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DVD Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Double Feature (1932/1941)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) Fredric March won an Oscar® for playing the protagonist (and antagonist) of Robert Louis Stevenson's story. Dr. Henry Jekyll is an honorable man of science, albeit frustrated at the enforced celibacy of a delayed wedding date. Hyde is the fearsome creature he turns into after drinking a potion, and Hyde's appetites (mostly expressed with Miriam Hopkins's Cockney dance-hall wench) are decidedly unrestrained. March's performance is pretty theatrical, but it's fun to watch; his Hyde twitches and squawks and lopes around like an ape in a tuxedo. Rouben Mamoulian's direction has plenty of the brio of early-thirties Hollywood, and the transformations from Jekyll to Hyde are ingenious for the time. This film followed Dracula and Frankenstein into theaters by a few months, and it stands well with those horror classics--and it's a darn sight more fun (and much more down and dirty) than the 1941 MGM version of Stevenson's tale. --Robert Horton
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) Classy MGM was not the studio most likely to make a horror movie in 1941, and in fact its production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ended up looking more like a glossy costume drama than a B-movie frightfest. The mood of Robert Louis Stevenson's tale of a divided doctor is ably captured in Joseph Ruttenberg's Oscar-nominated cinematography--more so, perhaps, than in Spencer Tracy's lead performance. Tracy wasn't especially happy about playing the role, although his transformations from good Dr. Jekyll to evil Dr. Hyde are convincing enough. One of the main reasons to see this version of the story is the young, impossibly beautiful Ingrid Bergman, then still a year shy of Casablanca. Bergman was cast in the good-girl part, but proved a shrewd judge of material, even this early in her Hollywood career; she finagled her way into playing the floozy instead, thus securing a more colorful acting platform than Lana Turner, who ended up in the more respectable role. Director Victor Fleming's previous movie was a little number called Gone with the Wind, and the Big Picture approach to that project may have influenced his work here--this Dr. Jekyll is just a bit too stately, too polished to really engage. The picture is so dignified it never cuts loose with the kind of wild invention that marked the 1932 version of the story, which won Fredric March an Oscar. It's the tale as imagined by Jekyll, rather than Hyde. --Robert Horton
Review(s): DVD Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Double Feature (1932/1941)
Ahead of Its' Time
I watched Fredric March in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" last night and I was impressed by the quality of this 1931 movie. From the opening scene that takes us from the perspective through the eyes of the main character and then transfers us via a mirror to the camera's perspective, I knew there was talent behind this production. There were a number of other noteworthy scenes including some fantastic shadow imagery during a chase scene and the impressive on-screen transformation of Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde. I looked up the director, Rouben Mamoulian, and discovered that he has some other noteworthy films to his credit. They include "Laura", "Blood and Sand", and "The Mark of Zorro" but I confess, I hadn't heard of him before. In addition to Mamoulian, a lot of credit goes to the Academy Award-winning preformance of Fredric March. He does well playing the dual roles and giving each one its' own seperate characterization.
Frankly, I got more out of this version of "Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" than any other version I'd seen. I confess that I never read the book but I think I got the purpose of Robert Louis Steveson's novel. Dr. Jekyll is focussed on the idealistic theory that, if we could but chemically seperate the good nature of man from his evil one, the society that would emerge would truly be heaven on Earth. What we discover, along with Dr. Jekyll, is that man speaks of the greatness within but succumbs to the earthly obsessions. The scene in which Jekyll is tempted by a loose woman (played quite ably by Miriam Hopkins) is quite provacative for 1931. In being that provacative, Mamoulian captures our essence as well as Jekyll's and we spend the rest of the movie torn between sympathizing with and rebelling against the good Dr.'s negative transformations.
What kept this movie, for me, a notch below greatness, was the physical makeup of Mr. Hyde. He was certainly hideous in appearance but his hair looked like some sort of bad joke. If it was meant to convey the image of an ape, it succeeded. However, the director had already reached us on a more personal level so I felt that the ape-like crown of Hyde's was contradictory to the message; we have our ugly side but it is still human in nature. Perhaps a minor point but it distracted me every time Hyde emerged.
This movie was truly ahead of its' time. It didn't scare me but it did make me think about a number of things.
Two Classic Version of Robert Louis Stevenson's Masterpiece
Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece horror tale of Jekyll & Hide is avaibable into two classic versions from 1932 & 1941 on one disc. Fredric March and Spencer Tracy stars as Dr. Henry Jekyll, a scientist who believed in all men having two sides to them and he dared to prove it by risking his life for the cause of science, but with love for a woman by drinking a potion that unleashes the beast within; Mr. Hyde, his hideous side, Jekyll can't take his hands off the potion and soon it's a permanent transformation after taking so many times. Ingrid Bergman and unkown Miram Hopkins stars as a suductive street hooker, Ivy Peirson who is haunted by Hyde, even when he is not around and she seeks help from Dr. Jekyll unware that he is Mr. Hyde. A haunting and depressing tale in two just as good versions of how science can be misused and sacrificing yourself for the one you love. This story plays into the creation of the Incredible Hulk. I think Lugosi or Karloff should of got play Jekyll and Hyde. This should be made into a new version, but for now anyone who likes classic horror or novel based films see these two versions of Robert Louis Stevenson's Masterpiece.
The Dreaded Night When The Lover Became A Madman!
The version of the story these films tell much the same, given that the 1941 Spencer Tracy effort was a remake of the 1932 Fredric March production. Handsome Dr. Henry Jekyll, frustrated over being denied an earlier marriage to his fiancee (Rose Hobart in 1932, Lana Turner in `41), quaffs a potion and becomes the monstrous Edward Hyde. Hyde's principle victim is Ivy (Miriam Hopkins/Ingrid Bergman), the woman on whom Jekyll's now unleashed sexuality vents its fury.
That the `41 version is a defanged, desexualized treatment of the earlier film's material is visible in the fact that Ingrid Bergman's Ivy is now a barmaid, rather than Miriam Hopkins' incendiary prostitute. Longer, more ponderous, more solemn and sillier, Victor Fleming's film is not without interest, though some of that comes from the perverse casting: Lana Turner as the good girl and Bergman as the bad one is like having Julia Roberts and Sharon Stone switch roles. (We won't talk about Bergman's surreal attempt at a cockney accent, but her performance is still very good..) The film is still worth watching, but part of its effect is to show what a masterpiece the `32 version is. Astonishingly frank in its sexual themes (it was heavily cut once the Production Code kicked in, and even now, though largely restored, some of the racier footage seems to be lost forever), and cinematically exhilarating, director Rupert Mamoulian's vision gives us the most terrifying Hyde ever. March's Hyde and Hopkins' Ivy have one of cinema's most nightmarish relationships, and March's performance deservedly one an Oscar -- the last time a horror movie would win the Best Actor or Actress statuette until Kathy Bates won for Misery.
Film historian Greg Mank's commentary on the 1932 film is first-rate. Here's everything you might want to learn about the film's battles with censorship, the behind-the-scenes antics of Miriam Hopkins, the background of the actors, the making of the film -- the works, in other words. Mank is an engaging speaker, and his enthusiasm for the film is infectious. The other extras are a Jekyll & Hyde-themed Bugs Bunny cartoon and the trailer for the 1941 film. The main page of the menu is scored.
Both these films are worth owning, and having them on one DVD, with a commentary on Mamoulian's film to boot, makes this release an early highlight of 2004 for fans of classic horror.
Related DVD's Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Double Feature (1932/1941)
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