flora's, style, gentlemanly clientele, the booths, the blasphemy, the background of Jack the Ripper, the women in the streets?

11. The police and their frustration, the newspapers and their sensationalising?

12. Jekyll's friends, his lawyer, the changing of the will in favour of Mr Hyde?

13. For what audience was the film made? Entertainment? An exploitive version of the fable?