Jekyll and Hyde walked into a bar …

This month I began the long project of watching Jekyll and Hyde adaptations for my new McFarland book. I also did a bit of research reading —

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: Life, Literature and the Silver Screen by Scott Allen Nollen is an exhaustive look at the many Stevenson works adapted for movies or TV including Treasure Island, Master of Ballantrae, The Wrong Box and of course The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde. The latter was my primary interest, of course. While I didn’t find any deep insights into the films, he has useful quotes from directors and several films I didn’t have in my list. Even though I skimmed a lot of the other material — I’ve never been able to get into Stevenson — it was a worthwhile purchase.

Now, the movies. First up, we have the eight-minute silent JEKYLL AND HYDE (1912) the second earliest film version that’s survived (the other film, from 1910, is only available to view at the Munich Film Museum). It’s based on a late 1800s knockoff of the David Bandmann stage version; where the Victorian stage plays followed the novel in having Jekyll’s alter ego already established by the start of the story, this film (like those that followed) goes in chronological order, showing us the moment Jekyll first transforms. It’s quite uninspired.

Universal’s 27-minute DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1913) keeps a lot of the story’s plot but without such trivialities as character — we’re given no reason Jekyll (King Baggott) chooses to turn himself into a monster, for instance. And the transformation is accomplished partly by having Baggott crouch down constantly to create the impression he’s smaller (doesn’t work). “Dr. Jekyll is a martyr to science.”

By contrast, Paramount’s 1920 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1920) is a serious production, as witness casting matinee idol John Barrymore in the leading roles (like Richard Mansfield on stage, part of the transformation is carried out by Barrymore’s own facial and muscle control). Barrymore plays an idealist, saintly doctor who unlike Stevenson’s Jekyll has no secret sins to indulge. That, however, annoys Sir George Carew (Brandon Hurst), who sneers that a man with no vices is obviously afraid to confront his passions. When he takes Jekyll out for a night on the town, the doctor is indeed attracted to a sexy dancer (Nita Naldi) — oh, if only it were possible to spin off one’s lustful urges so that one could sin without corrupting one’s soul! Jekyll’s fatal mistake, of course, is that what he does as Hyde will indeed corrupt his soul …

Barrymore gives a solid performance and this film was influential on the Fredric March version, which also gave Hyde a sex interest to parallel Jekyll’s love interest (an element that made it into the more recent Jekyll and Hyde musical). However it’s always felt half-hearted and tame in depicting Hyde’s evil — when he’s done sleeping with the dancer he sends her on her way, which isn’t much beyond what any man might have done. I’m also baffled by an opening scene in which Jekyll’s staring into the microscope and whatever he sees is embodying cutting-edge science. Thanks to my friend Ross for ordering this one for me. “But who is this Hyde, to whom you are leaving everything?”

JEKYLL AND HYDE (1920) strikes me as the first purely Mad Scientist Jekyll — no suggestion of hypocrisy or any problems dealing with his impulses, just that he wants to experiment and split himself in two. This is a definite Z-lister from Hyde (who looks like a brunette Harpo Marx) to an ending revealing It Was All A Dream (I knew one of the silents threw in that twist, but not which)). “No, Bernice, my mind and heart are with a little child who lies deep in the shadow of death.”

Indigo Temple’s music video, Mrs. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde turned up in a Google search and shows how Stevenson’s novel works as a metaphor: the singer went out with a wonderful woman one night, then she ripped him to shreds (metaphorically) on the second date. More googling showed there’s a number of Jekyll/Hyde themed music videos so perhaps this will become another appendix. “Mrs Jekyll stole my heart/Mrs. Hyde ripped it apart.”

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