Rent Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
"I'll show you what horror means..." growls the hideous Mr. Hyde (Fredric March) as the helpless, terrified Ivy (Miriam Hopkins) cowers on her bed. And now you'll see too, as you watch this fully restored 1932 version of Robert Louis Stevenson's spine-chilling masterpiece. With the inclusion of 17 minutes of previously censored material, this is the definitive Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Director Rouben Mamoulian's choice of young, handsome Fredric March (known then as a comic actor) to play the lead raised studio hackles. But Mamoulian argued, "I don't want Hyde to be a monster. Hyde is not evil, he is the primitive, the animal in us, whereas Jekyll is a cultured man, representing the intellect. Hyde is the Neanderthal man, and March's makeup was designed as such". - Actors:
- Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Rose Hobart, Holmes Herbert, Halliwell Hobbes, Edgar Norton, Tempe Pigott, Robert Adair, Harry Adams, William Begg, Leonard Carey, Rita Carlyle, Frank Goddard, Bobby Hale, Pat Harmon, Sam Harris, Boyd Irwin, Tom London, Arnold Lucy, Murdock MacQuarrie
- Directors:
- Rouben Mamoulian
- Producers:
- Rouben Mamoulian
- Writers:
- Samuel Hoffenstein, Percy Heath, Robert Louis Stevenson
- Studio:
- Warner
- Genres:
- Classics, Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
- Collections:
- Award Winners, Oscar Nominations Competition 2023
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 25/11/2024
- Run Time:
- 96 minutes
- Languages:
- English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Various
- Colour:
- B & W
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Two Commentaries:
- 1) Screenwriter/Film Historian Dr. Steve Haberman and Filmmaker/Film Historian Constantine Nasr
- 2) Author/Film Historian Greg Mank
- Cartoon 'Hyde and Hare'
- 11/19/50 Theatre Guild on the Air Radio Broadcast
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Reviews (1) of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Definitive Version. - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde review by Steve
This 1931 version of RL Stevenson's classic novel is definitive for three main reasons; the amazing, innovative transformation of Jekyll into Hyde; its fabulously salacious pre-code content; and for the astonishing camera movement and POV tracking shots. That Rouben Mamoulian manages such fluidity in the era of camera booths is a miracle.
Credit for the above should be extended to cinematographer Karl Struss. They create incredible close ups and impressionistic images that mirror the hero's duality. There is also a wonderfully atmospheric pictorial of Victorian London, all candle and lamplit shadows and cobbled streets in the rain.
Fredric March deservedly won an Oscar for his split performance, but Miriam Hopkins steals the film as the Cockney sex worker living in terror of Hyde's brutality. Stevenson wrote a story about the ego versus the id, but it was Paramount that added the sexual motifs that still feel transgressive. It is a fetishistic film. The Hays office cut a lot of this for its reissue.
It presents a paradox: that Victorian sexual prohibition drove men to the services of prostitutes; but without these restrictions, man's animalistic nature is capable of terrible depravity. Eventually we see Jekyll as Hyde's mask, sanctimoniously obscuring his real nature and using it to mediate with a hypocritical society. It is one of the most brilliant films of precode Hollywood.