1931, the year that saw the release of the Universal Dracula and Frankenstein and which marked, effectively, the birth of the modern horror film, came to a close with the New Year’s Eve premiere of Rouben Mamoulian‘s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, regarded by many as the best adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson‘s 1886 novella. The special effects used to transform Fredric March from Jekyll to Hyde were revolutionary at the time and remained a closely guarded secret for decades until Mamoulian spilled the beans in an interview printed in Charles Higham and Joel Greenberg’s book The Celluloid Muse in 1969.
Like the Universal films, it opens with a blast of classical music – Universal had used the Swan Theme from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Jekyll’s producers Paramount Pictures used Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565. Mamoulian brings a fantastic dynamism to his take on Jekyll more akin to James Whale’s sprightly adaptation of Frankenstein rather than Tod Browning’s rather lumpen Dracula but if anything, he goes even further that Whale. The opening sequence is a lengthy point-of-view shot as we first meet Jekyll’s hands playing Toccata on the organ before he stets off to deliver a lecture at his university, stopping off along the way to admire himself in a mirror (Paramount no doubt insisted that the audience be shown the star of its show as soon as possible). Mamoulian would continue to dazzle us with unexpected and inventive camerawork – expertly filmed by his director of photography Karl Struss – throughout the film.
In 1931, even those unfamiliar with the original novella would have had more than a passing familiarity with the story if only through the very popular 1920 film with John Barrymore in the title role(s) (indeed Paramount had wanted Barrymore to reprise the part, but Mamoulian had insisted on casting March). The script, by Samuel Hoffenstein and Percy Heath, takes as many, if not more, of its cues from the 1887 stage production written by Thomas Russell Sullivan and starring Richard Mansfield. Dr Henry Jekyll (March) is a mild-mannered Victorian doctor, devoted to his fiancée Muriel Carew (Rose Hobart) despite her father, Brigadier General Sir Danvers Carew (Halliwell Hobbes), demanding that they wait eight months to marry on the anniversary of his own wedding. Jekyll’s sexual frustration is a dangerous companion to his morbid interest in finding a way to unleash what he believes is the evil side that lurks beneath the surface of all of us.
While on an evening out with his friend Dr John Lanyon (Holmes Herbert), Jekyll tries to seduce bar singer, Ivy Pierson (Miriam Hopkins) after he rescues her from being assaulted in the street and takes her to her small room in a boarding house. Rebuffed, more frustrated than ever and with Sir Danvers taking Muriel to Bath, Jekyll works on developing a formula that will free his darker side and, having administered it to himself, transforms into his monstrous counterpart (March in Wally Westmore’s remarkable make-up job). The first transformation, the one that introduces us to Hyde, echoes our introduction to Jekyll, seen through the doctor’s eyes in the reflection from a mirror. As Edward Hyde, Jekyll loses all his inhibitions, sexually abuses and psychologically torments Ivy and ends up on a violent and murderous rampage when he finds that Hyde is surfacing even without the drug and that he has no control over when he will take over.
The first thing a newcomer to Mamoulian‘s version of the story will notice is just how extraordinarily visual it is. Struss‘ cameras prowl around Hans Dreier’s stunning sets (Dreier was a graduate of the Ufa school of film design) with impunity, Mamoulian refusing to let anything stand still for more than a few seconds. There’s a real energy to the film that might catch those unfamiliar with 1930s film-making by surprise. Mamoulian employs every visual trick he can think of, from split-screen subjective camerawork (we’re often placed behind Jekyll’s eyes and characters sometimes talk directly to the camera) and everything in between. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it’s highly effective.
Those famous transformation effects were achieved via one of the simplest camera tricks of them all, one that would later be put to startling use in Sh! The Octopus (1937). Make-up artist Wally Westmore – who also designed Hyde’s bestial, ape-like appearance – painted March in layers of different coloured greasepaint that changed colour under different lighting and registered as a physical change to the actor’s appearance on black and white film. Mamoulian can’t quite hide a couple of cuts in a later change but the first must have staggered film audiences every but as much as Mansfield’s on stage – which was partially achieved using the same, or very similar, techniques.
The second thing that the observant viewer will notice is just how daring the film was sexually. It was released before the Motion Picture Production Code (or Hays Code) had been introduced and Mamoulian had no qualms with hinting at Ivy’s alternate career as a prostitute, lasciviously lingering on her bare legs. Elsewhere, Jekyll is painted as a seriously repressed man sexually, forced to wait months before he can marry Muriel (pre-marital sex among the upper classes of Victorian London society was a huge no-no), Hyde being as much an explosion of that pent-up lust as an exposure of a violent and destructive tendency in Man. There’s a whiff of sadism (“I hurt you because I love you” Hyde tells Ivy) and more Freudian symbolism than you shake a stick at.
Today, some of the camera flourishes can feel a bit “tricksy” and often add very little to the story, though they ensure that the film is never boring. Less palatable, to British ears particularly, are some outrageously cod-East End accents and phrases (“strike me pink!”) that may well have seemed a bit out of time even in 1931. But these are minor irritations in an otherwise marvellous adaptation of the book, one that remains pretty much definitive. Excellent supporting turns from Hopkins, Herbert and Hobbes help no end and it remains as exciting and gripping today as was in 1931.
The film was a sizable box office hit and threatened, very briefly, to make horror a “respectable” genre when it was nominated for Academy Awards for writing, cinematography and best actor. March took the latter home, tying with Wallace Beery for his turn in The Champ. It was the first major Oscar won by a genre film and reflected, perhaps, just how highly regarded the film was in 1931. In fairness, it’s Hyde that probably won March the statuette as his performance as the brutish, energetic and exuberant Hyde is far more compelling than his turn as the rather wet Jekyll.
Crew
Directed by: Rouben Mamoulian; Copyright MCMXXXI [1931] by Paramount Publix Corporation; A Paramount picture. Adolph Zukor presents. A Rouben Mamoulian production; Executive Producer: Adolph Zukor [uncredited]; Producer: Rouben Mamoulian [uncredited]; Screen Play by: Samuel Hoffenstein, Percy Heath; Based on the Novel by: Robert Louis Stevenson; Photographed by: Karl Struss
Cast
Fredric March [Dr Henry Jekyll/Mr Hyde]; Miriam Hopkins [Ivy Pearson]; Rose Hobart [Muriel Carew]; Holmes Herbert [Dr Lanyon]; Halliwell Hobbes [Brigadier General Danvers Carew]; Edward Everett Norton [Poole]; Tempe Pigott [Mrs Hawkins]
The EOFFTV Review 