The film was originally titled The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll. According to a 6 Mar 1960 NYT article, Wolf Mankowitz wrote the screenplay, an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in the summer of 1959. On 29 Jul 1959, DV reported that Jonas Rosenfield, Jr., an advertising executive for Columbia Pictures, recently met with Hammer Film Productions, Ltd.’s James Carreras and Michael Carreras, to discuss The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll, one of four active co-productions between Hammer, a British entity, and Columbia. An article in the 17 Aug 1959 DV discussed Columbia’s focus on foreign production activity, noting that overseas productions in the next six months “would equal its domestic output.” Principal photography began three months later in England, on 23 Nov 1959, as stated in a 2 Dec 1959 Var production chart.
       The picture was released by Columbia in Oct 1960 at the London Pavilion in London, England, under the title The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll. The 11 Oct 1960 DV review noted it was the sixth film adaptation of Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Two months after the London release, a 14 Dec 1960 Var item indicated the U.S. release would now be handled by American International Pictures (AIP). A 9 May 1961 DV article explained that Columbia Pictures had relinquished the U.S. distribution rights after the Production Code Administration (PCA) had denied a seal to the film, citing inappropriate homosexual subject matter. Subsequently, AIP was forced to cut a snake dancing sequence in order to obtain a PCA seal before the film was released, as House of Fright, in early May 1961 in Detroit, MI, and Cincinatti, OH. According to a second review of the picture in the 17 May 1961 DV, AIP had briefly considered re-titling the film Jekyll’s Inferno, but chose House of Fright for “commercial reasons.”