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.