Can you believe I had never read Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" until about two weeks ago? I guess the basics of the story were so familiar to me that I forgot about actually reading it. Thinking about it I had found I had also never watched it, none of all the different versions!
How did I even dare calling den Dekan my furry little Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde if I don't even know what exactly I'm talking about?
I immediately started reading the novella to the cats - which helped a lot with concentrating during the philosophical dialogs - and put three versions to watch on my list, the one from 1920 which today's post is about and the talkie versions of 1931 and 1941 because I always have to go overboard (I added the one from 1912 because it was only about 12 minutes long).
 |
| Public domain |
Here's the plot with spoilers although it will be hard to spoil much in this case, I think.
Dr. Henry Jekyll is a doctor in London and spends his time either in his laboratory or in his free clinic for the poor.
Sir George Carew, whose daughter Millicent is in love with Jekyll, won't believe that a person can just be good and thinks you have to yield to temptation in order to get rid of it.
So he takes the doctor and some other friends - Dr. Lanyon who believes Jekyll is "tampering with the supernatural", Utterson who is Jekyll's lawyer, and Utterson's cousin Enfield - to a nightclub to tempt him.When he notices Jekyll's fascination for the dancer Gina, he has her brought to the table, but Jekyll doesn't give in to temptation and leaves.
He can't forget Carew's theory, though, and starts experimenting with a potion that will separate the both sides, good and evil. It turns him into his evil counterpart, Edward Hyde, and back again.
He orders his butler Poole to grant Hyde access to the house and laboratory at any time and even makes a will in which he leaves everything to him to ensure access to his money in case something goes wrong.
From then on, he starts living a double life as the philantropist Jekyll and the depraved Hyde who gives in to every temptation, women, drink, opium, and doesn't care about anyone else. He brings Gina to live with him and once he gets tired of her, he throws her out. When he meets her again at an opium den later, worn out and sick, he even taunts her for her looks before turning to a new victim.
Jekyll feels the danger of Hyde taking over his life, but he's determined to not let that happen, also because of Millicent.
He fails. Hyde is taking over more and more even without the potion.
One day, Carew goes to see Jekyll in order to ask him about neglecting Millicent. He happens to see Hyde knocking down a small boy in the street, but when people keep him from escaping, he offers money for recompensation. He writes a cheque as Jekyll.
Just in time, he makes it to the laboratory to turn back into Jekyll before Carew arrives to confront him about his connection to Hyde and threatens that he will not let him marry Millicent. Carew is terrified when Jekyll turns into Hyde before his eyes and tries to run, but Hyde catches up and clubs him to death, then goes back to the lab to drink the last potion in order to avoid being arrested.
Afraid to turn into Hyde anytime, Jekyll locks himself in the lab sending out Poole for the drug he needs for the potion, but it can't be found anywhere in town.
By request of Poole, Millicent and Jekyll's friends come to his house and Millicent goes to the lab, but not Jekyll opens the door for her, Hyde does. He takes her into his arms, then starts convulsing, so she can escape. When Lanyon enters the lab, he finds Hyde dead in a chair, he has committed suicide. Before his eyes, Hyde changes back to Jekyll.
Millicent, Utterson, and Poole come into the lab and Lanyon tells them Hyde has killed Dr. Jekyll. Millicent sinks down next to him grieving while the others leave the lab.
First of all, I want to tell you that I - and my guess is you as well - have pronounced Jekyll wrong all this time.
I learned that Jekyll is a Cornish/Breton surname and is traditionally pronounced "gee-kal". I can't wait to drop that info in a conversation to prove what a smart alec I am 😆 Oh wait, I guess I just did.
Stevenson's novella was published in 1886.
In 1887, it was adapted into a stage play by Thomas Russell Sullivan with Richard Mansfield in the dual role. The play debuted in Boston and went to the Broadway next. Mansfield, who had been the one securing the rights for adaption for both the USA and the UK, got good reviews and was invited to bring the play to London in 1888. Does the year sound familiar? When Jack the Ripper started murdering women in Whitechapel, Mansfield was suggested as one of the suspects (which was picked up in the "Jack the Ripper" two parter with Michael Caine in 1988) and the production was a financial failure.
Sullivan made several changes to the novella which were taken up by some of the movie adaptations, such as the introduction of a fiancée, turning Hyde into a hideous creature, and emphasizing the moral contrast between Jekyll and Hyde.
The only women in the novella are servants, there is neither a fiancé nor a dancer. In fact, it is thought that Hyde's depravities are actually homosexual relations here which were criminalized at that time although sex isn't mentioned at all. Of course not, after all these were the Victorian times.
Also, Jekyll is neither young nor a saint. In his final letter to Utterson, he explains that he has done things - which aren't specified - and was ashamed of them, so he indulged in them as Hyde then and thus separated them from his own person.
Hyde isn't a hideous creature. In the novella he is young and also not ugly, but people still feel repelled by him without being able to describe why exactly. I understand that in the play and movies it was easier to show the difference by creating a monster instead, and of course it was an amazing effect for the audience.
It sure worked on me in this movie (at the time of writing this I haven't watched the others yet).
John Barrymore was a very good looking man (and they used every chance to show his beautiful profile ... had I mentioned before that I can be superficial?) and his Hyde was seriously creepy and repulsive.
It was amazing that there wasn't even any makeup in the early stages of transformation, Barrymore simply did that by distorting his face and moving differently. With each transformation, he got more hideous (very Dorian Gray) with the help of make-up and prosthetics, but a big part of it were still the eyes and the way he moved.
So maybe it was a bit over the top sometimes, but I enjoyed it ... well, if you can call being creeped out enjoyment. There was one moment when I actually cried out because I was so surprised.
He definitely made the movie.
Another big change was that in the novella Jekyll didn't need someone to make him perform his experiment.
The movie, however, took Sir George (who is just an innocent murder victim in the novella, we only learn that he was an MP) and made him the instigator who practically forced this on the saint Jekyll. Say, have I mentioned Dorian Gray already ... does this make you think of Lord Henry Wotton as well? Only it's made clear that Carew may be a "man of the world", but he's very protective of his daughter (isn't it funny how some fathers seem to warn their daughters about men who behave like they do/did themselves?).
Clara Beranger who wrote the screenplay wanted Jekyll to seem almost "god-like" to make Hyde look even worse. Hyde changing back to Jekyll in the end was meant to show his redemption while Stevenson let him stay in the body of Hyde for all eternity.
The novella is not just Gothic horror, it's also philosophical which this movie isn't too openly, and I was fine with that because it would have taken a lot of title cards to replicate some of Stevenson's dialogs.
Even if Barrymore dominates this movie, he could obviously not have done it without the other actresses and actors.
Most of the characters were quite straight.
Millicent is mostly allowed to be longing for Jekyll, she is sweet and loving. Unfortunately Martha Mansfield's life was cut short due to a tragic accident during another film.
Utterson is much more important in the novella because it's written from his point of view, but it's a solid performance here. The same goes for Dr. Lanyon (who dies in the novella).
Why they thought they had to make Utterson's cousin Enfield look like a creep, I really don't know, not that he had an important part.
Gina was obviously meant to be the prime example for how little Hyde cared about other people and the consequences of his actions on them by showing her before and after being with him. I think it shows the total separation of Hyde and Jekyll that Jekyll didn't even think about dealing with some of those consequences instead of just worrying about himself. Very saintly.
It's a puzzle, however, why Gina would ever have gone with Hyde at all. My only guess can be money, a lot of money. Nita Naldi came from the Ziegfeld Follies, by the way, which was hard for me to believe seeing her dancing.
Brandon Hurst as Carew was the only one who had the chance to show more than one dimension to his character, the enabler egging on Jekyll with that shifty look and the loving father.
Despite the changes to the original plot, I really liked this movie. Of course I haven't seen the talkies yet, but I think this worked great as a silent movie because the motivation and the horror resulting from it were conveyed through looks and body language much more than through the intertitles.
I'm sure this wasn't the last time I watched this movie (not just to see Barrymore's profile, I assure you!).
Selected sources:
1. Fritzi Kramer: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920) - A silent film review. On: Movies Silently, May 18, 2013
2. "Mr. Bones": Reviewing the Classics: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. On: Morbidly Beautiful, November 14, 2018
3. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on Wikipedia - the film, the novella (Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde), the play
No comments:
Post a Comment