Sunday, October 31, 2010

Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1931)

4 / 5 Oct '10
Tagline: Put yourself in her place! The dreaded night when her lover became a madman!
Directed by: Rouben Mamoulian
Written by: Samuel Hoffenstein, Percy Heath
Actors include: Fredric March, Miram Hopkins, Rose Hobart
Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi
Length: 98 minutes
Banned: Nope




Review:
This is one creative adaptation of the Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde tale, I mean it's pretty true to the story and everything, it's just visually a different beast. Sometimes the film is shot from Jekyll's eye view, other shots are from different perspectives, and the way they managed to make the transformation occur is with different colored lights, and it's pretty neat. Even if their version of Mr. Hyde looks rather like a character from Planet of the Apes. This one is also different in that we spend a fair bit of time getting to know the kind and generous Dr. Jekyll before he even gets into his evil debautcherous territory. Jekyll has a fiancee and gee whiz are they happy together, they are going to have a wonderful life...except that Jekyll is obsessed with the duality of man. Of course as the story goes he invents a potion to allow his dark side to roam about. It's not all that dark though his "bad" behavior is far more entertaining then when we are just watching the love story portion. It's even more fun when he can no longer control his transformations. Certainly this is a charming and elegant version of this tale, though I do prefer the version Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920).

Availability:  On DVD

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