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DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE
Rating: 
USA. 1941.
Director – Victor Fleming, Screenplay – John Lee Mahin, Based on the Novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, Photography (b&w) – Joseph Ruttenberg, Music – Franz Waxman, Special Effects – Warren Newcombe, Makeup – Jack Dawn, Art Direction – Daniel Cathcart & Cedric Gibbons. Production Company – MGM.
Cast:
Spencer Tracy (Dr Henry Jekyll/Harry Hyde), Ingrid Bergman (Ivy Peterson), Lana Turner (Beatrix Emery), Donald Crisp (Sir Charles Emery), Ian Hunter (Dr John Lanyon), Peter Godfrey (Poole)
Plot: Henry ‘Harry’ Jekyll is interested in proving that evil does not exist, that there is only madness. In his laboratory he experiments with a drug of his own concoction and drinks it, it transforming him to bring out the evil side of his nature – a savage and bestial creature that he calls Mr Hyde. When Jekyll’s fiancee’s father takes her away, Jekyll consorts with a Cockney tart as Hyde and sets her up as mistress, beating and brutalizing her. But soon Jekyll finds that he cannot control the emergence of the Hyde personality.
Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) was an incredibly popular story on film with some 30 adaptations having been made to date. In fact there have been more versions made of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde than there have been of the cinematic perennials Frankenstein and Dracula put together. This version made by Victor Fleming, the director of The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Gone with the Wind (1939). The Victor Fleming version was made only nine years after what is still recognized as the definitive version, Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1931) – a relatively short time period for a remake.
This version was made at the height of the 1940s vogue in Freudian psychology. But instead of opening the story up, the Freudian interpretation ends up completely embalming it. Instead of a fight between civilized man and his animal nature, the story has taken on the view that evil does not exist, merely insanity – a potentially intriguing interpretation. But the Freudian emphasis ends up being rather laughable – like the dream visions during the transformation with Spencer Tracy whipping a carriage with one white and one black horse, or the rude crude sexual symbolism represented by the one virtuous and one loose girl and images of the girls seen superimposed swimming in the bottle as Tracy is tempted to take the potion again.
It is often stated that Spencer Tracy played the Hyde part without makeup as a contribution to the more psychological interpretation – such is not the case, he does use makeup – however he may well have. Tracy plays the part more as a slavering Scotsman – rather than representing man’s baser nature, his Hyde comes across more as a malicious prankster. All one ends up being struck by is the patent theatricality of the performance, rather than any threat it should hold. Although there is one good scene with Tracy at a piano spitting out grape pips and forcing a terrified Ingrid Bergman to sing for him.
Somebody else could perhaps maybe have made something out of it but Victor Fleming directs this as though it were a big-budget musical. Any potential atmosphere is wrung out of the film it by the production design – the film is lavish but entirely stagebound, the streets of the West End are empty and bare of any lived-in quality. Fleming’s handling is quite clumsy and the pace deadly slow. The crucial transformation sequence is entirely without impact – just a closeup on the bottles and liquids being poured and facial lap dissolves, all to canned music, no sound effects. This is a scene that should have been the film’s dramatic climax.
The entire film is a good example of misguided effort. Everything appears to have gone wrong. The casting of Ingrid Bergman as the Cockney tramp and Lana Turner as the virtuous fiancee is disastrous. Both were cast in the other’s role but decided to swap because they were tired of being typecast. It is probably the only bad performance Ingrid Bergman ever gave. Halfway through her Cockney cheekiness gets forgotten and Bergman returns to something more introverted and passive, the type of role she should have been cast in in the first place. On the other hand Lana Turner is totally miscast as the fiancee, perpetually looking as though she wants to drag the good Jekyll away for some less reputable fun.
Other versions of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are:– Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1908); Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1910) with Alvin Neuss; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1912) with James Cruze; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1913) with King Baggott, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920) with John Barrymore; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1920) with Sheldon Lewis; Der Januskopf (1920), a lost German version with Conrad Veidt; the classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) with Frederic March; the French version The Testament of Dr Cordelier (1959) with Jean-Louis Barrault; The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll (1960), the Hammer version with Christopher Lee; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (tv movie, 1968) with Jack Palance; I, Monster (1971) also with Christopher Lee; The Man with Two Heads (1972) with Denis DeMarne; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (tv movie, 1973), a musical version with Kirk Douglas; Dr Jekyll’s Women/The Blood of Dr Jekyll (1981) with Udo Kier; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (tv movie, 1981) with David Hemmings; a 1985 Russian adaptation starring Innokenti Smoktonovsky; Edge of Sanity (1989) with Anthony Perkins; The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde an episode of the tv series Nightmare Classics (1989) with Anthony Andrews; Jekyll and Hyde (tv movie, 1990) with Michael Caine; a Spanish version starring Eric Gendron; a bizarre tv pilot Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1999), which combined the story with Hong Kong martial arts and featured Adam Baldwin playing a Jekyll as a superhero in the Orient; Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical (2001) with David Hasselhoff; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (2002) directed by and starring Mark Redfield; the excellent British tv reinterpretation Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (2002) with John Hannah; The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Rock‘n’Roll Musical (2003) with Alan Bernhoft; Jekyll (2004) starring Matt Keeslar; the modernized Jekyll + Hyde (2006) with Bryan Fisher; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2006) with Tony Todd; and the modernized BBC tv series Jekyll (2007) with James Nesbitt.
Other variations include the would-be sequels Son of Dr Jekyll (1951), Daughter of Dr Jekyll (1957) and Dr Jekyll and the Wolfman (1972); the comedy variations Abbott and Costello Meet Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1953), The Ugly Duckling (1959), the Italian My Friend, Dr Jekyll (1960) and The Nutty Professor (1963); versions where Dr Jekyll turns into a woman, Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), the Italian comedy Dr Jekyll and the Gentle Lady (1971), Dr Jekyll and Ms Hyde (1995) and Dr. Jekyll and Mistress Hyde (2003); the erotic/adult versions The Naughty Dr. Jekyll (1973), The Erotic Dr Jekyll (1976) and Jekyll and Hyde (2000); Dr Black and Mr Hyde (1975), a blaxploitation version where Jekyll is a Black man who turns into a white-skinned monster; the amusing sendup Jekyll and Hyde ... Together Again (1982); a wacky children’s tv series Julia Jekyll and Harriet Hyde (1995); and the excellent deconstruction Mary Reilly (1996), which tells the story from the point-of-view of Jekyll’s maid. Dr Jekyll also turns up as one of the The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), which features a teamup between characters from Victorian fiction.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1995
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