DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE: Blu-ray (Paramount, 1931) Warner Archive

What would any of us give to purge our less than altruistic principles, to best God and to perfect humanity at large by casting out our instinctive/animalistic flaws? This question has perplexed and tantalized mankind almost since we first learned to stand upright and think for ourselves. History, as well as literature, is strewn in socio-psychological critiques (both factual and fictional) desperate for even a grasp, much less a better understanding of the inner workings of the human mind; to unlock its finite virtues, quash its horrors and thoroughly plum the secrets of life and death, along the way, conquering the seemingly infinite reaches of human sanity. After all, what is the fountain of youth, Aladdin’s genie, or the pursuit of physical perfection other than man’s superficial pursuit, hoping, wishing and/or experimenting on the body to yield a better self? To be smarter, faster, stronger, more acutely to utilize the vast portions of the human brain, dormant and otherwise untapped, the quantum leaps derived from science to ply ambition with its own reality.

Interestingly, they have not blunted our suspension of disbelief in late 18th and early 19th century literature about the scientific/supernatural; works like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus were wrought to explain and make sublime sense of what the ‘then’ contemporary world’s deification of science might hold in store for the future. We know now, for example, parts of human cadavers cannot be sewn together and electrified to create a living pseudo-human life form. Although, conversely, modern science has made it possible to harvest various organs (hearts, kidneys, even corneas) from a living donor and transplant them, fully functional, into another human being. And science has also unraveled the mysteries of stem-cell research, able to stimulate the creation of body parts in a clinical vacuum with a cross-pollination of embryonic cells and DNA taken from the person desiring to regrow and replace their old parts. Alas, all of the aforementioned examples are cosmetic at best, catering to the old ‘fountain of youth’ daydream.  But what of improving the human mind, perhaps even, the human soul?

Basically, a cautionary tale against man’s tampering with the psyche, Robert Lewis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde has long been associated with a rare mental disease, more commonly referenced in psychiatric medical journals as ‘split personality.’  Stevenson’s fascination with the incongruous nature of goodness and evil struggling for supremacy within man’s divinely inspired soul, had haunted him to the point of distraction for decades. In 1885, it became something of an all-consuming passion, Stevenson – recovering from a hemorrhage – startled in the dead of night by a terrifying nightmare he would later call his ‘fine bogey tale’. Reportedly, Stevenson wrote his first draft of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde in just three days, prompted by his wife’s criticisms to torch it, and then, to begin anew, rewriting it from scratch in less than a week, this time as an allegory about man’s fatal faith in science. While various biographical accounts of this episode in Stevenson’s life have suggested the author may have been addicted to cocaine or ergot, the authorized account implies Stevenson was writing his opus magnum from his bed in a flurry of activity strangely inspired by his own physical weakening by illness.

In retrospect, what Stevenson had done was to create a literary subgenre unlike anything published in his own time. In fact, the premise for all modern-day superheroes derives from Stevenson’s basic understandings of alter egos and the split personality.  The novella was an immediate hit, thereafter, endlessly critiqued by literary scholarship as everything from an examination of the duality of human nature to a scathing social critique of the 19th century’s social hypocrisies, to a reevaluation of man’s transgressions against God. Dr. Jekyll’s overweening pride (in Christianity, pride deemed the greatest of all sins) in his blind daring to rid himself of inherent evil, became the ultimate err against the divine, a precursor to evil itself ‘Hyde-ing’ in the plain light of day. One of the most popular interpretations of the novella has remained ‘civilized man’ vs. his ‘animalistic’ ancestor. As many have pointed out, Henry Jekyll is not, at least by Victorian standards, a morally ‘good’ person, but a man whose conviction rests in his ability to scientifically dabble with the variables of life (itself considered something of a demonic notion in the Victorian age) without first realizing, simply because he is able to do so, it does not follow that he should. Jekyll’s inability to comprehend the inextricably bound primordial elements of man’s ‘goodness’ and ‘wickedness’ leads him to believe the pre-human creature – nee animal – can be separated from his more altruistic self, advanced over the course of centuries of evolution. This proves a tragically flawed concept ultimately to lead to his undoing.

It was inevitable such a zeitgeist would eventually trickle down into the realms of popular entertainment. Almost immediately, stage versions began to crop up, considered one of the all-time great acting challenges for all aspiring Jekylls to Hydes.  To date there have been no fewer than thirty-five movie incarnations of the famed tale, some comedic (The Nutty Professor 1963/1996) others, derivatives on the central theme (Mary Reilly 1996, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2006). The first literal attempt on celluloid to tell the tale as written, and under what would become its standardized, if truncated title, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde occurred in 1908, with other competing releases made in 1912, 1913 and 1920. But it would be a version launched by Paramount Pictures in 1931 – the first talkie edition – to truly solidify the iconography of Stevenson’s maniacal villain and, even more ironically, endure as the definitive screen interpretation for more than half a century to follow.

Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) has long since become the one to emulate. Certainly, there is nothing to touch it in star, Fredric March’s bone-chilling central performance as the dashing and esteemed physician/scientist doomed to the folly of his own vanity. I used to think March's performance was peerless to any and all following it, although in more recent times I am not entirely convinced Spencer Tracy’s reincarnation of the altruistic doctor and his demonic doppelgänger in Victor Fleming’s glossier 1941 version (made at MGM) is entirely without merit. In its own time and for decades thereafter, Tracy’s performance was eviscerated by the critics. But March plays Jekyll with youthful pomposity as the self-professed healer of the sick (there’s even a sequence originally shot, then excised, then much later reinstated, showing Jekyll as a Christ-like figure, stealing the crutches out from under a lame girl, before inspiring her to walk). Counterpoint to this towering figure of ethics is March’s Hyde, a sort of prehistoric regression into pure animal, ably abetted by Wally Westmore’s magnificent make-up. This, in March’s final transformation from Jekyll into Hyde, nearly disfigured the star’s imperious matinee idol profile. March’s Hyde isn’t necessarily ‘evil’ so much as he is insanely primitive – a throwback to a Neolithic ancestry, free of cultured social mores and constraints. 

Personally, I have always found Spencer Tracy’s Hyde more disturbing as he lacks the ego of March’s medical practitioner, but devolves into a sadist and a brute, yet still in man’s image (albeit, a supremely depraved one). March’s Hyde simply cannot avail himself of the killer instincts of a mad dog stricken with an incurable case of hydrophobia. Yet, in hindsight, March’s Hyde is the more compelling of the two. Paramount's recreations of Victorian London by Hans Dreier, largely impressionistic, are closer to the essence of London than MGM’s glossy and fog-laden replicas a decade later. Above all else, where the 1931 Paramount Hyde brilliantly excels is in its hellish transformation sequences, done with a light-sensitive makeup applied to Fredric March’s face and hands, the gradual dimming of various colors filters (shot in B&W) making it appear in-camera as though March’s handsome visage and youthful appendages are being tortuously mangled, aged, contorted and regressed to the monolithic skeletal structure of a simian-esque Neanderthal. It remains cinematographer, Karl Struss’ technical brilliance, combining these aforementioned lighting effects with a swirling camera and clever uses of spinning disc sounds that startles the imagination with a truly convincing blast of horror. The transformation in the ’31 version has no equal.

Rather curiously, all filmic versions of Stevenson’s infamous tale have introduced both a ‘good girl’ and a ‘bad girl’ to the plot. Stevenson’s book has neither. In the ’31 version, Rouben Mamoulian cast Rose Hobart as Henry Jekyll’s fiancée, Muriel Carew.  In both movies, the wily barmaid/prostitute is named Ivy, although in the ’31 version her last name is Pearson, played with haunting fear by Miriam Hopkins. Hobart is a more sincere and mature love interest, possessing a womanly intuition that denotes fidelity to her relationship with March’s Jekyll, but with a simultaneous undercurrent of intelligence for seeing beyond his self-aggrandizing virtues. However, the more supremely satisfying performance is Miriam Hopkins’ wench, given to mercenary slyness, unapologetically dangling a bare leg from beyond the covers of her bed to entice Jekyll to remain at her side. Holmes Herbert gives credible assist as Jekyll’s most trusted advisor and fellow physician, Dr. John Lanyon. Herbert’s relationship to Fredric March’s Jekyll is oddly enough, more paternal in nature. Halliwell Hobbes assumes the role of father to all as Muriel’s doting pater, Brigadier-General Carew.

Both the 1931 and ‘41 versions pretty much follow the same narrative trajectory, the 1931 screenplay written by Samuel Hoffenstein and Percy Heath. Dr. Henry Jekyll is a young physician with very rare ideas indeed. While March’s Jekyll expounds upon these to a mass of young aspiring doctors, taking notes during a lecture at London’s Medical Hall, making every attempt to establish Jekyll’s legitimate medical credentials. There are, in fact, several opening sequences showing him administering to the sick, lame or dying with great personal satisfaction. The impetus for Jekyll self-experimentation is a little unclear, other than to satisfy his ego by creating a shocking medical breakthrough, using the serum he has been experimenting on with animals. The character of Ivy is introduced as Lanyon and Jekyll come across the barmaid being accosted by a cockney stranger in a back alley in the seedier Whitechapel district. In both versions, the perpetrator gets away. The gentlemen offer to escort Ivy to her rundown tenement. Ivy complains of being in pain and Jekyll offers to examine her in her bed chamber to deduce if there are any fractures or broken bones. In both instances, Ivy immediately takes to flirting with Jekyll, arousing his more dishonorable intentions. Because the ’31 version was made before the installation of Hollywood’s self-governing Code of Ethics, the would-be seduction of March’s Jekyll by Hopkin’s Ivy is far more effective. She disrobes for the ‘examination’ and reveals a bare leg from beneath the covers with a garter to tantalizing Jekyll. As Jekyll leans in for a better look, Ivy lurches forward, embracing him with a firm, wet kiss. Lanyon is modestly appalled at catching Jekyll in the clinch.

Jekyll returns home to discover from his loyal man servant, Poole (Edgar Norton) that owing to his fairly liberal views departing from the medical tradition, Muriel’s father has decided to take her on an extended vacation abroad, thus delaying the announcement of their engagement and plans to marry. The separation proves too painful for Jekyll to bear. He is, after all, a young man with the sexual proclivities of an amiable suitor of affluence and urges. Extenuating circumstances mitigate Jekyll’s anxieties about being separated from Muriel.  Gen. Carew is not taking her away to spite Jekyll for his progressive notions, but rather as a travelling companion while he restores his own health in a warmer climate. Jekyll endures as much as he is able to apart from his paramour, deciding, in a moment of weakness, to test his serum once again and using its liberating and transformative properties to masquerade as Mr. Edward Hyde while he pays a call on Ivy at the pub and dance hall where she is employed.

Aside: Fredric March’s Hyde makeup is so grotesquely ape-like it is a small wonder he is able to go virtually unnoticed for this extreme ugliness by virtually all the patrons, save Ivy, who is understandably ruffled by her first sight of this bizarre human/animal hybrid. While Hopkins’ Ivy is genuine repulsed by the primal quality of this ‘beast-like Hyde’, she overcomes this aversion after Hyde sets her up in a fashionable apartment. As Hyde, Jekyll presumably indulges his sexual appetites in Ivy’s boudoir, generally to abuse her sexually and terrorize her mentally. When Jekyll learns Muriel is returning to London, he vows to set aside his thirst for these salacious encounters. Alas, fate will not leave well enough alone. Ivy, having retained Jekyll’s calling card from her initial alley rescue, pays a call on ‘the good doctor’ to disclose what her lover – Hyde – has done. Miriam Hopkins delivers a heartbreaking moment here, revealing her brutalization with paranoia and tears.

Jekyll is horrified by his alter ego’s conduct presumably, suffering from some sort of amnesia from the drug that prevents him from fully recalling his behavior. Jekyll promise Ivy she will never again see Mr. Hyde and, after she has gone from his salon, he hurries to his laboratory, adjacent his home, to destroy all remnants of the vial formula, though not its antidote or his written notes on how to make more of the same. Muriel returns to London and Gen. Carew gives his blessing the two should marry at the earliest possible convenience.  An engagement party is planned. Alas, as Jekyll departs for a quick jaunt to his beloved’s paternal home a queer sensation overcomes. In Mamoulian’s ’31 film, this unintentional transformation is staged in late afternoon, spurred on by Jekyll witnessing a cat attacking a canary in a nearby tree. Jekyll – as Hyde – makes his way to Ivy’s apartment. Having been told she has nothing to fear, Ivy is quietly celebrating her newfound independence when Hyde reappears, at first, marginally friendly, though looming large and ominously threatening. She pretends to be glad to see him, but he then reveals the contents of the conversation she had with Jekyll. Still, perhaps, unable to deduce Jekyll and Hyde are one in the same, Ivy realizes her fate, the supreme moment of betrayal turning to murder as Hyde strangles Ivy before escaping into the night. Eventually, Hyde makes his way to Lanyon’s home, entrusting him to go to Jekyll’s house to retrieve the antidote. Lanyon complies and bears witness to Hyde’s transformation back into Jekyll; a most horrific surprise he vows to expose to the medical community at large and to Muriel. Jekyll agrees to turn himself in, but not before he has a chance to break the news himself to his fiancée. Lanyon reluctantly agrees.

Meanwhile, the hour has grown late. Muriel is disappointed at Jekyll’s failure to show up to their engagement party. The last guests having left, Jekyll, as himself, sneaks into the garden and then the conservatory to implore his beloved to release him from his commitment to her. However, when Muriel looks up, Jekyll has once more uncontrollably morphed into Hyde, perhaps, intent even on destroying her. Her screams drawn Gen. Carew, Hyde bludgeoning to death his potential father-in-law using Jekyll’s distinctively identifiable cane. Discovering the weapon at the scene of the murder, Lanyon leads Scotland Yard’s detectives straight to Jekyll’s home. The police break down the door to Jekyll’s laboratory, only to discover Jekyll quietly sitting behind his desk, insisting he has been home all night. As Jekyll is a respected citizen, the detectives are ready to believe his story without fail. But Lanyon encourages them to wait a moment, knowing that without his serum it is only a matter of time before Jekyll transforms back into Hyde. Unable to control these mutations, Jekyll becomes his alter ego. Hyde is subdued rather quickly by a single shot fired from one of the policeman’s revolvers as Jekyll’s horrified and ever-devoted butler, Poole cringes from behind and the camera fixates on a bubbling caldron in the foreground – foreshadowing of the hell into which Jekyll has forever condemned himself.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is compelling viewing. Buoyed by Fredric March’s Oscar-winning performance, the 1931 Paramount feature is, perhaps, the more perfectly realized. The perennial fascination with the novel likely stems from the fact that unlike a good many tales of the supernatural told before and since its time, the central protagonist in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde does not start out to be a cult horror figure. The plight of Henry Jekyll is really one of the all-time great tragedies in literary fiction: a man, firmly dedicated to enlighten and advance the stymied craft of medicine for the benefit of all, but who ultimately pays the supreme price for his own flawed brilliance. Consider that Henry Jekyll, apart from his experimentations on animals (in this pre-PETA era, not considered a crime against nature…let’s just run with that assumption, shall we?) chooses to advance his cause, not by experimentation on unfortunates, the mentally ill, or even patients placed in his care, but rather on himself. Here is an individual so steeped in the concept of ‘physician heal thyself’ and his fervent belief he has stumbled across the greatest medical discovery of the ages, he willingly submits to his own tests, secure in the understanding his experiments can only serve to benefit all mankind – a cure for insanity. It is Henry Jekyll’s pride that crucifies his chances for greatness, vanity feeding upon itself, devouring its master in a stroke of ill-timed genius turned to self-destructive dreck.    

The Warner Archive’s Blu-ray release of the 1931 version is cause for celebration. Derived from an original nitrate negative, with various dupe masters re-inserted/restored, WAC has committed itself to a ground-up video remastering effort that is head and shoulders above its own ‘double feature’ disc release of this and the 1941 version (also available separately on Blu-ray from WAC). When MGM endeavored to make the ’41 version it purchased outright the rights to Paramount’s classic, effectively to bury it in its own vaults for decades to come. This proved something of a blessing, as the original camera negative was spared the withering attempts to re-print and re-issue the movie over time. So, the ravages of such practices did not occur with Paramount’s ’31 version. And now, it looks better than ever with a crisply defined gray scale, eradicated age-related artifacts, superior contrast, razor-sharp detail, and, deep, velvety black levels. Grain is beautifully realized. Truly – nothing to complain about here. This is a reference-quality rendering of a timeless masterwork. The original Westrex mono audio has been restored to its original brilliance. WAC has reissued noted historian, Greg Mank’s audio commentary. Mank covers both the 31 and 41 production history here and offers copious knowledge seemingly ‘off the cuff’ with exemplary insight. WAC has also shelled out for a second audio commentary from noted historians, Steve Haberman and Constantine Nasr. While solid, it’s not quite as good as Mank’s. Finally, we get the Warner Bros. cartoon, Hyde and Hare and the Theatre Guild’s 1950 radio production. Bottom line: a peerless effort, sure to please for generations to come. Very highly recommended!

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

4.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

5+

EXTRAS

2