"I have no soul. I'm beyond the pale. I'm one of the living dead!"
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) is the first feature length adaptation of The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Unlike the book, this film is from the perspective of Dr. Jekyll (actually pronounced JEE-kull until the 1941 version!) who believes that every man has multiple sides to his personality and wants to use science to rid himself of some of his less desirable qualities.
First and foremost I really enjoyed the transformation into Mr. Hyde, a lot of it is conveyed through just acting and uses really limited makeup to convey the change which I appreciated. This is a very realistic take on Mr. Hyde compared to other versions I've seen. He acts very human, like just less bound by the rules of society and where this is interesting it makes it seem like he really doesn't do too much wrong in this movie either (for the most part.)
I enjoyed the story told in this film, especially considering most of it is made up and just based on the basic premise of the original story. Following a different character around means that they had to make up a lot of stuff that would have just happened "off screen" in the novel, they do get to some specific parts from the novel but it's mostly in the last third of the film and by that point I almost don't think it even adds much really.
Unfortunately this is a very dated movie. It's very slow and meanders without point for huge chunks of time. I liked how they spent time to develop Dr. Jekyll and show his life before he even began to think about the experiment but it takes SO long and spends so much time that it's very hard to get through the first third where absolutely nothing interesting is happening.
The first thing a keen observer will notice about this film is it's really dynamic camera work. The movie is constantly playing with the camera use in a way that seems far ahead of its time. There's lots of really cool P.O.V. shots and reaction shots and even trick shots that really surprise me. I don't even know how they did some of the things they do in this movie! And I found this to be a telling example of just generally how good the direction of this film is, it's always trying to do interesting and new things which is something that I find really respectable.
And the sets in this film are really really detailed and elaborate like even for shots they'll show once! It's definitely a sight to see and adds to the film seeming like it was made later than it was.
Dr. Jekyll and (1931) is cool movie but is definitely very dated and hard to watch. 3/5 stars.
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