Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) - film review

Dr Henry Jekyll is a highly respected Harley Street practitioner but he risks jeopardising his reputation with his unorthodox scientific opinions.  At a society dinner party, he creates offence by suggesting that man would be better if the two sides of his nature, the good and the evil, could be separated.  Sir Charles Emery, the father of Jekyll’s fiancée Beatrix, begins to wonder if Dr Jekyll is a suitable son-in-law and contrives to delay the marriage by taking his daughter on a tour of Europe.  With his love life put on hold for several months, Jekyll resumes his experiments and ultimately succeeds in creating a potion that can free his darker inner self.  Unfortunately, in doing so, Jekyll unleashes a cruel and sadistic monster...

MGM’s expensive remake of the 1931 classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (which featured Fredric March in a career-defining role) is a generally uninspired affair that is only just salvaged by Spencer Tracy’s bravura performance and some atmospheric camerawork.  The film adheres a little too slavishly to the screenplay of Paramount’s 1931 version and lacks the inspired touch that director Rouben Mamoulian brought to that film.  There are one or two touches of brilliance, such as the expressionistic transformation dream sequences (one of which includes the darkly Freudian image of Ingrid Bergman as the cork of a champagne bottle), but otherwise Victor Fleming’s direction is lacklustre and complacent.  Fleming’s experience of working on The Wizard of Oz (1939) may have been the cause of this creative block. 

One notable sin was the obvious miscasting of the two lead female roles.  The film would have worked better if Lana Turner had been given the part of Ivy; Bergman lacks the earthy touch needed to make her portrayal convincing (besides, who ever heard of a cockney with a Swedish accent?).   One of the biggest (and bravest) departures from the 1931 film is the minimalist make-up for Mr Hyde.  In contrast to Fredric March’s Neanderthal-like Hyde, Tracy plays Jekyll’s evil alter ego just as intensely and chillingly with comparatively little make-up.   Tracy’s portrayal of Hyde is fascinating to watch and is the main reason for seeing this film, although, at the time, the actor loathed his performance and described it as the worst of his career.

© Alex Sullivan 2010

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