DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE: Blu-ray (MGM, 1941) Warner Archive

Exactly 10 years after director, Rouben Mamoulian inaugurated the sound era with his definitive pre-code masterpiece, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), MGM and director, Victor Fleming endeavored to best that version with one of their own. And while Fleming’s reboot has been generally discounted ever since, the apples-to-oranges comparison between these two films, each a classic in their own right, is unfair. Fredric March’s protagonist in the first (notice I didn’t say ‘original, as that honor is owed John S. Robertson’s 1920 silent, starring John Barrymore), features the iconic – some might add – definitive transformation sequence from Jekyll into Hyde. It remains utterly bone-chilling. But the MGM version has Metro's immaculate gloss and affinity for foggy Victorian London. It also contains an absolutely terrifying dream/nightmare sequence. Assuming the reigns from March in this version, Spencer Tracy's Hyde is more the devolution of man into his primal and beastly self. March's Hyde takes this transformation literally. He morphs from man into beast. Tracy merely brings out the beast in the man while remaining firmly anchored in his ‘demented’ human form. It's a very effective performance – if a complete departure from March’s Hyde. Tracy would later disavow his formidable efforts here. An apocryphal tale that has stuck with the passage of time has author, W. Somerset Maugham, observing Tracy shoot a sequence in which his Hyde emerged from the shadows fully formed, glibly asking Fleming, “Which one is he playing now?” 

The 1941 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has much to offer the first-time viewer, not the least, the delicious co-starring of then reigning sexpots, Ingrid Bergman (as saucy barmaid, Ivy Pearson, who arouses Hyde’s dishonorable intentions) and Lana Turner (as the proverbial ‘good girl’ Beatrix Emery). Interesting to consider what the picture might have been if Turner and Bergman had traded roles. Indeed, Turner had originally been cast as Ivy and Bergman as Beatrix. Tired of being typecast as ‘the virtuous woman’, Bergman heavily petitioned to play Ivy instead, and, after a screen test, convinced Fleming she could carry the load. Also, fascinating to note, Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella, ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ on which all versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are based, contained no such comparative ‘good girl/bad girl’ narrative – purely a Hollywood fabrication to more clearly delineate Jekyll’s imploding struggle to contain his inner Hyde. The screenplay, cobbled together by John Lee Mahin, Percy Heath and Samuel Hoffenstein is oft’ cited as a direct remake of the ’31 version, rather than returning to its source material. In truth, it owes much more to Thomas Russell Sullivan’s 1887 stagecraft, also based on Stevenson’s book. The other great virtue of the MGM version is its atmospheric spookiness, flooding its free-standing Brit-based outdoor sets, originally built for David Copperfield (1935) and prominently featured in Gaslight (1941, also to have co-starred Bergman) with a delirious and soupy fog, dimly lit by actual gas light. Mamoulian’s original went for a more German expressionist architecture: Paramount’s backlot London, seedy and salacious. Arguably, Mamoulian had the benefit of making his movie without the input of Hollywood’s self-governing code of censorship. The MGM version has to tread lightly, lest to offend the censors.

So, it is saying a great deal, despite the stringencies of the code, the picture still manages to exude a sort of lingering dread and terror without, in fact, showing too much. There were two concessions to be made. The first, to the character of Ivy who, in the 1931 movie, is clearly a prostitute. In 1941, this simply could not be. So, Ivy became a saucy bar wench instead. In the second instance, there occurred a foreshortening of the aforementioned ‘dream sequence’ in which Hyde is seen brutally whipping two horses pulling his Hanson cab, miraculously to morph into a presumably naked Bergman and Turner, desperate to escape his wrath. Victor Fleming, still coming down from the zeitgeist that was 1939, having directed Gone with the Wind, and, The Wizard of Oz, and to have suffered a nervous breakdown along the way, invested his iron-cast resolve to create a meticulously crafted thriller herein. Fleming, a genius held in high-regard in his own time, alas, all but set aside in his reputation today (except among die hard film fans) delivers several master strokes in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – not the least, his deft pacing of the story, never to linger too long on any of the finer points, but always to effectively and subtly punctuate each to perfection. Tragically, Fleming would not live out the 1940’s, dying of a massive heart, age 59, on Jan. 6, 1949, leaving behind one of the most exceptional bodies of work in cinema history, to include the aforementioned masterpieces from 1939, along with Red Dust (1932), Bombshell (1933), Treasure Island (1934), Reckless (1935), Captains Courageous (1937), Test Pilot (1938), A Guy Named Joe (1943) and, Joan of Arc (1948) – his final film. As was the way, back in the day, MGM acquired the rights to Mamoulian’s talkie from Paramount, effectively burying it from public view while it planned its remake. Believed to be ‘lost’ for over a quarter of a century, Mamoulian’s version would later resurface in 1967, where it was instantly judged as the superior version – a reputation it continues to hold to this day.

Personally, I enjoy both the Mamoulian and Fleming incarnations for their many and distinct virtues. While MGM’s effort is frequently discounted as a straight rip-off of Mamoulian’s masterpiece with an inferior performance by Spencer Tracy, the reality is, MGM’s is a brooding, oft disturbing exploration of a man’s deterioration into madness. It holds its own in the pantheon of screen adaptations. Ditto for Tracy’s interpretation of the character. Long-time Metro alumni, Victor Saville produced this one with panache, while Franz Waxman composed some expertly dark and delicious cues to augment the tale, assisted by uncredited contributions from Daniele Amfitheatrof and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Cedric Gibbons’ art department worked overtime to recreate all the Victoriana bric-a-brac, while Adrian and Gile Steele’s costumes are of a sublime perfection. Make-up artist extraordinaire, Jack Dawn is credited with shaping the debauched visage of the morally bankrupt Hyde. This remains a stellar effort.

Mamoulian’s 1931 version opened with Dr. Henry Jekyll giving a college lecture to aspiring medical students whom he challenges in their beliefs that man must live with and chronically face down his inner dark side. Fleming’s version opens during Sunday mass in the cathedral, conducted by Bishop Manners (C. Aubrey Smith). Dr. Jekyll, whose views on life decidedly skew to the agnostic, is nevertheless in attendance with his fiancée, Beatrix and her father, Sir Charles Emery (the ever-excellent, Donald Crisp). Jekyll is eager to wed Beatrix. However, Sir Charles cautiously delays their marriage, perhaps suspicious of Jekyll’s unorthodox views. At present, the service is interrupted by the ravings of Sam Higgins (Barton MacLane) whose wife (Sara Allgood) is beside herself. Jekyll is convinced he can cure Sam’s insanity and, later that evening, at a dinner party hosted by Sir Charles, he also makes it known he has been conducting scientific ‘tests’ on animals, injecting them with a serum he firmly believes will be able to glean the bad from the good, thus creating a more perfect specimen, solely devoted to altruism. Sir Charles is frankly appalled by this revelation, electing to take Beatrix on an extended holiday until Henry comes to his senses.

The absence, however, only hardens Jekyll’s resolve to ramp up the trials in his search for a scientific breakthrough. Fellow physician and very good friend, John Lanyon (Ian Hunter) is empathetic to Jekyll’s search for truth, while Jekyll’s butler, Poole (Peter Godfrey) is absolutely devoted to his master’s care. Unable to find a suitable human subject to advance these studies, Jekyll makes the fatal mistake to conduct the next experiment on himself. He is transformed into the deviant, Mr. Hyde and embarks upon the seduction of a sassy barmaid, Ivy, whom he first encounters at her place of employ while on a pub crawl. Hyde frightens Ivy. But his promises, to take her away from the squalor of London’s seedy side of town, and ensconce her in a fashionable apartment as his kept love slave, captures Ivy’s interest. Before long, however, she realizes the high cost of living ‘well’ is her total submission to Hyde’s sadomasochism. She is broken in her resolve and made a frightened recluse. Returning home from his first night’s debaucheries, and transformed back into Jekyll, Henry has only vague recollections of the events that have transpired while he was Mr. Hyde. Unaware Hyde and Jekyll are the same person, Ivy ventures to the good doctor’s office to plead for his healing powers and to confess she is at the mercy of a sadistic brute. Ivy’s admission stirs something within Jekyll and he suddenly realizes the man of whom she speaks is him. Appalled by what his alter ego has done to her, Jekyll promises Ivy she will never see Hyde again.

Meanwhile, the Emerys have returned home from their vacation. Shuddering his lab and destroying the key to its front door, Jekyll naively believes he has put an end to Hyde’s debaucheries once and for all. Alas, as he casually strolls the fog-laden streets, his happy non-descript whistling suddenly turns into the song he once heard Ivy sing at the bar. Unable to break himself from repeating this ditty, Jekyll suddenly realizes another transformation into Hyde has already begun – one not induced by his formula, but to have taken over his DNA from within and force its will upon him. Unable to prevent this metamorphosis, Hyde now arrives at Ivy’s apartment where she has been celebrating her liberation. Unaware Hyde and Jekyll are one in the same, Ivy denies to Hyde having sought out Jekyll’s counsel. Hyde terrorizes Ivy into a fit of hysteria before strangling her to death. Racing home, Hyde discovers Jekyll has destroyed the key to the lab. With nowhere else to turn, Jekyll, as Hyde, arrives at Lanyon’s home where, concocting the antidote, he forces a transformation from Hyde into Jekyll before his best friend’s eyes. Lanyon is deeply disturbed. Jekyll vows to break off his engagement to Beatrix and turn himself in to the authorities. However, on his way to the Emerys, Jekyll suffers another terrible transformation into Hyde. He murders Sir Charles in the garden and terrorizes Beatrix until her screams bring out Lanyon and the police. Hyde hurries back to Jekyll’s home, breaking in, overpowering Poole and hurrying to his lab to seek the antidote.

When the police arrive with Lanyon, they, at first, do not believe Lanyon’s claim, Hyde and Jekyll are one in the same. But Lanyon, knowing another transformation into Hyde is imminent, triggers it to occur while the police observe. Despite Jekyll’s desperate attempts to maintain his sanity and composure, he morphs into Hyde as a horrified Poole and the police look on. Hyde attempts to elude his captors, but is cut off at the stairs by Lanyon who, recognizing there is nothing left of the man he once highly regarded as his fellow physician and dearest friend, now executes Hyde with his pistol to spare Jekyll’s soul. Hyde crumples in agony and topples to the bottom of the stairs. As he quietly lies in a sweat-induced heap on the floor, his visage is transformed from the hellish and leering Hyde back into the unassumingly quiet and normal Jekyll. Unable to reason what has just occurred, a devout Poole kneels at his master’s corpse, offering a prayer to God for his soul.

In spite of its detractors, and its rather tepid performance at the box office (the picture barely grossed $2.3 million on its $1.1 million outlay), this version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde packs an emotional wallop, precisely because the performances throughout it are excellent from beginning to end. Tracy’s Hyde may not be what audiences were expecting. But his final and brutally terrific transformation into the personification of pure evil is vaguely reminiscent of Lon Chaney’s horrifying make-up for 1927’s ‘lost film’, London After Midnight. Tracy, hair tussled and matted by sweat, eyes, painted with wrinkles and leering, teeth clenched into a demonic grimace, and expertly lit in stark shadows by cinematographer, Joseph Ruttenberg, is the personification of sheer madness. One can believe Ian Hunter, wincing with revulsion as he reluctantly pulls the trigger to put an end to his best friend’s life. While Lana Turner manages to exude a delicate and virgin-esque naiveté worthy of her good girl, the revelatory performance here belongs to Ingrid Bergman’s Ivy, reduced from cheeky vixen into a tear-stained and terrorized shrinking violet, doomed to extinction at Hyde’s murderous hands. Bergman’s displays of surrender and panic has never been equaled. I would argue, note for note, she rivals Miriam Hopkins’ exceptional turn as Ivy in Mamoulian’s 1931 classic. Finally, there is Victor Fleming’s direction to commend. While his version may be lighter on character motivation, his expert staging and execution of the scenes steadily build from melodrama into a harrowing thriller whose slam-bang finish still manages to typify and bottle the tragedy of a great man reduced into a distorted rubble of his former self by the pomposity of his ego and driven insanity to prove the world at large wrong.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde arrives on Blu-ray via the Warner Archive and, in typical WAC fashion, is a perfect-looking 1080p transfer, derived from expertly curated, remastered and restored original elements with one minor caveat. There are two scenes in which edge enhancement rears its ugly head - the first, while Sir Charles and his daughter are at the opera, the second, when Hyde arrives to collect his potion after murdering Ivy. Such instances, while brief, are not forgivable, as so much attention has been paid elsewhere, that to NOT fix these fleeting and digitally manufactured imperfections, is just a lazy oversight. Enough said. The B&W image here exhibits all of the sublime beauty originally captured in Ruttenberg’s cinematography. The subtlest textures and tones emerge, as does a light smattering of film grain looking incredibly indigenous to its source. The image is free of age-related debris. The 2.0 DTS mono sounds exquisite but has some fairly transparent hiss during quiescent moments. For the most part, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde gets top marks with few complaints. Okay, one. Apart from a theatrical trailer, there are no extra features to be had. I would have hoped for an audio commentary. Alas, no. A forgivable oversight. Bottom line: I would argue Victor Fleming’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is on par with Rouben Mamoulian’s original. It’s a different interpretation of the tale, for sure, yet just as satisfying in different ways. Although Spencer Tracy never considered this among his great performances – and, in later years, all but disavowed he had ever made the picture – I would sincerely suggest the actor had absolutely nothing of which to be ashamed. Ditto for Fleming, MGM, and, WAC – offering up another perfect mastered Blu-ray to add to your collection. Bravo and thank you!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

0