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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0012569585928
Format: Color, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
Label: Warner Home Video
Languages: EnglishOriginal LanguageDolby Digital 2.0 MonoEnglishSubtitledSpanishSubtitledFrenchSubtitled
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
MPN: WARD65859D
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: January 06, 2004
Running Time: 209 minutes
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: December 31, 1931
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 09/13/2005
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
Fredric March won an Oscar® for playing the protagonist (and antagonist) of Robert Louis Stevenson's story. Dr. Henry Jekyll is an honorable man of science, albeit frustrated at the enforced celibacy of a delayed wedding date. Hyde is the fearsome creature he turns into after drinking a potion, and Hyde's appetites (mostly expressed with Miriam Hopkins's Cockney dance-hall wench) are decidedly unrestrained. March's performance is pretty theatrical, but it's fun to watch; his Hyde twitches and squawks and lopes around like an ape in a tuxedo. Rouben Mamoulian's direction has plenty of the brio of early-thirties Hollywood, and the transformations from Jekyll to Hyde are ingenious for the time. This film followed Dracula and Frankenstein into theaters by a few months, and it stands well with those horror classics--and it's a darn sight more fun (and much more down and dirty) than the 1941 MGM version of Stevenson's tale. --Robert Horton
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
Classy MGM was not the studio most likely to make a horror movie in 1941, and in fact its production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ended up looking more like a glossy costume drama than a B-movie frightfest. The mood of Robert Louis Stevenson's tale of a divided doctor is ably captured in Joseph Ruttenberg's Oscar-nominated cinematography--more so, perhaps, than in Spencer Tracy's lead performance. Tracy wasn't especially happy about playing the role, although his transformations from good Dr. Jekyll to evil Dr. Hyde are convincing enough. One of the main reasons to see this version of the story is the young, impossibly beautiful Ingrid Bergman, then still a year shy of Casablanca. Bergman was cast in the good-girl part, but proved a shrewd judge of material, even this early in her Hollywood career; she finagled her way into playing the floozy instead, thus securing a more colorful acting platform than Lana Turner, who ended up in the more respectable role. Director Victor Fleming's previous movie was a little number called Gone with the Wind, and the Big Picture approach to that project may have influenced his work here--this Dr. Jekyll is just a bit too stately, too polished to really engage. The picture is so dignified it never cuts loose with the kind of wild invention that marked the 1932 version of the story, which won Fredric March an Oscar. It's the tale as imagined by Jekyll, rather than Hyde. --Robert Horton
Average Rating: 
Rating: -
When I saw that these two films were not available separately I initially was reluctant to review them at all, but then I decided that it might be kind of fun to give a collective review, comparing the two and pitting them against one another. What is so remarkable about both features (released ten years apart) is that they really complete one another. Separately neither film hits all the marks needed to make a great film, yet when paired together they create a complete vision of what this impressive tale could be seen as.
So, let's pick this apart a bit.
I think the most appropriate place to start would be with the actors portraying Jekyll and Hyde; Fredric March and Spencer Tracy. Both takes on the character were very different from one another. March had an almost regal take on Jekyll, yet his Hyde was a ferocious almost macabre creation. Tracy made Jekyll very human, very relatable. His Hyde, for me, was like Alfred Molina impersonating Jack Nicholson's interpretation of Fredric March. It had this crazed almost campy personification that reminded me of Nicholson's `Joker'. March's portrayal was much more `horrific' in that the macabre aspects added layers of complete insanity. He reminded me of a character out of a 70's horror film, like one of the members of the grotesque family depicted in `The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. For me he gave the better (or more effective) Hyde, but Spencer Tracy just blew me away with his version of Dr. Jekyll. The '41 version of `Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' is very much a film about Jekyll, and so the film really relies on Spencer's humanization of the doctor. His take on Hyde doesn't bother me; it just isn't as terrifying as March's.
Still, if I had to choose a performance, I'd go with Tracy in a heartbeat.
Then we have the objects of Jekyll's (and Hyde's) affections. In the '31 version these roles are tackled by Miriam Hopkins and Rose Hobart. Hopkins delivers one of my all time favorite supporting female performances of all time, so we know who wins this one (in a cakewalk). Her devilishly seductive qualities are only matched step by step by her gradual and realistic spiral towards fearful insanity. She is utterly brilliant. I also really adored Rose here, who captured Muriel's loving support yet fearful suspicion of her fiancés work. The women of the '41 film don't fare as well. Ingrid Bergman (one of my top ten favorite actresses of ALL TIME) is way out of her comfort zone here, and while she captures the seductiveness needed to carry the character of Ivy (and that close up shot of her teary-eyed face as she faces Hyde for the final time is just utterly gorgeous) she doesn't quite get a firm grasp of the entirety of the character, the full arc. Her accent work is atrocious, and that takes away from the character development for me. Lana Turner is effective, but an afterthought for me. She works well, but she doesn't pop (and I love her work generally). For me, the biggest standout in the supporting cast was Donald Crisp who just sizzles with commanding presence as Beatrix's father Charles.
So then we have the plot. Both films are very similar in plot, yet the '41 film, for me, really expounds on the basic material. The beginning especially sheds a lot of light on the man that is Dr. Jekyll. Like I said, the '41 version is focused on Jekyll, and the '31 film is more about Hyde. That is why the films need to be seen together to really appreciate them fully. A lot of the center portions of the film are very similar to each other, but their strengths definitely lie in separate areas. I can't really say which is better (I prefer the '41 for the mere fact that is fleshes out Jekyll so well) because they are so obviously focused in separate areas.
The direction is also very different for each film. The '31 film is much darker in tone and construction. The way in which film was made then (almost gritty and grainy by default) add layers of terror to the scenes, even those that are simply not meant to be fear-inducing. The glossed over direction of the '41 version dampens the fear a tad, but it is much more beautiful to the eye (the use of fog mixes very well with the black and white, almost grey tone to the film). Visually, the '41 film is more appealing and almost more easily appreciated, but I have to go with the '31 here, for it really captures a desired tone effortlessly and carries that tone without ever once losing it.
In the end, neither film is perfect. Neither film would make my ballot for best of the year, but both films would litter my ballot in other areas. Like I said, Miriam Hopkins is a revelation and would win my supporting actress award in '31, and her co-star Rose Hobart would get a nomination. I'd also nominate it in Directing and a slew of technicals (if I really gave much thought to those races). The '41 version would get three different ... Read More
Rating: -
Everyone knows the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll is a scientist who believes each man has two sides, the good and the bad. He concocts a potion that brings out his brutish side, who he calls Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hyde then becomes uncontrollable, and a menace to Jekyll.
This is definitely a literary adaptation, so the action is slower than one might expect. Rouben Mamoulian created more of a legitimate production rather than a sensationalized Hollywood flick. As a result, the craftsmanship of the movie is superior. The transformation from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde is impressive, especially for 1932 before the days of computer animation. The photography is quite haunting too. The scenes of Dr. Jekyll escaping to his laboratory are very memorable, as is the grand finale where Mr. Hyde runs down the streets away from the angry mob as their shadows loom on the walls behind them.
However, not everything is exactly the same as the book, which is rather short.
There are also pre-code elements that fans of the genre will enjoy. Ivy is a prostitute after all, and references of her immorality and the things Hyde does to her are quite shocking. The most memorable image is Hopkins practically nude in her bed beckoning Jekyll to return to her.
Rating:  -
This review is primarily about Frederick March's 'Jekyll and Hyde'. I've seen the Spencer Tracy version but, other than the wonderful young Ingrid Bergman, I find the March version far more interesting and disturbing.
March undergoes a number of hideous physicaal transformations as he degenerates into the ultimate, completely depraved Hyde persona. Interestingly, in doing so, the producer/directors make a deliberate effort to take us backward in human evolution. Hyde becomes not only psychologically bestial but, physically, he reverts to something like proto-Homo erectus. This probably isn't fair to our ancestors. They might have been a rough crowd but it is unlikely that they were evil and destructive in the 'Hyde' sense. Otherwise the human race would have disappeared 600,000 years ago.
Also March, as Jekyll, is not a particularly sympathetic figure [at least I didn't find him sympathetic]. Yes, his initial transformation is more-or-less an accident and, later, the transformation comes over him although he wishes it otherwise.
But this simplistic viewing of it misses a major point. Somewhere between his first dose and his subsequent uncontrollable changes, he apparently takes the pottion time and again. Knowing that he will go back to sexually abuse, torture and humiliate Hopkins, as the dance hall girl, he takes the dose ANYWAY. He enjoys being depraved and evil and his evil leads him to murder.
Fortunately, for the sake of London and the sake of the world, Hyde is shot dead. Too bad the dance hall girl didn't think of that one, herself.
About the same time I was seeing this fascinating film, I watched Brando's 'Last Tango in Paris' and immediately noted the distinct similarity between the Hyde and the Brando character. They are both sexual sadists and both deliberately abuse and humiliate a young girl. The difference is, perhaps, in level of consent. Intitially, at least, Brando's female victim is entirely complicit in her own degradation. Slowly, gradually she comes to the realization that things have gone very wrong and she absolutely must escape. In both cases...Hyde and Brando...the only escape is death.
The Hyde victim is less consensual but, initially, at least, her mistake is that she does, at a certain basic level, agree. Rather than leave the dance hall with the bestial Hyde, she can kick, scream and make a commotion. She doesn't. She goes with him and, later, when she has some bare possibility of escape, she doesn't. Both the Hyde and Branco victim are similiar indeed.
Ron
Rating: -
Looking back from now, the 1941 version of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" looks more like a psychological drama (or melodrama) with a love triangle in it than a horror movie. As far as I know, this MGM version has been, decent as it is, overshadowed by the 1931 Paramount adaptation starring Frederic March, which many rightly consider the best adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson novella.
Though Stevenson is credited as the writer of the original work, the 1941 adaptation is actually a remake of the 1931 version, which was based on the 19th century play adapted by T.R. Sullivan. The original's story about the strange experiments of the brilliant doctor Jekyll and its horrifying consequences basically remain the same, but the rest of the originally novella was considerably changed.
In the slow-paced MGM film, while Doctor Henry `Harry' Jekyll (Spencer Tracy) is engaged with lovely, pure-hearted Beatrix Emery (Lana Turner), his evil alter ego, sadistic Mr. Hyde dominates and abuses the barmaid Ivy Peterson (Ingrid Bergman). Director Victor Fleming attempts at making a tense psychological drama between Jekyll / Hyde and Ivy - the latter claims she cannot run away from Hyde, as if hypnotized) - and the direction works to some extent. The cinematography is impressive, using the contrast of light and shadow effectively. Still, though his acting is not bad, Spencer Tracy is not the best choice for the role and Lana Turner is not required to do much.
One thing is certain, however. Ingrid Bergman is surprisingly effective as the ill-fated barmaid Ivy. She looks gorgeous as a tempter, and then painful as a victim. Of course her role doesn't appear in the original novella, but surely she is the reason for us to watch this 1941 "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Also, don't miss the film's bizarre "hallucination" sequences.
Rating: -
Double-sided disc contains both the 30's and 40's version of the Stevenson classic. As a student of film a great aid in studying the same subject filmed roughly 10 years apart, and seeing Fredric March in his Oscar-winning portrayal. Picked up at a great price, purchasing the "Centennial" mini-series at the same time, qualifying for free shipping as well. A great deal on both items.
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