While watching, I had planned to write that Jekyll and Hyde … Together Again must have made Robert Louis Stevenson turn over in his grave, but Jerry Belson’s goof on the 19th-century author’s arguably most famous tale takes care of that in its final scene. It’s one of many unashamedly dopey gags in this unheralded R-rated gem.
Bug-eyed Mark Blankfield (Dracula: Dead and Loving It) is Dr. Daniel Jekyll, resident superstar surgeon at Our Lady of Pain & Suffering. Despite having it all, including an engagement to the hospital boss’ conceited daughter (Bess Armstrong, Jaws 3-D), Jekyll announces his retirement from surgery to dedicate his brilliant mind to drug research. This being the early ’80s, that includes the recreational kind — namely, cocaine … and lots of it.
Falling asleep with a straw up his nose, Jekyll accidentally snorts a sparkling white powder in the lab that transforms him into a spastic sex maniac, an unleashed id with disco duds, animal instincts and a lone gold tooth. While in this unruly state of Hyde, he couples with a prostitute named Ivy (Krista Errickson, Mortal Passions) and snorts more lines than can be found in a geometry textbook. Such hedonistic activities threaten to derail his professional and personal lives — all three of them.
To my off-guard surprise, Jekyll and Hyde … Together Again is very funny — often laugh-out-loud hilarious, such as Jekyll’s meet-and-treat cute with Ivy, who checks into the emergency room due to a “foreign object” lodged in her vagina. (Trust me.) Working as a broad parody, Jekyll bears more of the National Lampoon stamp than the humor magazine’s official movie that same year, Class Reunion. (The Lampoon staff had to be envious of Jekyll‘s breast-enlargement scene in particular. Speaking of, Elvira alter ego Cassandra Peterson and her right “gazonga” have supporting roles as a surgical nurse and her right “gazonga,” respectively.)
Belson (vet of many a classic sitcom, most notably The Odd Couple) and his three co-writers deserve credit for putting laughs on the page, especially in the tricky realm of drug humor. They realize — as so few of today’s filmmakers do (*cough* Seth Rogen *cough*) — that getting high can’t be the beginning and the end of the joke; something more has to be done with it, and they do. But Blankfield is the largest reason the movie works as well as it does. He’s a terrific physical comedian, and his dual performance here can’t be experienced without seeing a lot of Jim Carrey at the peak of his Ace Ventura/The Mask commercial ascent. Based on this film alone, Blankfield should have been every bit the star. —Rod Lott