by A.J.
This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, for the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.
Night 8: Classic Horror Night
“Things one can't do, are the ones I want to.”
Made only a few years into the sound era, the 1931 version
of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, remains an entertaining and effective
horror film. This adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella stars the great
Fredric March as the good natured Dr. Jekyll and also the monstrous Mr.
Hyde. Even at this time, despite their success and even their artistic merits,
horror movies were produced as and thought of as B-pictures. However, March’s
performance is so undeniably good that he won Best Actor at the 5th
Academy Awards (tying with Wallace Beery for The Champ). Like Dracula
and Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
has so permeated the culture that whether you’ve seen any film version or not,
or read the novel or not, you are already familiar with the basic story.
Dr. Henry Jekyll is a good natured doctor in London in the
late 1800’s. He is not a saint but is pretty close to it. Still, he
struggles with dark and unsavory impulses. He believes that every person has a
light and dark side and that through his scientific experiments he can separate
the two halves allowing the good half to live unburdened by the dark half. He
also believes that the dark half, once its urges are satisfied, will simply
fade away. While his fiancé is out of town with her father, Jekyll conducts his
dangerous experiment with results that are equally successful and
horrific.
The scenes of Jekyll transforming into Hyde are still
impressive and pack good shock value even after 90 years. In this version, Hyde
is manifested as an atavistic monster. His hair turns into thick wiry fur that
covers his body and his teeth become sharp fangs. This suggests that Hyde, the
dark side, embodies the animalistic origins of human nature. Jekyll makes his
transformation into Hyde by drinking a bubbling potion (a cliched image, but
satisfying to watch in a black and white 1930’s film). When he begins to
transform the camera holds a tight close up on March as he chokes, makes pained expressions, and heavy shadows and dark spots appear on his face. The camera
pans down to his transforming hands or swirls around the room and then reveals
the hideous face of Hyde. One of the best things that helps ground this horror
movie is that though Hyde has money and dresses like a gentleman, everyone is repulsed
and frightened by his monstrous inhuman appearance.
The unfortunate object of Hyde’s obsession is a poor, lower
class girl named Ivy (Miriam Hopkins) who Jekyll treated after she was
assaulted. She tries to seduce Jekyll and he puts up little defense to the
shock of his friend. The image of her leg swinging over her bed is
superimposed over the following scene of Jekyll making excuses for his natural
impulses. Her swinging leg fades slowly but never really leaves Jekyll’s
mind.
Ivy is cruelly tortured by Hyde both physically and
psychologically. He whips her back (offscreen) and torments her by reminding
her that he can find her at any time, no matter where she goes or what she
does. Hopkins, with her incredible performance as Ivy, is able to match
March as both Jekyll and Hyde. She plays Ivy not just as the damsel in a
horror movie, but as a victim of abuse. Despite the urging of her landlady, Ivy
refuses to leave town or go to the police. Hopkins portrays Ivy’s plight so
well that we understand her refusal to seek help. As the movie goes on, we find
that Jekyll is perhaps not such a good natured person after all since he takes
the potion voluntarily each night allowing himself to transform into Hyde and torture
Ivy. When his fiancé returns, he stops taking the potion only to find that now
Hyde can emerge whenever he wants.
The scenes of Hyde being chased by police have him leaping
over stairs or swinging on chandeliers; everyone’s capes flap wildly. The
ending is abrupt, which is typical of classic era films, especially horror
movies. This is a great film to watch on any Shocktober night with casual or
hardcore horror fans or classic film fans. This version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde was made by Paramount Pictures to compete with the success of
Universal’s Dracula and Frankenstein, also made in 1931. Without
a doubt it deserves to stand alongside these other horror classics.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde airs on TCM on Saturday, October 29th at 11AM CT.
