A March Classic For Any Halloween (Doctor Jekyll And Mr Hyde (DVD))

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Doctor Jekyll And Mr Hyde (DVD)
Date:	31/10/06 (181 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Classic movie, great leads

Disadvantages: Numerous parodies since

There are times when I grow tired of today’s horror flicks. I don’t mind gore, I don’t mind violence but I always insist on a good story and, more often than not, this seems to get overlooked in a latent desire to make the audience squirm as much as possible. Maybe it was with this in mind that I went back in time to take in the 1931 classic “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” directed by the wonderfully named Rouben Mamoulian and produced by Paramount studios. In an era when silent movies were being overtaken by more up to date “talkies”, the film studios of those times hit a rich vein of horror stories that were made into what were to become classic movies that will always stand the test of time.

Dr Jekyll is a respectable physician plying his trade in a well-heeled part of London. With a well ordered life – he has a respectable fiancé, a good job and is an upstanding pillar of the community – Jekyll decides to investigate the theory that good and evil can be two distinct states that operate independently inside us. When he finally perfects a formula to initiate the transformation from a civilized person to one with little or no conscience, he proceeds to systematically terrorise a young barmaid, Ivy (Miriam Hopkins). Jekyll’s voyage of scientific revelation takes him on a journey of self-discovery and loathing, affecting all of those around him in the most sinister way.

Samuel Hoffenstein and Percy Heath’s screenplay interpretation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic story (dating from 1886) is probably the most tense of all adaptations, of which there have been many over the years. Previous silent film versions (of which there was numerous i.e.1908, 1910, 1912, 1913 and three in 1920) were, on the whole, adapted from one of the several melodramatic stage productions rather than directly from the original novel, and tended to present Hyde as a caricature of evil. The 1931 version, made in black and white, explores the inner meaning of Stevenson’s story and the original run time of 98 minutes is long enough to take the audience to the outer reaches of what was considered outrageous for its time. Frederic March is outstanding in the lead role; managing to convey both a Victorian gentleman as the polite Dr Jekyll and the epitome of evil as Mr Hyde as he traverses the metaphorical peaks and troughs of violent mysogonism. What is exceptional about the performances of both March and Hopkins opposite him as the suffering Ivy is the authenticity that they both engender during some of the lengthy on screen exchanges. Not afraid of using pauses that last for several seconds at times, Mamoulian captures the facial expressions and ruminations of both characters as Ivy struggles to free herself from the clutches of the dastardly Hyde.

Of course, there are certain drawbacks with watching this version of the movie. It’s hard to put out of your mind all the parodies and comedy skits done at the expense of Jekyll drinking the formula when initiating his transformation. Here again, the archetypal steaming glass full of liquid leads to him doubling over and writhing during the change and it’s this scene that’s been done to death by comedians ever since. Personally, I didn’t let it put me off but it was still difficult not to smile at these scenes. Back in 1931, special effects weren’t quite what they are now so the face changing scenes are hardly what we’d call state-of-the-art. Still, for the time, the change from Victorian gent to chin-jutting Neanderthal must have scared audiences witless back then and it's impressive stuff in the context of the time. Better still is the dream-like sequences that accompany the change that adds a lucid, drug-induced feel to the whole thing also infusing an element of photographic quality to these pivitol shots in the film. Some of the pea-souper fogs are a bit typecast for London from a bygone era and the sets look just like movie sets rather than location shots but being made in black and white covers up some of the modern view of its shortcomings and the wonderful acting and eternal story make up for anything lost in a current translation. The depiction of violence is mainly left to the imagination with the reference to marks on poor Ivy’s back inflicted by Hyde never actually revealed to the audience whilst the camera pans away from the victims of the murders that occur, never showing the end result of the violence that has preceded it.

There is plenty of ponderous speculation in the movie that adds to the depth of the experience. A dinner party discussion around the possibility of isolating good and evil extends to its impact on the human soul whilst offending several of the dinner guests who consider the conversation to be vulgar and, at its most extreme, blasphemous. Running underneath the movie’s sentiment is Stevenson’s original notion that civilization may be only skin-deep although the more traditional view of religious, original sin hums away at the fringes, brought to life by the interjection of the priest at the dinner party and the ongoing doubt of Jekyll himself. It’s interesting that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was still being reconciled with religious beliefs of the day and almost certainly no coincidence that Jekyll’s transformation was into what was seen as an up to date image of primitive man at that time. Hyde’s subsequent drive to commit sexual excesses is alluded to throughout but never revealed explicitly, at least in the version re-released after the Hollywood Production Code was established in 1934 (it had 10 minutes cut for sexual censorship, seldom restored since). Rather, the more subtle technique used in Victorian melodramatic fiction where sexual activity is evil and only "allowable" when a gentleman leaves his class and enters the backstreets of the lower orders of society is nicely contrasted with Jekyll's own frustration at the removal of the sexual availability of his fiance by her father due to Jekyll's outlandish beliefs. The intention here is to expose the repressions such a society is based upon and underlined by Hyde’s adventures at a lude gentleman’s show and the earlier rescue of Ivy from an attacker in a shadowy underpass.

Frederic March won an Oscar for his performance in the title role which, given the complex nature of the messages contained within the script, was well deserved. Notably, though the film was made before the Production Code, on its re-issue it was edited down as mentioned above and the most widely available print now, the 90-minute version, is such an edited version. Despite that and the lack of obvious graphic violence and destruction, "Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is a thought-provoking journey into the underworld of human nature, every bit as compelling as literary works such as Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” which was to supersede this movie some 23 years later. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it again the other night and strongly recommend it to horror aficionados in general, those looking for a great story or just the casual movie viewer who wants to watch something that's part of our celluloid heritage.

Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween

Mara

Notes
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Video/DVD rated 12.
DVD available at Amazon from £4.64

Summary: Overview of the 1931 Classic