“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.” –Samuel Johnson
At the offset of the new year in 1931, Russian director Rouben Mamoulian (Laura, Cleopatra) presented the world with the definitive version of Robert Lewis Stevenson’s 1886 tale, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Adapted from playwright T.R. Sullivan’s 1887 stage play, Mamoulian issues a catharsis-inducing work which addresses the dual-sided nature of Man and how both sides function in relation to society’s dictums, especially normative sexual morality epitomized by overly-principled Victorian society in a visually groundbreaking style which relentlessly holds his audience throughout the production’s duration with the aide of Fredric March’s award-winning portrayal of diametrically opposed personalities.
Doctor Henry Jekyll (Fredric March, The Best Years of Our Lives, Inherit the Wind, Death of a Salesman) believes there exists two essential human natures, the noble, Apollonian side juxtaposed by its more malevolent, Dionysian antagonist. He believes that once the two parts are separated, only then will humanity will be truly liberated. We quickly discover that the wily doctor is sexually frustrated due to the fact that Brigadier General Danvers Carew (Halliwell Hobbes), father of Muriel (Rose Hobart), Henry’s fiancée, adamantly demands that the couple postpone their wedding for eight months in order for their nuptials to fall on the day of his anniversary. Soon after Danvers’s proclamation, Henry concocts a formula which will “liberate” him from his sexual strain, transforming the scientist into his polar opposite, Mister Hyde. Hyde accosts Ivy Pearson (Miriam Hopkins), a Soho prostitute who Henry saved from a violent assailant earlier in the film. Problems ensue once Henry is unable to control the appearance of Hyde via chemical restraint as his relationship with Muriel grows more distant while infatuated Ivy attempts to close the chasm between the classes separating her and the doctor.
March, in his Academy Award-winning depiction of Jekyll and Hyde (the only lead actor role to win the award for a work of horror aside from Anthony Hopkins’s presentation of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs), spans most every emotion during the course of the film. His most notable accomplishment being that he fleshes out the character of Hyde, aggravating his lips between speeches and maintaining a nervous twitching of the hands and neck throughout, where most actors would merely permit the make-up to speak for the character. However, make-up artist Wally Westmore questionably presents the antithesis of civility in a simian/African American light reminiscent of the racist depiction of humanity’s “other” in Georges Méliès’s 1902 short, A Trip to the Moon.
Co-screenwriters Samuel Hoffenstein (The Wizard of Oz, Laura) and Percy Heath–who received an Academy Award nomination for their collaboration–subtlety hint that Apollonian Henry is not solely pure in his actions by having the doctor reciprocate the flirtatious advances of Ivy after having rescued the maiden from assault. Cleverly, they absolve Henry of guilt by having him engage in linguistic pyrotechnics when questioned by his peer, Doctor Lanyon (Holmes Herbert), after the latter discovers the couple, Ivy blanketing her then risqué nudity with a comforter as she dangles a bare leg from the edge of the bed, engaging in a kiss. It is Henry’s cavalier nature which readily compliments the bold temperament of sadistic Hyde instead of allowing the stifled, socially obedient doctor as the stagnant counterpart to the duo, which would otherwise restrain the pace of the production.
Alongside the revolutionary nudity seen in the film, Mamoulian posits several scenes, and one notoriously nerve-wracking scenario in particular, of graphic violence. However, both progressive aspects of the movie are undercut by the poor (hard) editing of William Shea. Yet, Mamoulian retains our interest after capturing it at the offset with an intriguing subjective camera, foreshadowing the vanity of Henry by way of a first-person POV. Not only this, but Mamoulian implements diagonal camera swipes in various scenes in order to parallel the juxtaposed characters, not only of Jekyll and Hyde, but of Muriel and Ivy.
The film confronts the asphyxiating sexual mores in the elitist, self-conscious field of academics and high-power, traditional society. Mamoulian is sympathetic to the otherwise healthy libido of Henry in the wake of oppressive Victorian society. In a violent, intransigent manner, he presents the effects of such arbitrary constraint in the sadistic actions (including an implied rape scene) of Hyde. As one critic stated, “It’s because society dictated that you weren’t aloud to pound ass until you were properly adjoined in the eyes of God” that Hyde appears in the world. This premise is epitomized in the scene where Hyde locates Ivy. We follow Hyde into a speakeasy as Ivy and her cohorts readily enjoy spirits and a sexually suggestive atmosphere free of any consequential ill-will. However, Mamoulian leaves the viewer to consider the liberal usage of a biological alibi in order to justify freely acting upon one’s wanton desires.
Rouben Mamoulian not only presents the viewer with a thought-provoking, Academy Award-nominated script by Samuel Hoffenstein and Percy Heath revolving around Man’s libido during a time when sex wasn’t discussed openly in public, he does so while simultaneously challenging his audience with revolutionary camera work atop directing Fredric March, a silent-era comic actor, in his first Academy Award-winning role. As a consequence, though frequently adapted, Robert Lewis Stevenson’s work has yet to see a peer on the silver screen.
-Egregious Gurnow
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