Inspired by The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories
Immediately upon the publication of Robert Louis
Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. jekyll and Mr. Hyde in
1886, people wanted to see it. A stage adaptation opened on May 9,
1887, in Boston, starring the preeminent theater actor Richard
Mansfield. The role was a career-defining one for Mansfield, and
the public’s enjoyment of the play became deeply associated with
the performance of the male lead.
With the mushrooming popularity of film in the
early twentieth century, more than a dozen adaptations of
Stevenson’s classic were quickly produced. But it wasn’t until
1920, with Paramount’s spectacular movie depiction of Dr. ,
jekyll and Mr. Hyde, directed by John Stuart Robertson, that
the dominance of an actor of Mansfield’s caliber was captured on
film. With the celebrated John Barrymore cast in the duplicitous
lead, Robertson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is considered the
definitive silent version of Stevenson’s thriller. Atmospheric and
creepy, Robertson’s film is laden with careful detail; one
distinctive feature is the look of Mr. Hyde—long, sinewy fingers
and an elongated, pointed head—reminiscent of the vampire in the
classic Nosferatu. But Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is
ultimately a vehicle for Barrymore’s talents. The props and special
effects pale in comparison with Barrymore’s “flawless performance,”
as the New York Times described it; specifically, by
distorting and disfiguring his face by expression alone, Barrymore
achieves the effect of transforming his very nature from
respectable to despicable. Indeed, his onscreen metamorphosis has
served as the inspiration for many a subsequent movie
transformation, whether a man changing into a werewolf or Dracula’s
teeth growing long and feral at the prospect of new blood.
Resplendent with visual detail and Barrymore’s tour de-force
acting, Robertson’s Dr. jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a landmark of
the silent-film era.
The first sound adaptation of Stevenson’s
classic—and arguably the most successful—is Rouben Mamoulian’s 1931
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In it Mamoulian (The Mark
of Zorro) makes the claim that man’s evil side stems wholly
from lust. Fredric March plays Jekyll and Hyde, and his portrayal
is inspired by a dark sexuality, much of which was later censored
(and then restored). The film’s brilliance lies in the ability of
Mamoulian and March to generate sympathy for Jekyll while tackling
potentially scandalous content. A master of technique and style,
Mamoulian conveys the twin psychologies of Jekyll and Hyde through
montage, dissolves, the relatively new technology of sound
dynamics, and, perhaps most crucially, a large number of
subjective, point-of-view shots draping the edges of the frame in
fog and shadow.
The film opens with Jekyll holding a piano
recital before an esteemed audience. The constant point-of-view
shots during Jekyll’s performance establish in viewers of the film
an immediate affinity with and compassion for Jekyll, laying the
groundwork for the audience’s heartbreak at his later
transformation. With the change into Mr. Hyde, March’s features
turn simian and monstrously toothy. The actor makes the two selves
play out on his face throughout the film in a way that powerfully
conveys Jekyll’s anxiety and pathetic disintegration and Hyde’s
grotesque animalism and perversity.
March’s portrayal of Hyde arrived onscreen the
same year as Universal’s Dracula and Frankenstein,
but Hyde was the scar iest monster of all, his jilted sociopathy
hitting much closer to home than the situations of the other two
protagonists. His performance (some moviegoers believed his part
was played by two actors) won him an Oscar for Best Actor. The
Academy also nominated the film for Best Cinematography and Best
Screenplay.
In 1941 director Victor Fleming (The Wizard of
Oz, Gone with the Wind) oversaw a production of Jekyll and
Hyde that declares there is no evil in the world, only
insanity—good gone horribly mad. Fleming’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde stars Spencer Tracy as the Samaritan scientist dedicated
to proving this theory; Tracy is supported by Ingrid Bergman as the
loose barmaid and Lana Turner as his virtuous fiancée. Fleming
punctuates Jekyll’s transformation into Hyde with a disturbing and
sexually suggestive dream sequence, which provides some of the
film’s finest moments. But overall this movie seems polite rather
than provocative, especially when compared to Mamoulian’s 1931
version.
Widely spoofed, Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde story
has enjoyed many cinematic parodies—notable among them Dr.
Pyckle and Mr. Pride (1925), starring Stan Laurel; the
inevitable Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. jekyll and Mr. Hyde
(1953); Jerry Lewis’s The Nutty Professor (1963); and the
gender-bending Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde (1995).
Valerie Martin’s 1990 novel Mary Reilly,
the story of Jekyll and Hyde told from the point of view of an
Irish chamber-maid, was made into a 1996 film directed by Stephen
Frears (Dangerous Liaisons). A foggy gloominess pervades the
picture, providing a slow, oozing pace and lending to the principal
players—Julia Roberts as Mary Reilly and John Malkovich as
Jekyll/Hyde—a color-drained, ghostly pallor. As the story unfolds
we learn that Reilly was abused by her father yet refuses to hate
him for it. This complex emotional response on the part of his maid
draws Jekyll to her, as his own personality becomes increasingly
complex and potentially unlovable. This unique version of the story
confuses the good-versus-evil dichotomy of previous adaptations. By
positioning Reilly-who falls in love with both Jekyll and Hyde—as
the storyteller, the qualities and flaws of the pure and lofty
Jekyll and of the animalistic Hyde come to the surface. Indeed, in
Mary Reilly the figures of Jekyll and Hyde complete each
other, and together constitute the recipe for human nature.
Jekyll and Hyde are not the only Stevenson
characters to be transported into film. “The Body-Snatcher” was
made into a “golden age” monsterfest, The Body Snatcher, in
1945, starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. And “The Suicide
Club” has inspired several adaptations, including one produced by
horror-film legend Roger Corman in 2000.