Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Reviews

One of three 1920 adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic allegorical chiller, the Paramount DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE is remembered primarily for John Barrymore's bravura performance as the title duo. Whatever the value of F.W. Murnau's German version starring Conrad Veidt, Pioneer Films' updated adaptation appears to have been the best Mr. Hyde of the three. Henry Jekyll (John Barrymore) is an idealistic physician who sponsors a free clinic for the poor and is more or less betrothed to Millicent Carew (Martha Mansfield). One evening, Millicent's father, Sir George Carew (Brandon Hurst), admonishes Jekyll for his selflessness and encourages him to cultivate his darker side. That night, in a tawdry music hall, Jekyll repels the advances of a voluptuous dancing girl named Gina (Nita Naldi), but his baser instincts have been awakened. Jekyll resolves to find a way to indulge both the good and evil in his nature without either encroaching on the other. He secretly develops and drinks a potion which transforms him into a hideous man--whom he names Edward Hyde (also Barrymore)--and then back again. Jekyll instructs his servant, Poole (George Stevens), to allow Hyde the run of the household, and makes his alter ego the sole heir to his estate. Hyde makes his evil presence known in London's slums, where he takes a room. Among the many victims of his wickedness are Gina, whom Hyde dallies with and abandons, and a small boy, whom he tramples in the streets. When Sir George questions him about his relationship with Hyde, Jekyll, no longer able to control his metamorphoses, turns into Hyde and kills his inquisitor. Suspected of murdering Sir George, Hyde disappears, and the tortured Dr. Jekyll locks himself in his quarters. When Millicent comes to visit, it is Jekyll who invites her inside but Hyde who takes her in his embrace. The terrified young woman flees the room as two friends, Lanyon (Charles Lane) and Utterson (J. Malcolm Dunn), arrive on the scene, where they find Hyde's corpse. As Millicent, Lanyon, and Utterson look on, Hyde's body reverts to that of Jekyll. Jekyll/Hyde has committed suicide. Stevenson managed to tell his fascinating tale without a single female character of any importance, an oversight the movies, of course, would correct. The Barrymore version was not the first to thicken the plot with romance, but it may have been the first to introduce into the mix the element of sex, in the person of "bad girl" Gina, as "good girl" Millicent's opposite number. The movie, however, did not do much with either. Henry Jekyll's relationship with Millicent remains, in the wry words of the song standard, "a fine romance, with no kisses," and Gina's erotic impact is confined largely to cleavage and elliptical suggestion. It was enough, however, to vault Nina Naldi, the chorus girl who played Gina, into instant stardom. Shooting a film three years after DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, Martha Mansfield, who portrayed Millicent, was killed when a crinoline costume she was wearing caught on fire. As DR. JEKYLL was being filmed, Barrymore was appearing in a play called "The Jest" and rehearsing "Richard III." The actor based Hyde's makeup partially on that of the Shakespeare character, and some of DR. JEKYLL's sets were lifted directly from "The Jest." "The Great Profile"'s Dr. Jekyll is suitably handsome and noble-looking; his Hyde is appropriately monstrous and depraved. If Barrymore's portrayal of the second half of the equation is a bit broad, so be it: if an actor can't be hammy as Edward Hyde, when can he be? Traces of both Jekyll and Hyde can be detected in Barrymore's superb comic performance as Oscar Jaffe in TWENTIETH CENTURY (1934). Although Barrymore expressed some disappointment in the finished picture, critics loved his contribution to DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE. The New York Times remarked, "his performance is one of pure motion picture pantomime on as high a level as has ever been attained by anyone." Notable gaffe: Mansfield and the character she plays are twice introduced by intertitles. The two best-known sound versions of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE are Rouben Mamoulian's audacious 1931 adaptation and MGM's much stodgier 1941 version directed by Victor Fleming. (Violence.)