John Barrymore stars in the silent screen’s most memorable portrayal of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The story has been told countless times before, so you all know what goes down: Dr. Jekyll is a kindhearted man who creates a potion that can separate his “bad” half from his “good” half. His “bad” half takes on the name Mr. Hyde who hangs around with trollops and kills people. Pretty soon, Hyde takes over whenever he wants and threatens to destroy Jekyll’s life forever.
Because the overly familiar story is an old hat and has been remade and parodied to death, the only way to really grade the movie is on the transformation scenes and the murder sequences. In that respect, it’s pretty rocking (for a nearly 90 year old movie that is.) I still think the 1931 Fredric March version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is best of the numerous screen adaptations but this one is a close second.
The transformation scenes are quite effective and are mostly done in a single take. Barrymore doesn’t rely on prosthesis for his transformations and more or less just contorts his face a lot. The results are fairly spine-tingling.
This version does a solid job at setting up Jekyll as a really nice guy, so it’s all the more shocking when he does something vile as Hyde. At first I didn’t like all the screen time devoted to Jekyll doing charity work for the poor but this is paid off nicely when Jekyll squashes a poor homeless kid to death. There is also an excellent scene in which Hyde bludgeons his future father-in-law with a cane over and over again that must have been pretty disturbing for the time. We even get a stellar freakout scene too where Jekyll imagines a giant spider crawling on top of him. I don't remember seeing that in any of the other versions.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde lands itself on The Video Vacuum Top Ten Silent Movies of All Time list at the Number 4 position, which places it in between Phantom of the Opera and The Unholy Three.
Tired of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer? Had it up to here with Frosty the Snowman? Got that feeling that if you see Santa Claus is Coming to Town one more time you’re going to blow your head off? Well if you answered yes to all these questions, you might enjoy this Halloween themed Rankin-Bass production.
Boris Karloff provides the voice of Dr. Frankenstein, who is so excited about creating his latest monster that he throws a party and invites all his monster friends to his castle for his shindig. That means Dracula, Wolf Man, Dr. Jekyll (he brings Mr. Hyde with him), the Invisible Man, the Hunchback, The Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon are all under one roof and they’re ready to party. Tensions arise however when Frankenstein announces he’s handing his experiments over to his nerdy nephew Felix, which doesn’t sit well with some of the monsters, who try to do away with him.
If you’re like me, then all you need to hear is the words “Rankin-Bass” and “Boris Karloff” to be completely sold on this flick. The animation is suitably tacky and there’s also a great Shirley Bassey style theme song in there too. The film is also filled with some truly priceless puns such as: “My sister was the white sheep of the family”, “Now you’ll discover who was the original Batman!”, and “You’re my type! O-Negative!”
All of the finer points aside, Mad Monster Party really should’ve been an hour long TV special and not a feature length movie. It would’ve benefited from some tighter editing, less annoying supporting characters, and fewer songs. Phyllis Diller, the only other star vocal talent in the cast, isn’t as grating as she normally can be but she doesn’t really bring a lot to the film. Having said that; Mad Monster Party for all it’s faults is still pretty irresistible.
Remember comedian Mark Blankfield? Didn’t think so.
Anyway, he stars as Dr. Jekyll, a brilliant surgeon who gives up operating on people to find a cocaine-like drug that will separate man from his “animal instincts”. When he inadvertently sniffs some of it, he turns into a wild haired, coke snorting, gold chain wearing swinger named Hyde who lusts after a sexy prostitute/punk rock singer named Ivy (Krista Errickson).
There are some good gags here and there (like the “foreign object” lodged in a woman’s vagina, a punk band named The Shitty Rainbows, and a boob job gone hideously wrong), but for the most part, this flick isn’t all that funny. Blankfield is sporadically amusing as Jekyll (the way he tries to win his fiancée back by RUNNING through a steeplechase is inspired) but he tries way too hard as Hyde. Blankfield thoroughly embarrasses himself while donning his ridiculous Hyde get-up and his performance reeks of desperation. The similarly themed Doctor Detroit (released the next year) is a much better (and funnier) examination of a repressed guy dressing up as an uninhibited psycho.
Having said that; the film actually gets better as it goes along and it includes a snappy musical number, “I’ve Got Nothing to Hyde.” But easily the best part of this uneven mess is the final reel. During the rooftop chase, the film switches to black and white and director Jerry Belson effectively captures a moody atmosphere reminiscent of the old Universal monster movies. Belson also saved the best gag for last as we see Robert Louis Stevenson’s corpse literally rolling in his grave at the film’s conclusion! Had the rest of the movie contained the same amount of spunk as the final 15 minutes, Jekyll and Hyde… Together Again could’ve worked.
The supporting cast is game and makes sitting through some of the patchier sections of the movie bearable. Bess Armstrong plays Jekyll’s prissy fiancée and Tim (Rhinestone) Thomerson has fun playing a cross dressing plastic surgeon, but it’s Errikson who gives the best performance of the film as the object of Hyde’s affections. B Movie buffs will also have fun spotting Cassandra Peterson (AKA: Elvira) in a small role as the “busty nurse”.
Although Blankfield’s humor is a little hit or miss, he still gets the best line of the movie when he says, “I’m a drug crazed beast with a giant erection that won’t go away!”
Jekyll and Hyde… Together Again will be released on June 3rd by the good folks at Legend Films who are now in charge of releasing some of Paramount Pictures more obscure titles on DVD. For more info on this and future releases from Legend, check out their website at www.legendfilms.net.
Everyone knows the story: the good natured Dr. Jekyll is working on a formula to physically separate his “bad half” from his good one.
It works with astonishingly terrifying results.
He turns into the despicable, lecherous, ferocious Mr. Hyde, the kind of a guy who would just as soon as crack your skull open than look at you.
Just as Jekyll and Hyde are two vastly different men, they both have very different women. Jekyll loves his beautiful fiancée (Rose Hobart) while Hyde craves the affections of a vivacious prostitute (Miriam Hopkins). Eventually his Hyde self starts to take over Jekyll without warning and in the end, Hyde is shot down by the police and turns back to Dr. Jekyll.
Director Rouben Mamoulian’s expert direction has been somewhat unheralded as he creates a flashy elegance to the film that most pictures made at the time lacked. Take for example the impressive opening POV sequence of Jekyll. Today POV shots are an old hat, but this technique is something that you just didn’t see a lot of back in the day.
And let’s talk about the transformation scenes for a second. They are simply breathtaking and effectively set the standard for all transformation scenes for the next 50 years. They involve no cut aways, just a little trick photography and a lot of movie magic. Mamoulian keeps the camera firmly fixed on March’s reaction in the mirror so we don’t only witness the transformation, we see it through HIS eyes, making it that much more startling and impressive. The results are still amazing even 75 years after the film’s initial release.
March is simply fantastic as both characters. He registers as a sympathetic romantic lead with a modicum of grief as Jekyll, but as the maniacal, animalistic Hyde he truly excels. You can’t take your eyes off of him. March adds bizarre little quirks to Hyde (like the scene where he takes a couple seconds to enjoy the feeling of the rain on his face) that add immensely to his chilling performance. Bottom line: it’s one of the greatest performances of all time. Hopkins is also excellent as the tortured prostitute who is enslaved by Hyde’s cruelty.
And just because the film was made in 1931, doesn’t mean it doesn’t feature some very adult themes. There’s plenty of sexy, scandalous stuff (the censor happy Hays Code was three years off) and features a tantalizingly brief glimpse of Hopkins’ breast.
Though it gets a tad annoying when everyone refers to Dr. Jekyll as “Dr. Gee-Kull”, that shouldn’t stop you from checking this masterpiece out. Ten years later the film was remade with Spencer Tracy in the lead role(s).
Ralph (The Horror of Frankenstein) Bates stars as Dr. Jekyll, who’s making an eternal life elixir using women’s hormones. He uses the services of infamous grave robbers Burke and Hare to get fresh young (dead) female specimens. When they are lynched, Jekyll starts murdering prostitutes and becomes Jack the Ripper! When he’s killed enough women to make the elixir work, he tries it on himself. The potion has one side effect: it turns him into the beautiful Martine (Thunderball) Beswick.
The first thing he does when he transforms into her is to look at her/his tits! Can you blame him?
The chase over the rooftops ending doesn’t quite work, but this shocker is inventive and fun, and definitely kinkier than the usual Hammer fare. The transformation scenes are low key (and low tech) but they are also very effective. Beswick is sultry and Bates is pretty good too, but more amazingly their resemblance is so uncanny, that it makes the transformations wholly believable.
Beswick was one of the few women to star in more than one James Bond movie. Director Roy Ward Baker also did many other Hammer horror films.
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello play
Profile
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
thevideovacuum- The Video Vacuum
- The Video Vacuum