1953's "Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" marked the last of two encounters between Bud and Lou and Boris Karloff, previously cast as a red herring in 1949's "Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff," but here truly playing the real killer, adding Jekyll and Hyde to his resume of grotesques. Set in foggy London during the 1890s (complete with telephones), this Jekyll is no researcher hoping to separate the dual nature of mankind, but a self serving mad scientist who uses his various transformations as revenge to dispatch scoffing colleagues. Bud Westmore's makeup design appears to recall elder brother Wally's Neanderthal in Fredric March's 1931 Oscar-winning interpretation, and in fact would be called back into service for Jack Arnold's 1958 "Monster on the Campus," in which Helen Westcott's leading lady from this picture is reduced to a wide eyed, staring corpse hung from a tree branch by her own hair. Though Jekyll himself refers to his alter ego as Mr. Hyde, the authorities know the murderer only as 'The Monster,' an immobile mask providing for stuntman Edwin Parker to spare the 65 year old Karloff from any athletic pursuits. Helen Westcott is lovely enough to garner the attentions of two diverse suitors, future Peter Gunn Craig Stevens as a smitten reporter, and Karloff the girl's guardian since the death of her father, with creepy designs on her to be his alone. The comic duo ends up short changed as discarded London bobbies Tubby and Slim, weak material filled with pratfalls devoid of their signature verbal patter, just three more vehicles before an amicable split in 1956, 36 feature films together as a team (28 for Universal). Nothing Boris does is intended to be remotely funny (unlike his previous Swami), playing it straight in a smooth performance that covers over a wafer thin characterization, the two stars stuck in a rut that must rank at the bottom of their 'Meet the Monsters' series. Incidentally, this was Karloff's final feature film for Universal, the studio that made him a star with James Whale's 1931 "Frankenstein," though he did return in 1960 to shoot the entire run of his popular THRILLER TV series into 1962.