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Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (1932) |
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Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (1932)
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by MGM (Warner)
Sales Rank: 26335
Price: $14.98
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Fredric March won an Oscar® for playing the protagonist (and antagonist) of Robert Louis Stevenson's story. Dr. Henry Jekyll is an honorable man of science, albeit frustrated at the enforced celibacy of a delayed wedding date. Hyde is the fearsome creature he turns into after drinking a potion, and Hyde's appetites (mostly expressed with Miriam Hopkins's Cockney dance-hall wench) are decidedly unrestrained. March's performance is pretty theatrical, but it's fun to watch; his Hyde twitches and squawks and lopes around like an ape in a tuxedo. Rouben Mamoulian's direction has plenty of the brio of early-thirties Hollywood, and the transformations from Jekyll to Hyde are ingenious for the time. This film followed <I>Dracula</I> and <I>Frankenstein</I> into theaters by a few months, and it stands well with those horror classics--and it's a darn sight more fun (and much more down and dirty) than the 1941 MGM version of Stevenson's tale. <I>--Robert Horton</I>
Viewer Reviews
Just as in "Les Miserables", Frederic March really was this young once. The avuncular actor of later films won't be found. Here March portrays the split personality of both a kindly, idealistic London physician and the raging maniac he creates in his lab. Dr. J was filmed in creepy black and white-that lost art. The special effects are truly shivery as the good Jekyll transforms into the evil Hyde before the viewer's very eyes. Director Mamoulian keeps the pace frantic as March morphs from Jekyll to Hyde and back. The female leads are central to the plot. Both Miriam Hopkins and Rose Hobart are superb. MH is the racy, "pre Code" bar girl who Jekyll befriends and Hyde abuses. An old "Variety" review claimed that Hopkins played her role with "a capital sense of comedy and coquetry". She certainly had personality. RH is Hyde's proper upper class good girl. Her dad, played by Halliwell Hobbes, notably smells a rat with Jekyll early on. (According to the "Video Hound's Golden Movie Retriever" Ms. Hobart lived to the age of 92, dying in 2000). Hollywood, in the very early days of Academy Awards, noticed Dr. J. March won the Best Actor statuette but had to share it with Wallace Beery, ex post facto style. DR. J was put forth for Best Adapted Screenplay. If Makeup awards were given back then, there surely would have been another nomination. If Dr. J has any weak spots it lies in the decrease of dread each time March changes personalities. Also, Mamoulian may have had trouble with the coda. The film could have ended sooner. This reviewer made the same observation about "The Mark of Zorro" but these rants are minor. Dr. J represents classic early Hollywood, plain and simple. There appear to be several restored DVD and restored VHS versions out there for viewers to enjoy.
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Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (1932)
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