Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1920, USA, John S. Robertson)

Here is a film that can be listed in several best lists. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde is one of the best silent films ever made. It is one of the most memorable horror films. It is widely considered to be the best film character(s) John Barrymore ever portrayed. And Barrymore’s Mr. Edward Hyde is one of the most hideous characters ever displayed in horror cinema; a forefather to the Freddie Kreugers and Jason Voorhees’.

The introduction to the film explains the central theme that we have two natures that are at war within us. What this story seems to prove is that those two natures are balancing forces and to indulge in one or the other too much destroys that balance. The story starts with a curious Dr. Jekyll creating a potion to explore his ‘evil’ side, which is defined in more sexual terms than anything. The story ends with a Mr. Hyde that has to use a potion to change back to Jekyll and out of necessity more than want. The character starts as a non-sexual, goody goody doctor who wants to help the poor at his own expense and treats his beloved more like a sister than someone he’s in love with. The Mr. Hyde side of things is a sex-crazed maniac whose lust for women spills over into violent tendencies and ultimately murder. The moral of the story could be that sex is a natural occurrence and necessity in life for our souls as well as our relationships with significant others. Overindulgence in or repression of our sexual nature won’t lead to anything good. At worse it could lead to overgrown dirty cracked fingernails, long greasy hair, bad teeth and a penchant for pouncing impulsively on children or beating people. There has to be some established middle ground where our soul can survive at ease between the ‘evil’ we want and the good we want.

The most impressive facet to this film is the overall design of the sets. The film was made in the newly built Paramount Astoria Studios in Queens, New York. There are plenty of street scenes in the film and they are dressed up for the occasion. The uneven cobblestone streets are always slick and seem to be the flooring of a city whose vices come alive at night. Most, if not all, of the buildings are slightly off angle and are often lit with no more that a door lamp whose shapes also add to the slight incongruity of the spacial settings. Caligari-esque sets would have probably been too much for this movie and its audiences but the toned down off-kiltered look are perfect for this movie that, on its surface, is no more than good versus evil. Through the backgrounds of space, places and people, the film introduces us to the subtle reality that this world of Jekyll and Hyde’s is a world in which people navigate the avenues of good and evil everyday: some better than others.