Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde [PG]

Dr. Jekyll is considered a saint amongst his peers, establishing a facility that takes in the homeless and cares for the poor. He’s so good in fact that his would-be father-in-law believes that a little temptation is all the man needs to be a whole man. Dissuaded by the purity of his soul, Jekyll then becomes obsessed with the idea of creating a potion that can separate a man’s evil side from his good and when he tests this concoction upon himself he transforms into the evil and vile Mr. Hyde who terrorises the streets at night and soon becomes the scandalous talk of the town. As Jekyll indulges more and more in vices as Mr. Hyde, he begins to lose his ability to control himself and it’s only a matter of time before the horror of Hyde becomes traced back to Jekyll. 

I have read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson that this is based on, but I honestly can’t remember a thing that happens in it. It might be time to read it again. This 1920 silent film depicts beautifully all the gothic horror and madness that I do remember from Stevenson’s original tale with its creepy organ music, great performances, and sophisticated achievements in makeup and special effects (considering the year it was released). 

The story of Jekyll and Hyde is pretty hard to screw up, it’s such a great tale of inner conflict and you can interpret in a multitude of ways: as a comment on alcoholism, sexism, etc. What I rather liked about this movie is that the captions are not just representing dialogue, but also work well as narrative devices that work to keep the flow of the of the film happening. They dump the appropriate information where it is needed, it asks and comments on all the right questions, and then a fair portion of it is actually written in the accent of those speaking, which brings this great level of humour to the film. 

Special applause definitely needs to go the makeup artists who dealt with the makeup and transformation of Mr. Hyde. The result of everyone’s efforts is this wonderfully caricatured/disfigured creature that still looks human enough to interact with, but on closer inspection you see that he’s just not right. 

The special effects people deserve a shout out too because the actual transformation sequences were done subtly but effectively, and there is even this great scene towards the climax of the movie where a translucent nightmare figure haunts the screen. Considering the age, the special effects were quite sophisticated and quite well done. 

Starring John Barrymore, Brandon Hurst, Martha Mansfield, Charles Lane, Cecil Clovelly, Nita Naldi, and Louis Wolheim, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an intriguing little piece of silent gothic cinema that I quite enjoyed. Filled with ambition, obsession, romance, drama, conflict, horror, and murder, it’s a silent film that stands up.