Is my own worst enemy Dr. Cordelier — or the Hulk?

MY OWN WORST ENEMY (2008) was a short-lived TV series starring Christian Slater as white-collar family man Henry Spivey — who discovers one day that he’s a cover identity for Henry Albright, an agent for the government’s Janus spy network (Edward and Henry, as in Hyde and Jekyll, get it?). This keeps Edward on ice between missions — only the computer implant that creates Henry is malfunctioning so that they randomly shift between identities. Edward’s having to deal with Henry’s kids; Henry’s having to carry out spy missions. Is it just a glitch — or is someone sabotaging Janus from within?

I caught at least some of this originally and it was fun to rewatch — though not so fun I’m wracked by it ending on a cliffhanger after nine episodes. As it’s so marginally Jekyll and Hyde, though, it’s going in the appendix. “Chalk one up for my side of the gene pool.”

Rewatching THE TESTAMENT OF DR. CORDELIER (1961) proved frustrating as the English subtitled version I saw on YouTube has gone and only a French-subtitle one was available. Combined with the notes from the first viewing, it served my purpose well enough though and let me correct a couple of errors in my initial synopsis. Jean-Louis Barrault does an amazing job as both the dignified yet cruel Cordelier and the twitchy, unsettling Opale (his body language is very discomforting) who has a mean streak with even less restraint, for example snatching crutches away from an injured man purely for kicks.

Reading about the film in Ronald Bergan’s Jean Renoir: Projections of Paradise, I learned Barrault’s cane-wielding walk was a twisted version of Charlie Chaplin’s “little tramp” character (Renoir was a huge fan). Renoir aired the film on TV (which I knew) because even for an A-lister like himself, it was getting harder and more expensive to make movies for the big screen. He’d also concluded films didn’t give actors enough time to develop their character before the director yelled “cut!” For this film, he let Barrault and the other cast members decide when the scene was done. It paid off in performance quality but drove the producers nuts (a lot of film got wasted).

When I first saw THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008) it felt like a sequel to Ang Lee’s Hulk. Rewatching right after the other film, I realize they’re not consistent — the back story on Edward Norton’s Bruce becoming the Hulk here is not the same, but it’s close enough it doesn’t feel like a reboot (no worse than many comics have done). That said, it seems to owe more to the Bill Bixby series — the origin visuals are close and we get a quick glimpse of Bill Bixby on TV in one scene (I’m sure he’d have cameoed if cancer hadn’t taken him too soon).

The plot concerns General Ross (William Hurt) hunting Bruce in hopes of studying his green alter ego (nobody calls him Hulk until the very end) and creating an army like him (“You ever hear of the WW II super-soldier project?”). Things get complicated when soldier Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) becomes obsessed with Hulk’s power, enough to transform himself into the Abomination (making him English but born in Russia seems pointless, even though the comics’ Blonsky was born there). Despite Liv Tyler as an unconvincing Betty, this is a much better movie and shows the beginnings of building the MCU, with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Junior) showing up at the end to chat with Ross (what a kick that was at the time). “You won’t like me when I’m hungry.”

Cover by Herb Trimpe. All rights to images remain with current holders.