Martine Beswick’s Sister Hyde combines extraordinary Victorian elegance with concealed danger in this striking color image from Hammer’s DR. JEKYLL & SISTER HYDE (1971), captured with a small knife in hand as she reaches toward the top of her boot. Dressed in a spectacular crimson gown beneath a contrasting black outer garment, Beswick appears cool and completely composed—a beautiful woman quietly handling the weapon that transforms the apparent refinement of the portrait into something considerably more sinister.

The knife changes everything.

Without it, this is sumptuous Victorian glamour.

With it—

Sister Hyde becomes dangerous.

And the brilliant crimson surrounding her suddenly feels entirely appropriate.

Elegance Concealing a Killer

Directed by Roy Ward Baker, DR. JEKYLL & SISTER HYDE (1971) offered one of Hammer Films’ most inventive reinterpretations of Robert Louis Stevenson’s celebrated Jekyll and Hyde story.

Ralph Bates portrays Dr. Henry Jekyll, whose experiments involving female hormones cause him to physically transform into Sister Hyde, portrayed by Martine Beswick.

As the transformations continue, Sister Hyde becomes an increasingly powerful and dangerous identity.

The knife is therefore no incidental prop.

It belongs to the character's lethal world.

And this photograph handles that danger with remarkable restraint.

Beswick isn't lunging at a victim.

She isn't screaming.

She isn't photographed in the midst of an obvious attack.

Instead, she sits quietly within an elegant Victorian interior.

Her gaze remains lowered.

Her expression is controlled.

One hand delicately holds the small blade.

The other reaches downward toward her boot.

Violence is present—but concealed inside refinement.

That is much more interesting.

The costume makes the contradiction especially powerful.

Beswick's crimson dress dominates the composition.

Its fitted bodice creates a strong vertical structure through the torso, while layers of pleating and ruffled fabric expand dramatically across her lap.

White fabric appears beneath the red skirt, introducing a sudden bright accent.

Then the black outer garment frames the entire upper body.

Red.

Black.

White.

A remarkably theatrical Gothic palette.

The surrounding room reinforces the period atmosphere.

Dark polished wood.

Glassware.

Decorative furnishings.

Architectural detailing.

Everything suggests an ordered Victorian interior.

Then, unexpectedly, a brilliant turquoise-blue lamp enters the foreground.

Visually, it should almost be disruptive.

Instead—

it is magnificent.

That intense blue provides the one color capable of competing with Beswick's crimson dress.

The eye moves from red—

to blue—

then immediately back to Beswick.

That color opposition gives the photograph tremendous visual energy.

But once the viewer notices the knife, the entire composition changes psychologically.

What initially appears to be an elegant woman seated in a beautiful room becomes something else.

We have caught Sister Hyde managing her weapon.

That is the collector WHY.

DR. JEKYLL & SISTER HYDE depends upon contradiction.

Male and female.

Jekyll and Hyde.

Respectability and murder.

Beauty and danger.

This photograph expresses those contradictions without requiring an elaborate transformation effect.

Beswick herself becomes the contradiction.

Her costume is exquisite.

Her posture is graceful.

Her surroundings are refined.

Her expression is calm.

And she has a knife.

That tiny object completely destabilizes everything around it.

It also makes the photograph an excellent companion to the iconic Bates/Beswick dual portrait.

That photograph explains the film's central concept:

two bodies, one identity.

This photograph shows us what one of those identities becomes capable of doing.

Sister Hyde is no longer simply Jekyll's female manifestation.

She has agency.

Presence.

Danger.

And a weapon.

For Hammer collectors, Martine Beswick adds another layer of appeal through a career that crossed several major strands of British popular cinema, including her appearances in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963), THUNDERBALL (1965) and Hammer's ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. (1966).

But none of those roles looks quite like this.

No tropical Bond glamour.

No prehistoric costume.

Victorian crimson.

A hidden blade.

A composed killer.

And one of Hammer's most unusual female characters.

The photograph ultimately succeeds because the danger isn't announced loudly.

It waits to be discovered.

First we see Beswick.

Then the dress.

Then the room.

Then that extraordinary blue lamp.

And finally—

the knife.

Once you see it, you understand the photograph differently.

Preserved within the KissMeMonster photographic archive, this exceptional color image has been carefully restored to retain the deep crimson character and intricate pleating of Martine Beswick’s Victorian costume, the dark richness of the surrounding period interior, the brilliant turquoise accent of the foreground lamp and the small but crucial detail of Sister Hyde’s knife—preserving a visually sumptuous image of elegance concealing danger from DR. JEKYLL & SISTER HYDE.