Underplayed Gems

The Ugly Duckling (1959)

The Ugly Duckling poster
Directed by
Lance Comfort
Genre
comedy film
Country
United Kingdom
Runtime
1h 24m
Rated
U
Rating
6.0 of 10 from 6 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

A clumsy man takes a strange family remedy that transforms him into a confident and wild character. This British comedy borrows from the Jekyll and Hyde story for laughs.

lightheartedwhimsicalfunnyplayfulsillygently satiricalcampy

What happens

The Ugly Duckling is a 1959 British science fiction comedy film, directed by Lance Comfort and starring Bernard Bresslaw, Jon Pertwee and Reginald Beckwith. The screenplay was by Sid Colin and Jack Davies. The film is a comic adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde storyline and the opening credits include "with ideas stolen from Robert Louis Stevenson". The film has no connection to the Hans Christian Andersen story. The tagline on posters read "He's a changed man after taking Jekyll's family remedy." Around this time, Hammer announced they were also producing a straight version of the Jekyll-Hyde theme in the near future to be called The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll. John Peverall, Hugh Harlow and Tom Walls were assistant directors, Bernard Robinson and Don Mingaye were the Art Directors, and Roy Ashton did Makeup. The film's working title was Mad Pashernate Love, and it was filmed from May 4 to June 10, 1959. It was trade shown on July 28, 1959, at the Columbia Theatre, and was released in the UK on Aug. 10, 1959. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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