Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1920)

It took John Barrymore to bring class to the American horror film, at least in the eyes of the industry. Dignified and virtuous as Dr. Henry Jekyll in this 1920 silent, Barrymore transforms into id incarnate as the lascivious Mr. Hyde. With almost no makeup beyond his gnarled, knobby fingers and greasy hair, Barrymore relies almost solely on a bug-eyed grimace, a spidery body language, and pure theatrical flourish. He tends to be hammy as the leering beast of a thug but brings a tortured struggle to the repressed doctor, horrified at the demon he's unleashed, guilty that he enjoys Hyde's unrestrained life of drinking and whoring, and terrified that he can no longer control the transformations. Martha Mansfield costars as his pure and innocent sweetheart, and Nita Naldi (the vamp of Blood and Sand) has a small but memorable role as the world-weary dance hall darling who first "wakens" Jekyll's "baser nature." --Sean Axmaker Amazon.com

The Best Version of This Much-Done Movie

John Barrymore shows us all what true acting is all about! To see the heartthrob of the 20's with his dashing good looks to suddenly turn into a pretty scary looking creature was very unexpected to me! As some previous reviewers had mentioned, they say his make-up for Mr. Hyde was "laughable". NOT TO ME! You have to see this film yourself to truly understand that, back then, without all the computer-generated gimmicks we have now, this is just TRUE exceptional horror in its day! True, Mr. Barrymore relied mostly on his eyes and the evil grin to "get across his point" as Mr. Hyde, but it works!!! I first had seen this as an afterthought movie that was thrown at the end of a horror movie collection I had purchased some years ago for my VCR player. It was in terrible condition, as I assumed it would be for such an old movie, but the darkness and the graininess of the film just added to the horror of it completely! I have seen many, many versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde but when I saw this version, it scared me to the core! Now I understand why John Barrymore was considered a classic actor of his time. He truly fits the bill of going from one extreme to the other, and in the end, isn't that REALLY what "acting" is all about???
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED but beware.......you will be scared! October 16, 2008

Silent Horror Classic Adaptation

By the year 1920, there'd already been several different film versions of the classic Robert Louis Stevenson novella centered around duality. However, John Barrymore's take, directed by John S. Robertson, would become the best known silent adaptation of the tale. This was the one that put several plot devices on the map. For instance, it introduced the good girl, bad girl dichotomy that mirror Jekyll and Hyde's sense of desire for the pure and profane. It wasn't taken too far in this version but become more developed in the definitive 1931 Rouben Mammoulien version starring Fredric March. One element it did add which did not remain was a sort of Dorian Grey touch involving Jekyll's fiancee's father.

Dr. Henry Jekyll, as opposed to the fifty year old private chemist portrayed in Stevenson's original, is here reimagined as a young and idealistic philanthropist who works late hours tending to the sick in his ward. His fiancee's father, Sir George Carewe, a more worldly man, tempts him by taking him to an "not respectable" bar where eyeing the women, especially a dancer played by Nita Naldi. He is inspired by the proposition of freeing man's baser nature from his more pure one. And, with that, he concocts a very potion that unleashes Edward Hyde, here seen as a spidery and disgusting manifestation of Jekyll's lower instincts.

Hyde now indulges in all the pleasures he could not as Jekyll. However, the path of illicit pleasures soon leads to destruction as Hyde ruins the lives of whomever he comes into contact with, and eventually commits murder. Even so, Jekyll also loses control when the transformations become involuntary, and he goes to sleep as the doctor but awakens as Hyde.

Many of the adaptations depict Hyde's growing evil in various ways. Here, its particularly interesting as Hyde's evil is represented in two, but comprehensive aspects. For instance, Hyde is pictured, as previously mentioned, like a spider, with pointed albino head, and elongated fingers; literally "creeping up" on his victims. The effects of his evil are metaphorically portrayed as disease-like; contagious and infecting all of his victims. This is made more clear on the DVD essay accompanying the movie which says the film was making subtle comparisons of Hyde's evil power with syphilis, which had been a horrible disease famous in the latter part of the 19th century, and still very much so at the time the film was released. Hyde's victims appear pale and weak with dark circles under their eyes much like those infected with syphillis. Hyde even goes so far to compare one fresh faced girl of the night he plans for his own amusement, to another he's already made use of and left behind who is now worn and sickly. Jekyll himself begins displaying signs of the sickness with dark circles under his eyes. Therefore, Hyde is a spider-like ogre carrying disease and vampirically draining the life force from his victims, including Jekyll (in a famous dream montage, Hyde is pictured as a giant spider crawling on top of Jekyll and sucking the life out of him; this causes Jekyll to change to Hyde).

This is but one theme of the film, though. There is enough of the classic story for everyone to recognize. Disease metaphors aside, Hyde goes onto become quite a brutal killer. He beats one victim pretty severely with a walking stick, and stomps over a young child, both clearly echoing Hyde's brutality in the novel.

John Barrymore, though pretty over the top by today's standards, gives a bravura performance as Jekyll/Hyde, even going so far as to portray much of the first half of the transformation with no make-up. More would indeed be added later on. He would use the Hyde make-up later on in life for practical joke purposes for which he was legendary. The rest of the supporting cast is quite good, especially the fiancee's father, Sir George Carewe, played by Brandon Hurst who helps lead Jekyll down his dark "Dorian Gray" like road. And, more would be made of the good girl/bad girl staple in later films, but it clearly marks a turn in adding a sexual motivation for, and component of, Hyde's evil. The film was one of the first horror movies, and is a classic staple of the 1920's silent pictures.
October 9, 2007

One of the greatest silent films.

I wish I could've been around when this movie first came out. For its time it is a truly shocking and horrific movie. As it stands I think it is one of the gems from the silent picture films era. It really tries very hard to delve into the difference between good and evil and the effects of it on a man who learns how to split himself into both. A really excellent film and a fantastic performance by John Barrymore with an excellent supporting cast. It's easy to see why Mr. Barrymore was one of the finest actors of his day. Enjoy! May 13, 2007

The first US horror film

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has long been hailed as a classic by critics and audiences alike, both the story itself and the classic with John Barrymore. The film was made in 1920 and is truly a silent film as the only noise in the whole film is the theatre organ. It is of course designed as a suspense/horror film and although the scares are mostly psychological, it is definitely a classic in the horror genre. This was one of the very first Jekyll and Hyde films preceded only by the 1911/1912 version starring famed director James Cruz; there was also "Januskopf, Der" also in 1920 but released in the UK and probably without the appropriate rights as was "Nosferatu" by the same director. And of course the third 1920 film with Sheldon Lewis that seems to get few accolades and is normally mentioned so people can get the good version with Mr. Barrymore. This version was directed by John S. Robertson and is definitely the best portrayal of the Robert Louis Stevenson story I have seen thus far.

The classic story line is of course known by many. Dr. Jekyll, a kind and decent paragon of society starts experimenting with various potions, and hits upon one that turns himself into a fully realized personification of his dark side. The person Jekyll holds responsible is the father of his beloved Millicent, whose cynical nature opens the door to his baser instincts and his fascination with the dual personality. Despite my familiarity with the story the script was very unpredictable right up to the ending, it was very difficult to tell what was going to happen next which for a silent film is remarkable. This is often considered the first US horror film, and even though the "scare" factor is not necessarily there..... the film is ungodly creepy which is normal of older horror films as they played more on suspense than sheer terror. I think this film ranks up there with the original "house on haunted hill" as one of the best suspense films of all time. The creep factor is very evident especially in some of the later scenes, and John Barrymore does an amazing job of doing Hyde with no facial makeup which in my opinion makes this the best treatment of the story. The basic concept of the story is a split personality so Hyde being a grotesque mockery of Jekyll's appearance versus an entirely different creature as in later films, stays truer to that concept. It also makes one get downright chills after the transformation. The only downside of this film is the soundtrack which seems to have no bearing on the events of the film at all and would best be described as church organ wankery, although even with this the quality of the film was not detracted from too much. Hopefully it will eventually get a new soundtrack such as "Nosferatu" did--but due to the fact the organ is the only sound, if I require sound next time I watch it I will just gather some classical music together. This film is difficult to watch for someone from the generation of talkies--I am quite used to older films, but silent films especially one such as this with very few title cards requires full 100 percent attention as it is very easy to miss things, and I did not realize until watching this film how often I space out for a minute or so. This fact shows how good a film it is, as once resigned to full attention you find yourself wanting to keep that full attention. This story is riveting and is much like reading a book as there are many things left to the imagination as there is much action and dialogue between the characters; but there are not title cards for all the dialogue. I found myself extrapolating and imagining what the actors were saying either based on the visuals or the title cards that have been displayed. Even though it may be difficult for the talkies generation, there are a wealth of silent films and any horror buff needs to see this to understand what the beginning of horror filming was like.

The star of this film is of course John Barrymore, whose acting is a standout among all the other principles in this film, through his grimace and general creepy way of moving as Hyde his is a standout performance above all the rest, and even though it is surprising that he is the only one of his siblings that has never been nominated or won any awards it is not surprising that he is now known as the best actor out of all of them. I will be honest, other than Martha Mansfield's depiction of Millicent, Jekyll's fiancé, none of the other actors were particularly noticeable in their roles. Ms. Mansfield's emotions and acting as she grew more and more concerned about her fiancé were a delight on the screen and as she had very few displayed lines on screen almost everything with her part was done visually. As for the other actors everyone did a decent job at their role but no one really stood out on an acting level.

The photography of this film was very basic, partially due to the time and also I believe the direction. There are many wide shots in the film, that jump to close-ups which make the actions very effective. There were very few heavy close-ups although there were some, it seemed as if they went out of their way to avoid any strong close-ups of Mr. Hyde--in some case the shot would widen out on his transformation, which was also a good illustration of how painful that transformation was. As disturbing as Mr. Hyde's appearance is, I am glad there are not any extreme close ups of his vile countenance. The other main aspect I noticed was the film started out very light, and near the end of the film there were more and more low key scenes, leading up to the finale. And in regards to Millicent; most if not all of the shots that involve her are high key lighting, which further magnifies her character's virtuousness on the audience.

All in all my silent film experience was excellent, and I am glad that I picked one that was completely silent excluding the church organ. It was a very good film, and the comparisons between a silent film and reading a book are many. There is much more room for imagination on films such as these and due to the silent nature you cannot turn around or space a section as you can miss quite a bit. There is a large focus on characterization and acting as a whole--- even though there were few standouts, the actors have to work much harder in a film with no sound and low instances of dialogue to make the film a good watch. The imagination factor comes in on sound effects quite a bit as with this film there are none. Every scream, every hit of the club and every gasp have to be imagined, and for a horror film makes it that much scarier. Just like in older horror films where music is used minimally to focus on the events, having no sound effects at all really puts you in the hot seat as what we imagine is always scarier than what someone else can put on the screen. June 17, 2006

The absolute best looking version, however.....

This Kino edition of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with John Barrymore is the first US horror film. One of his very best. The sets are wonderful and the time period costumes make this a very realistic looking film. This Kino version is by far the best quality print (35mm) and the picture quality is excellent, not dark and sharp and clear. However, this version on Kino seems to be edited. Some scenes seem to stop short before they are finished. Perhaps some of the footage was either missing or was so deteriorated that Kino chose not to include it. I previously owned the Image version of this film, and while the picture quality is no where near the Kino version, I seem to remember that the footage that is missing on the Kino version, is on the Image version. I wonder if anyone else has noticed this. Oh well, considering that this film is over 85 years old, I am happy that a very satisfying version is now available on dvd. Thanks Kino, for a job very well done. I also appreciate the bonus materials at the end of the film. In particular the 1909 audio recording of the transformation of Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. Also the Stan Laurel spoof is nice (but not particularly funny). This is a must dvd for any collection, silent or sound. April 26, 2006

More reviews at Amazon.com ...