Dr. Intertitle and Mr. Screenwriter
While I did just do a themed event last month, it was a vague connecting element that I didn't call that much attention to. This month, however, I'm doing something a little more specific. In honor of Halloween, I'm going to be posting reviews of various versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde every Wednesday, to see what changes have been made over the years. So with that in mind, we start with a silent version from 1920.
The 1920 silent version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is interesting because, among other things, it’s one of the ones that’s closest to the original publication date of the story (34 years, to be exact). Perhaps that’s why it’s reasonably close to the source material. There are a few choices made for the sake of Hollywood, of course, but overall, I think Robert Louis Stevenson would have approved.
I’m sure the broad strokes of the story are familiar to most of my readers at this point, but I’ll give a summary anyway. Dr. Henry Jekyll (John Barrymore) is a good man who spends most of his time treating the poor, even to the point of neglecting his sweetheart Millicent (Martha Mansfield). Surprisingly, her father, Sir George Carewe (Brandon Hurst), is less disapproving of that than he is of Jekyll being so virtuous. After he takes Jekyll to a seedy dance hall, Jekyll wonders if it would be possible to split people into their good and bad selves, so the baser instincts could be indulged without tarnishing the soul. In short order, he’s created a potion that, when drunk, turns him into a twisted figure he calls Mr. Hyde (also Barrymore). For a time, he successfully manages a double life, though the movie naturally focuses on Hyde’s exploits more than what Jekyll’s up to. But of course, eventually his sins are going to catch up with him. And in this case, he’s in danger of them taking over entirely…
The aspect of this movie that was most intriguing to me was the intertitles. That sounds like an insult, but it really isn’t, because most of the intertitles are accompanied by beautiful drawings that in some way relate to the text, For example, when the text talks about how all of us have a good or evil nature, the picture is a pair of scales. When we’re introduced to Jekyll, we see a bunch of flasks and test tubes. And rhe moment when Carewe leads Jekyll into temptation is accompanied by a picture of Faust. It’s very creative, and for those who are familiar with the story, it allows you to play along and wonder what happens next. Or rather, what the next drawing is going to be.
There are other elements worth talking about, of course. Like I said at the start, the movie brings in a fair bit from the book, including one of my favorite elements that never seems to make it into most adaptations as far as I know. At the same time, some of the new material the movie adds is unusual and equally noteworthy. For a start, Carewe chides Jekyll for not indulging in vice, using Oscar Wilde’s phrase “The only way to resist temptation is to yield to it”. I’m slightly amused by this, because that line debuted in The Picture of Dorian Gray, which came out in 1890, four years after Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published. It fits with the plot, but it wasn’t a “crossover” I’d been expecting. Then there’s the nightmare Jekyll has that signifies how Hyde is starting to assert dominance. This takes the form of a giant hairy spider that also has Hyde’s face, which then climbs onto Jekyll’s bed and fades into him, which is a…unique take on things. What’s also unique is that the movie glosses over what you think would be key moments, like Jekyll attempting to give up Hyde only to return to him in a moment of weakness, or the moment he first becomes Hyde involuntarily. They’re either covered solely by intertitles or just happen with very little fanfare. To be fair, it’s possible some of the scenes were lost to time, but as it stands, it’s an odd thing to leave out. Then again, Hollywood was probably more focused on the effects than the philosophical elements, so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised.
One last thing worth talking about is Barrymore’s performance. I believe at least one of the Barrymores got the reputation of being a huge ham, especially after talkies came along, but I haven’t seen enough of their movies to be able to judge. However, after watching Barrymore flail around as he transforms into Hyde and back for the first time, I can kind of get where the detractors were coming from. At the same time, though, there don’t appear to be any cuts during this sequence, and yet Barrymore looks completely different when he’s done writhing, so either he was very capable of acting or I have to give a lot of credit to the editors and makeup staff. I do question their later decision to give Hyde a weirdly pointy head to indicate how he’s getting more and more evil and malformed, but overall, the effects team and Barrymore worked together very well.
I definitely think this is a version of the story worth seeking out. Book fans will be pleased by the faithful moments, and those who aren’t familiar with the book can still appreciate other details like the intertitles. Though a word of warning; after seeing this version, the changes made to the slightly more famous 1931 version may come as a bit of a shock…
The 1920 silent version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is interesting because, among other things, it’s one of the ones that’s closest to the original publication date of the story (34 years, to be exact). Perhaps that’s why it’s reasonably close to the source material. There are a few choices made for the sake of Hollywood, of course, but overall, I think Robert Louis Stevenson would have approved.
I’m sure the broad strokes of the story are familiar to most of my readers at this point, but I’ll give a summary anyway. Dr. Henry Jekyll (John Barrymore) is a good man who spends most of his time treating the poor, even to the point of neglecting his sweetheart Millicent (Martha Mansfield). Surprisingly, her father, Sir George Carewe (Brandon Hurst), is less disapproving of that than he is of Jekyll being so virtuous. After he takes Jekyll to a seedy dance hall, Jekyll wonders if it would be possible to split people into their good and bad selves, so the baser instincts could be indulged without tarnishing the soul. In short order, he’s created a potion that, when drunk, turns him into a twisted figure he calls Mr. Hyde (also Barrymore). For a time, he successfully manages a double life, though the movie naturally focuses on Hyde’s exploits more than what Jekyll’s up to. But of course, eventually his sins are going to catch up with him. And in this case, he’s in danger of them taking over entirely…
The aspect of this movie that was most intriguing to me was the intertitles. That sounds like an insult, but it really isn’t, because most of the intertitles are accompanied by beautiful drawings that in some way relate to the text, For example, when the text talks about how all of us have a good or evil nature, the picture is a pair of scales. When we’re introduced to Jekyll, we see a bunch of flasks and test tubes. And rhe moment when Carewe leads Jekyll into temptation is accompanied by a picture of Faust. It’s very creative, and for those who are familiar with the story, it allows you to play along and wonder what happens next. Or rather, what the next drawing is going to be.
There are other elements worth talking about, of course. Like I said at the start, the movie brings in a fair bit from the book, including one of my favorite elements that never seems to make it into most adaptations as far as I know. At the same time, some of the new material the movie adds is unusual and equally noteworthy. For a start, Carewe chides Jekyll for not indulging in vice, using Oscar Wilde’s phrase “The only way to resist temptation is to yield to it”. I’m slightly amused by this, because that line debuted in The Picture of Dorian Gray, which came out in 1890, four years after Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published. It fits with the plot, but it wasn’t a “crossover” I’d been expecting. Then there’s the nightmare Jekyll has that signifies how Hyde is starting to assert dominance. This takes the form of a giant hairy spider that also has Hyde’s face, which then climbs onto Jekyll’s bed and fades into him, which is a…unique take on things. What’s also unique is that the movie glosses over what you think would be key moments, like Jekyll attempting to give up Hyde only to return to him in a moment of weakness, or the moment he first becomes Hyde involuntarily. They’re either covered solely by intertitles or just happen with very little fanfare. To be fair, it’s possible some of the scenes were lost to time, but as it stands, it’s an odd thing to leave out. Then again, Hollywood was probably more focused on the effects than the philosophical elements, so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised.
One last thing worth talking about is Barrymore’s performance. I believe at least one of the Barrymores got the reputation of being a huge ham, especially after talkies came along, but I haven’t seen enough of their movies to be able to judge. However, after watching Barrymore flail around as he transforms into Hyde and back for the first time, I can kind of get where the detractors were coming from. At the same time, though, there don’t appear to be any cuts during this sequence, and yet Barrymore looks completely different when he’s done writhing, so either he was very capable of acting or I have to give a lot of credit to the editors and makeup staff. I do question their later decision to give Hyde a weirdly pointy head to indicate how he’s getting more and more evil and malformed, but overall, the effects team and Barrymore worked together very well.
I definitely think this is a version of the story worth seeking out. Book fans will be pleased by the faithful moments, and those who aren’t familiar with the book can still appreciate other details like the intertitles. Though a word of warning; after seeing this version, the changes made to the slightly more famous 1931 version may come as a bit of a shock…