Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Director:

Rouben Mamoulian

Writers:

Samuel Hoffenstein (screenplay) and
Percy Heath (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

31 December 1931 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

Put yourself in her place! The dreaded night when her lover became a madman!

Plot:

Dr. Jekyll faces horrible consequences when he lets his dark side run wild with a potion that changes him into the animalistic Mr. Hyde.

Plot Keywords:

Experiment | Potion | Drug | Scientist | Monster

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 2 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Fredric March	...	Dr. Henry Jekyll / Mr. Hyde
Miriam Hopkins	...	Ivy Pierson
Rose Hobart	...	Muriel Carew
Holmes Herbert	...	Dr. Lanyon
Halliwell Hobbes	...	Brigadier General Carew
Edgar Norton	...	Poole
Tempe Pigott	...	Mrs. Hawkins

Runtime:

98 min | 96 min (TCM print)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)

Certification:

UK:12 (video rating) | UK:A | Australia:PG | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Sweden:15 | USA:Passed (National Board of Review) | UK:12A (2008) | USA:Approved (PCA #1002-R: 22 June 1935 for re-release) | Netherlands:6 (2004) (DVD) | Finland:(Banned) (1932) | Finland:K-16 (1933)

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

The remarkable Jekyll-to-Hyde transition scenes in this film were accomplished by manipulating a series of variously colored filters in front of the camera lens. Fredric March's Hyde makeup was in various colors, and the way his appearance registered on the film depended on which color filter was being shot through. During the first transformation scene, the accompanying noises on the soundtrack included portions of Bach, a gong being played backwards, and, reportedly, a recording of director Rouben Mamoulian's own heart.

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: After Muriel's father consents for Jekyll & Muriel to be married the next day, Jekyll goes home and plays part of Bach's "Toccata & Fugue in D minor" on the organ. There is a mid-shot with March playing the keyboard, then there is a close-up of the hands on the keyboard. The close-up hands are an obvious double, as they are playing the piece correctly. March's mid-shot has his left hand ascending on the keyboard while the notes of the music playing are descending.

Quotes:

Blond-haired student: [joking to another student about Jekyll's lecture on splitting the personality] Why don't you stay at home and send your other self to the lecture?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "M*A*S*H: Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde (#2.5)" (1973)

Soundtrack:

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565

The Beast Within Remembers

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.