Docteur Jekyll et Mr. Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of split personality has been filmed before in 1920 with John Barrymore and in 1941 with Spencer Tracy, but Rouben Mamoulian's expressionist 1931 version stands head and shoulders above the rest. First of all, you have Fredric March, whose tour-de-force performance as the good-natured Jekyll and the monstrous Hyde earned him the Best Actor Oscar. Second, the camera work by Karl Struss brilliantly captures the mood of the story. And lastly, the transformation sequences set an enormous precedent for the later monster movies. It all blends together to form one of most amazing horror movies of the 1930's. Even today, it still has the power to mesmerize and send chills down the spine of even the most hardened horror fan.

Fredric March shines in this early screen version of the enduring Robert Louis Stevenson story which explores the duality in all of us. Dr. Henry Jekyll (March) is a scientist advancing such an idea which doesn't sit well with his peers. Naturally, when he dares to pursue such heretical fancies he will pay a price: his Mr. Hyde is an ugly brute who completely gives in to all of mans' basest impulses, and this gets him in deeper and deeper trouble. When watching this adaptation, one can hardly fail to notice the style and innovation brought to the camera work, the editing, and the scene transitions, as we get an early version of what's come to be known as split screen. The film even begins with what we know as the subjective camera technique where we see things from a characters' perspective, in this case Dr. Jekyll, and it's at least a couple of minutes before we switch to an objective view. The Expressionist cinematography was done by Karl Struss. The way that the transformation scenes are done would be revisited in such later films as "The Wolf Man", and the convincing makeup is done by Wally Westmore, an under-rated and overlooked makeup effects man from this period whose work can also be seen in "Island of Lost Souls". Director Rouben Mamoulian and the screenwriters, Samuel Hoffenstein and Percy Heath, are able to inject their material with a ripe amount of sex, as this was done in the pre-Code days. Musical performer and actress Miriam Hopkins shows quite a bit of leg, for one thing. And in scenes where she must contend with the beastly Hyde, there's an undeniable amount of uncomfortable sexual tension. The actors are all superb, and it's very noteworthy that March should have won a Best Actor Academy Award for his performance(s) as it's not that often the Academy acknowledges horror films for this aspect. March is believable every step of the way; when he's Jekyll you can't help but like him, when he's Hyde he just creeps you out. Hopkins is equal parts touching and saucy, and Rose Hobart is appealing as Jekylls' bride to be Muriel. Holmes Herbert, Halliwell Hobbes, Edgar Norton, and Tempe Pigott comprise the rest of the solid supporting players. With all of this going for it, the '31 production of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is worthy viewing for fans of the classic black & white horror films who want to discover the kinds of things that filmmakers could get away with before the Code started stifling their creative efforts. This story has of course been done many times since, but this would be the ideal adaptation with which to start. It's available on a flipper disc from Warner Bros. that pairs it with the 1941 version starring Spencer Tracy, so one can have an interesting time comparing the two films. Seven out of 10.

A neglected masterpiece. When I picked up the two sided DVD I was excited because the Fleming/Tracy version is on the order of a guilty pleasure. But I soon realized that I had never seen the 1931 version. This is a film that lingers in the memories of many film goers as still photographs of Frederic March in his makeup. Watching it was a revelation. The same changes to original content - Jekyl's bride-to-be and her family - continue to wear wearily on the production, but nothing could prepare me for March's work. As often as we've seen "transformations" - this one is the BEST. Then young lion director Rouben Mamouilan pulls out some dandy tricks. And the sexually charged atmosphere before the Hayes code - was well - sexy as hell. Do yourself a favor and watch it.

For all the existing film versions of Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" (1886), this 1931 Paramount offering starring the incomparable Frederic March is probably the best. None quite follow the original book, whose tale is actually told backwards in a way. The book does not follow a series of linear events that lead to the so-called "transformation". Instead, rumors of a strange man surface between two characters in the very opening. We learn about Hyde first before Jekyll, which is not the way any film adaptation has ever told the story.

Still, the present film has a lot going for it. At the forefront is Frederic March in the classic dual role of good and evil. When he first becomes Hyde, I thought another actor was playing the role, it's that good! Another distinctive aspect is the camera work which must have been extremely innovative for its time. The opening moments are shot with a first person perspective. The transformation is done relatively seamlessly considering CGI effects had yet to be invented. There are other moments of shadows and dark corridors. The atmospheric fog that permeates the entire film is worth the price of admission.

As stated by other reviewers, some of the dialog hearkens back to an earlier era of the Vaudeville Melodrama. Characters didn't just love each other, they loved each other for eternity! Still a fine film all things considered, dated perhaps in places, but still March's performance is unbeatable, and definitely deserved of the Academy Award for Best Actor.

It's amazing that years before Sigmund Freud was writing about stuff like the ego and the id, Robert Louis Stevenson, a great writer, but not a man of science, was able to grasp at what Freud later said about human behavior. There lurks in all of us a beast capable of doing great evil, that man's civilized self is forever trying to control.

Henry Jekyll, London society doctor, is engaging in experiments to prove that theory. He's a gentleman in every sense of the word, engaged to a proper English girl played by Rose Hobart here. It's funny, but in none of the adaptions of this story is it ever explained what could be in the potion that Jekyll concocts and drinks. But drink it he does and Jekyll becomes the simian like Mr. Hyde, evil incarnate itself.

Another reviewer pointed out the film is actually based on a play adapted from the novel and done originally on stage by Richard Mansfield in London. In that play the character of Ivy, a girl no better than she ought to be attracts the attention of Jekyll when he stops a man from assaulting her. He takes her up to her flat and she makes an effort to seduce him. He resists, but the beast within remembers.

This film becomes one of the first to deal with the phenomenon of stalking. Miriam Hopkins is a comely Ivy and Ivy herself is one of the most luckless characters ever created in fiction whether she was in the original story or not.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde made movie audiences and critics start to take Fredric March seriously as actor. Up to then he had played a variety of lightweight parts on screen. Even so Paramount after this still insisted on still casting him in those roles after he won an Academy Award for Best Actor. When he got free of that studio contract March got the parts he was so capable of.

When MGM wanted to remake the film for Spencer Tracy they bought not just the rights from Paramount, but the film itself. It was not seen for many years and the VHS version I have of it has an MGM opening logo, but the cast at the end says Paramount. Kind of unusual to say the least.

I do disagree with the application of the term science fiction to this story. Hyde is a beast. But he's not something created by nature or man, nor is he an alien from another world. We all have a Hyde within us, it's how well we control him in our selves, and how well as a society we control the Hydes that would do us harm that deems whether we survive as a society or not.

Hyde is very human, with no superhuman powers and no created weaponry. Takes an extraordinary actor to play Jekyll and Hyde and do it well. Only the best take a crack at it like John Barrymore, Spencer Tracy, Jack Palance, and Kirk Douglas. And March is one of the very best. See for yourself.