As I blogged about a couple of weeks back, I watch movies for my Jekyll and Hyde book in chronological order, even though I’m writing about them thematically (children of Jekyll and Hyde, J&H comedies, female Hydes, etc.). That gives me a sense of how Stevenson adaptations change over time. It’s also got me thinking about the portrayal of the Victorian world changes in adaptations that keep the story as a period piece.
John Barrymore’s 1920 version presents his Jekyll, like Stevenson’s, as a member of the upper class. After an introductory scene talking science with Lanyon we shift to Sir George Carew’s dinner party (Jekyll is late), a formal and elegant affair.
Paramount’s 1932 adaptation starts out with a Jekyll’s eye view of his life: his luxurious mansion, devoted household staff, then his lecture before a crowd of admiring students and tut-tutting stuffed shirts. MGM’s 1941 remake starts with a pompous church service celebrating the greatness of Queen Victoria; after a brief shift to a madhouse, we’re at another dinner party.
Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a little different. It opens with Hyde committing a murder, then switches to a suffragette rally, then to a can-can dance in a music hall. During the 1930s and 1940s there was a boom in “gay nineties” nostalgia looking back at the 1890s as an era of innocence, fun and relative sanity compared to the Depression and WW II. I think this movie reflecting the lingering traces of the boom — where Ivy in 1932 was slut-shamed for being a music-hall entertainer, now the good girl gets to do it.
1960’s Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll shows us Jekyll’s elegant home but also gives us a lot more of the seedy side of Victorian England: bare-knuckles boxing, high-stakes gambling, brothels. The Jack Palance version opens with Palance running through dark streets, then jumps to him lecturing to a medical society. We get some scenes of the wild life but nothing too shocking — it was made for TV, after all. 1971’s I, Monster starts with Christopher Lee’s Jekyll in his club surrounded by well-dressed friends, leather chairs and plenty of servants.
All of which makes the opening of Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde stand out. We begin in the streets of Whitechapel and the joint is jumping. Street vendors. A butcher gutting a rabbit. Crowded pubs and women who unlike Ivy in the 1932 film are unambiguously sex workers. It’s raucous, lively and undoubtedly more charming than the real Whitechapel would have been — one film historian suggests it was strongly influenced by Oliver! from a few years earlier, with its similarly jubilant street scenes.
Of course it’s not all sweetness and light. There’s a lurking figure in a top hat and a cape who escorts one of the women down into an alley … and seconds later, blood splashes across a Wanted poster offering 200 pounds for the identity of the Whitechapel killer.
1973’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with Kirk Douglas stays with the upper-class opening, as a group of formally dressed men in top hats and tails light their cigars and assure themselves, in music, that whatever Jekyll’s doing must be something good. That’s the latest Victorian-set adaptation I’ve seen; we’ll see what comes next.
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