5 Facts About ‘Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde,’ Svengoolie’s Jan. 4 Movie of the Week
Boris Karloff plays a mad scientist who takes the idea of ‘new year, new you’ a little too far in Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, airing on the Jan. 4, 2025 edition of the MeTV series Svengoolie Classic Horror & Sci-Fi Movie. The fourth of the “Abbott and Costello Meet …” series of horror comedies, it followed the pair as they play American cops studying in Victorian London, who find themselves dropped into a murder mystery. Who’s killing people on the streets of the city? And what does the mild-manner scientist Dr. Henry Jekyll have to do with any of it?
1It was the duo’s second collaboration with Boris Karloff
Though the first Abbott and Costello monster movie, 1948’s Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, has them meeting Karloff’s signature character, Karloff didn’t appear in it — instead, the role of the monster was played by Glenn Strange. Karloff appeared in some promotional events for the film, however, supposedly quipping that he’d do it “as long as I don’t have to see the movie.”
But after the success of the first film, he must have had a change of heart — a year later, he appeared as their nemesis in the appropriately titled Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff. In it, Karloff plays not himself, as the title might imply, but an evil swami who tries to hypnotize Costello into killing himself; luckily, Costello turns out to be too dumb to be hypnotized.
2Karloff played Jekyll, but not Hyde
Everett Collection
Though Karloff is known for roles that required eye-popping makeup and character transformations, in this film, he finally had some help in playing a monstrous creature. He is credited in the film as playing both Jekyll and Hyde, but in reality, Mr. Hyde is played uncredited by Eddie Parker, an acclaimed stuntman who appeared in Rear Window. He would team up with the pair again in 1955’s Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, their final monster film.
3An early version had Abbott and Costello fighting Mrs. Hyde
Everett Collection
Though we’ll never know exactly what the writers had planned, early drafts of the script have been found with the intriguing title Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde. The idea of Boris Karloff taking a potion that transforms him into a sexy lady feels like it has truly immense comic potential, however, the writers jettisoned it for a more traditional take on the tale.
4It was the first film Costello made after a major health crisis
Everett Collection
In early 1943, Lou Costello contracted rheumatic fever during a tour of international army bases. The illness pulled him out of work for six months, and was only the first in a year marked by tragedies — in Nov. 1943, Costello’s infant son drowned in the family swimming pool, after escaping his playpen while being babysat.
A decade later, Costello experienced a recurrence of the fever, which again brought his career to a halt — he and Abbott had to withdraw from the film Fireman Save My Child shortly before production began. Jekyll and Hyde was the first film he made after getting on his feet again.
However, Costello’s period of good health would be tragically short — he died in 1959, at age 52, shortly after shooting The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock, his only movie made without Abbott.
5One co-star went on to become a detective with a famous theme song
Craig Stevens, who appears in the film as hunky Bruce Adams, had a long career in film, working first as a studio player for Warners in the ’40s, and then a free agent who showed up on nearly every TV show on the air.
But in 1958, when he was 40 years old and had been working as an actor for nearly 20 years, Stevens finally got his big break: he played the title role on detective show Peter Gunn. Created by Breakfast at Tiffany‘s director (and Julie Andrews’ husband!) Blane Edwards, Peter Gunn offered a new kind of private detective: cool, well-dressed, and sophisticated, with a hip jazz singer girlfriend. Peter Gunn was the first detective to be created exclusively for TV, rather than adapted from a book, film, or radio show.
Peter Gunn ran for three seasons (which yielded an eye-popping 114 episodes), with one episode directed by a young Robert Altman. Afterwards, it yielded a 1967 feature film, also starring Stevens, and a 1989 made-for-TV film reboot, starring Peter Strauss. But its greatest legacy is its Henry Mancini-penned theme song, which has been used to great effect in countless films and TV shows, but is most famous for its use in The Blues Brothers. Come on, sing it, you know the words: Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo …
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