Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde **** (1920, John Barrymore, Martha Mansfield, Brandon Hurst, Nita Naldi) – Classic Movie Review 781

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1920): The first part of Dr Jekyll’s initial transformation into Mr Hyde is achieved without makeup, relying solely on John Barrymore’s uncanny ability to contort his face and body. 

Director John S Robertson’s 1920 Famous Players-Lasky/ Paramount horror movie Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the most famous silent version of the much-filmed and beloved Robert Louis Stevenson 1886 classic novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, though there had already been half a dozen films of it even before this one.

John Barrymore is extraordinary as Stevenson’s conflicted doctor, giving a relatively restrained silent-movie performance, and his deformed Hyde is a splendidly horrific and grotesque creature.

Clara S Beranger’s scenario tweaks and expands the Stevenson story, with the help of ideas and characters from Thomas Russell Sullivan’s 1887 play version and Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. This set the pattern for future movie versions of the story. After a visit to Sir George Carew (Brandon Hurst), Dr Jekyll is prompted into an obsession with the two contrasting sides of human nature and, after much work in his laboratory, devises a formula to separate them, with disastrous results.

The on-camera transformations are achieved more thanks to the photography and the star’s performance than to camera tricks or even makeup, though Barrymore’s Hyde makeup is extraordinary. And there is notable star support from the 25-year-old Nita Naldi (as Mr Hyde’s sensuous girlfriend, the alluring dancer Miss Gina) and Martha Mansfield (Dr Jekyll’s girlfriend, Millicent Carewe).

Director Robertson conjures up an exciting horror atmosphere, with the help of Expressionist images, impressive production values and glorious studio sets that bring the 19th-century foggy, gas-lamp-lit, putrid city slums vividly back to life in a menacingly atmospheric version of Victorian London.

Roy Overbaugh’s cinematography and Clark Robinson’s art direction produce a visually impressive movie. Robertson moves the piece along at a brisk pace, as well as delivering the story in a commendably short running time.

There have been prints as short as 49 minutes, and there are several different versions. However the longest print of it now runs 82 minutes, with the current Kino Video version on DVD running 73 minutes, released on October 9, 2001.

Tallulah Bankhead is said to have been offered the role of Millicent in the movie by Barrymore in return for sexual favours, which she declined. A bisexual, she allegedly had an affair with actress Hattie McDaniel and a longer-term arrangement with singer Billie Holiday. This quote is attributed to her: ‘My father warned me about men and booze, but he never mentioned a word about women and cocaine.’

Marlon Brando, who co-starred with Bankhead in the play The Eagle Has Two Heads in the mid-1940s, said she was a personality actor but could have been a great actress and a major movie star if she hadn’t been addicted to sex and alcohol.

Principal photography took place between December 1919 and January 1920 in the rooftop auditorium of the Amsterdam Opera House on 44th Street in Manhattan, so Barrymore could make his appearances on the Broadway stage. In between February and September 1920, Paramount also used the downstairs auditorium when it was available.

Barrymore hauled many of his prized potted plants from his apartment to the set to appear in scenery in the movie.

In 1971, Killiam Films copyrighted a restored and tinted edition with an original theatrical organ score by Lee Erwin and a running time of 67 minutes plus new additional credits.

The full original film running 79 minutes is available restored and colorised on the Internet Archive here:

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (restored, colorized) (1920, horror, imdb score: 7) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The original film running 73 minutes is available with original soundtrack on the Internet Archive here:

https://archive.org/details/DrJekylllAndMr.HydeoriginalSoundtrack0

The full original film running 82 minutes is available on Youtube here: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920 Paramount film) Black Lung (youtube.com)

Or on Youtube here: Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1920) | Full Movie | John Barrymore, Brandon Hurst (youtube.com)

Nita Naldi made her film debut here. She also starred in 1922’s Blood and Sand opposite Rudolph Valentino and in Hitchcock’s missing presumed lost 1926 silent movie The Mountain Eagle. She made her last movie in 1927, filed for bankruptcy in 1931, and died of a heart attack in her room at the Wentworth Hotel in New York on February 17, 1961, aged 66.

The New York Times reported that John Barrymore had obtained a part for Nita Naldi in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde after he spotted her dancing at the Winter Garden Theatre in Manhattan.

There are several well-known sound versions of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, including those with Oscar-winning Fredric March in 1931 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Spencer Tracy in 1941 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Michael Caine (Jekyll & Hyde) in 1990.

The cast are John Barrymore as Dr Henry Jekyll / Mr Edward Hyde, Brandon Hurst as Sir George Carewe, Martha Mansfield as Sir George’s daughter Millicent Carewe,  Charles Willis Lane as Dr Richard Lanyon, Cecil Clovelly as Edward Enfield, Nita Naldi as Italian exotic dancer Gina, Louis Wolheim as music hall proprietor, J Malcolm Dunn as John Utterson, George Stevens as Jekyll’s butler Poole,  Alma Aiken as distraught woman, Julia Hurley as Hyde’s old landlady, Edgard Varèse as policeman, Blanche Ring as woman in music hall, Ferdinand Gottschalk as elderly man in music hall, and May Robson as old harridan.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 781

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