''The Doctor's Horrible Experiment'' (french: Le Testament du docteur Cordelier) is a 1959 French black-and-white television film directed by Jean Renoir. It has been released in the United Kingdom as ''Experiment in Evil'' and on DVD as ''The Testament of Doctor Cordelier''. The film is a retelling of the 1886 novella ''

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'' is a 1886 Gothic novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It follows Gabriel John Utterson, a London-based legal practitioner who investigates a series of strange occurrences between his old ...

'' by

Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll a ...

set in 1950s France.

Jean-Louis Barrault Jean-Louis Bernard Barrault (; 8 September 1910 – 22 January 1994) was a French actor, director and mime artist who worked on both screen and stage. Biography Barrault was born in Le Vésinet in France in 1910. His father was 'a Burgundia ...

plays Dr. Cordelier/Opale, the substitute for Dr. Jekyll/Hyde character; the film is also known for its visual style that is far above the normal television programs of the 1950s.Review by Shawn Levy a
OregonLive.com
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Plot

In Paris, the lawyer Joly is given the will of his friend and client Cordelier, a well-known psychiatrist, who leaves everything to a patient called Opale. However Joly learns that this Opale is a sadistic pervert and murderer who keeps evading the police. He even causes the death of another leading psychiatrist, Séverin, who challenged Cordelier's views. The climax comes after a smart party at Cordelier's capacious house, when he is heard howling with pain in his laboratory. Breaking in, Joly finds Opale, who admits he is really Cordelier and makes his confession. Guilt over his sexual exploitation of female staff and patients led him, by long research into mind-altering drugs, to create a separate persona through which he could enact his hidden desires without taking responsibility. Swallowing an overdose, he dies.

Cast

as Dr. Cordelier/Opale * * * Teddy Bilis as Maître Joly * * * Jean Bertho as Premier passant * * * Jacques Ciron as Deuxième passant * * *

Jean Topart Jean Topart (13 April 1922 – 29 December 2012) was a French actor. He was considered one of the best known voices on French television for decades. In addition to providing the voices and narration for television series and animated films, Topa ...

as Désiré * * * Michel Vitold as Docteur Séverin * * *

Jacques Danoville Ancient and noble French family names, Jacques, Jacq, or James are believed to originate from the Middle Ages in the historic northwest Brittany region in France, and have since spread around the world over the centuries. To date, there are over ...

as Commissaire Lardaut (as Jacques Dannoville) * * * André Certes as Inspecteur Salbris

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 100% based on , with a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

rating of 7.7/10. Author and film critic

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of fi ...

awarded the film three out of a possible four stars, praising Barrault's performance, and direction.

References

External links

* 1959 television films 1959 films 1959 horror films Films directed by Jean Renoir Films set in Paris French television films 1950s French-language films Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde films French horror films 1950s science fiction horror films Horror television films Films scored by Joseph Kosma 1950s French films {{1950s-horror-film-stub