The early 1930s were truly the golden age of the horror movie. The scream flicks of this period were not the scariest or the biggest budgeted, but the era was unique and special in that the monster, the object of terror was almost always the star. The box office pull and familiarity of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff was far more significant than that of Vincent Price or Christopher Lee a few decades later, and they never had to cede top billing to some dashing male lead or beautiful heroine. Frederic March was not a horror star, but as Jekyll and Hyde landed the first Academy Award for a performance in a horror, in the kind of role that it would later become unthinkable to honour in this way.
This was a very transitional time for acting, particularly with regard to male leads. The couple of Best Actor winners before this (George Arliss and Lionel Barrymore) had been of the room-filling theatrical style that dominated the early talkies, beating the more reserved and naturalistic style that was slowly evolving. The fifth Academy Awards were the turning point, when Wallace Beery's warmly human turn in The Champ tied with Fredric March's gleeful scenery-chomping in this picture. Although I prefer Beery, I can see why March was equally lauded. While his Jekyll is nothing special, competent but still a little too hammy for a straight role, his Hyde is utterly engaging and watchable. He differs from the John Barrymore (1920) and Spencer Tracy (1941) interpretations in that he is not only animalistic but slightly childlike in his manner. Importantly, he is transformed enough not just through the make-up but in voice and mannerisms to make him genuinely appear as a completely different person. March as Hyde also adds the one genuine note of creepiness to a production that is short on atmosphere.
This adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella makes several sweeping changes. The twin love interests of Ivy and Muriel were an invention for this version, but a more significant difference is in how the story is revealed. In the book, the tale is told through the eyes of the lawyer Utterson, who sees his friend Jekyll apparently harassed and blackmailed by the villainous Hyde, and we do not discover that they are one and the same until the final chapter. Perhaps because the concept of Jekyll's transformation was fairly well known by this point, the film relegates Utterson to a minor character, and instead follows Jekyll on his journey of scientific discovery and his struggle to control his alter-ego. Hence we lose the sense of mystery that was a great asset to the novella, but we gain a deep and disturbing insight into the process.
Producer-director Rouben Mamoulian's aim seems to be to totally immerse us in the experience of Jekyll and Hyde, and thus employs some of the most extended and elaborate point-of-view shots ever committed to celluloid. This is a somewhat hit-and-miss tactic. It makes the first transformation scene truly exhilarating, but other times it just looks odd, particularly in the opening scenes, where it quickly turns into a distracting gimmick. This is the young Mamoulian all over. He paid absolutely no attention to the established rules of film grammar, had no sense of subtlety, and seems to have assumed that the more obvious and complex the technique, the more effective it must be. He sometimes has good ideas – for example drawing our attention to the skeleton shortly before Jekyll downs the potion for the first time, but he has to do so heavy-handedly with a whip-pan. Perhaps worst of all are those annoying split-screen moments, one of which actually distracts from one of the nicest touches in March's performance – his breaking in and out a run after his transformation in the park.
Also, in spite of March's success, Mamoulian was generally a poor director of actors, one of the few coaches who appears to have encouraged excessive hamming. Miriam Cooper is mediocre, which was about the most she ever was, and everyone else is bad to the point of cringeworthy. However Mamoulian did hire the best when it came to technical crew. The cinematography of Karl Struss brings out the dinginess of the slums, while we can thank renowned production designer Hans Dreier for the bright idea of making Jekyll's lab a careful blend of scientific paraphernalia and Gothic architecture.
Perhaps the biggest problem with this version of Jekyll and Hyde is that, unlike the classics being produced at Universal, it simply doesn't have the horror genre running through its veins. Prestigious, highbrow Paramount just didn't seem to get the camp creepiness of its smaller rival. And yet, it is true to the 30s horror form, for ugly and despicable as Hyde is, he (not Jekyll) is unquestionably the hero.
This was a very transitional time for acting, particularly with regard to male leads. The couple of Best Actor winners before this (George Arliss and Lionel Barrymore) had been of the room-filling theatrical style that dominated the early talkies, beating the more reserved and naturalistic style that was slowly evolving. The fifth Academy Awards were the turning point, when Wallace Beery's warmly human turn in The Champ tied with Fredric March's gleeful scenery-chomping in this picture. Although I prefer Beery, I can see why March was equally lauded. While his Jekyll is nothing special, competent but still a little too hammy for a straight role, his Hyde is utterly engaging and watchable. He differs from the John Barrymore (1920) and Spencer Tracy (1941) interpretations in that he is not only animalistic but slightly childlike in his manner. Importantly, he is transformed enough not just through the make-up but in voice and mannerisms to make him genuinely appear as a completely different person. March as Hyde also adds the one genuine note of creepiness to a production that is short on atmosphere.
This adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella makes several sweeping changes. The twin love interests of Ivy and Muriel were an invention for this version, but a more significant difference is in how the story is revealed. In the book, the tale is told through the eyes of the lawyer Utterson, who sees his friend Jekyll apparently harassed and blackmailed by the villainous Hyde, and we do not discover that they are one and the same until the final chapter. Perhaps because the concept of Jekyll's transformation was fairly well known by this point, the film relegates Utterson to a minor character, and instead follows Jekyll on his journey of scientific discovery and his struggle to control his alter-ego. Hence we lose the sense of mystery that was a great asset to the novella, but we gain a deep and disturbing insight into the process.
Producer-director Rouben Mamoulian's aim seems to be to totally immerse us in the experience of Jekyll and Hyde, and thus employs some of the most extended and elaborate point-of-view shots ever committed to celluloid. This is a somewhat hit-and-miss tactic. It makes the first transformation scene truly exhilarating, but other times it just looks odd, particularly in the opening scenes, where it quickly turns into a distracting gimmick. This is the young Mamoulian all over. He paid absolutely no attention to the established rules of film grammar, had no sense of subtlety, and seems to have assumed that the more obvious and complex the technique, the more effective it must be. He sometimes has good ideas – for example drawing our attention to the skeleton shortly before Jekyll downs the potion for the first time, but he has to do so heavy-handedly with a whip-pan. Perhaps worst of all are those annoying split-screen moments, one of which actually distracts from one of the nicest touches in March's performance – his breaking in and out a run after his transformation in the park.
Also, in spite of March's success, Mamoulian was generally a poor director of actors, one of the few coaches who appears to have encouraged excessive hamming. Miriam Cooper is mediocre, which was about the most she ever was, and everyone else is bad to the point of cringeworthy. However Mamoulian did hire the best when it came to technical crew. The cinematography of Karl Struss brings out the dinginess of the slums, while we can thank renowned production designer Hans Dreier for the bright idea of making Jekyll's lab a careful blend of scientific paraphernalia and Gothic architecture.
Perhaps the biggest problem with this version of Jekyll and Hyde is that, unlike the classics being produced at Universal, it simply doesn't have the horror genre running through its veins. Prestigious, highbrow Paramount just didn't seem to get the camp creepiness of its smaller rival. And yet, it is true to the 30s horror form, for ugly and despicable as Hyde is, he (not Jekyll) is unquestionably the hero.