MGM gave the familiar story the big-budget, big-star treatment, but in the process drained it of all of its biting social and psychological implications.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
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Reviews Counted: 18
Fresh: 13
Rotten:5
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Runtime: 1 hr 54 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Synopsis: Victor Fleming's version of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel accentuates the emotional characteristics of the purely evil Mr. Hyde rather than the terror angle. With superb performances from Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, and... Victor Fleming's version of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel accentuates the emotional characteristics of the purely evil Mr. Hyde rather than the terror angle. With superb performances from Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, and Lana Turner, the result is a fine drama. As mental specialist Dr. Jekyll, Tracy drinks his own potion and transforms, mentally and physically, into the primitive Mr. Hyde. Hyde's internal state is displayed via dreamlike montage sequences during the transformation process. At first Jekyll enjoys the transformations, which allow his violent and sexual urges to surface with a local barmaid, Ivy Peterson (Ingrid Bergman). But when his true love's father, Charles Emery (Donald Crisp), consents to let Jekyll marry his daughter, Beatrix (Lana Turner), Jekyll determines to give up his secret identity. The decision comes too late--Jekyll finds himself transforming into Hyde against his will and now needs the potion to resume his Jekyll persona. At the same time, Hyde becomes more sadistic, turning a murderous hand to Jekyll's personal relationships. Stevenson's chilling tale has been recounted on the silver screen numerous times but rarely with such emotional power--Fleming's DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE steams and stews in a psychoanalytic examination of the evil that lurks within everyone. [More]
Starring: Spencer Tracy, Lana Turner, Ingrid Bergman, Donald Crisp
Starring: Spencer Tracy, Lana Turner, Ingrid Bergman, Donald Crisp, Ian Hunter, Barton MacLane, C. Aubrey Smith, Sara Allgood, Frederic Worlock
Director: Victor Fleming, Peter Godfrey, Harold F. Kress
Director: Victor Fleming, Peter Godfrey
Producer: Victor Fleming
Screenwriter: John Lee Mahin
Director: Harold F. Kress
Composer: Franz Waxman
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Reviews for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Well shot by Joseph Ruttenberg, and the transformations are effectively handled, but it's generally shallow and anaemic.
The entire effort was misconceived, one that offers more ham than steak.
Less an outright horror film than its predecessor and more a straightforward psychological study. Most of the earlier sex is replaced by a stubborn, straightlaced morality.
The story behind the film (nobody was allowed to see pictures of Tracy transformed prior to release) is more interesting than the film itself, but it's still hard to go wrong with a cast like this.
A little Freudian theory is a dangerous thing. It can make a piece of errant hokum dizzy with significance.
Spencer Tracy is miscast and overrated in one of the weakest adaptations of the story to date.
...it renders the uttermost strengths of the silent film era, in which the audience was dependent on what went into the picture instead of what came out of the speaker.
Under Victor Fleming's direction, it's sober and turgid but far from unwatchable, thanks exclusively to the caliber of the performances.
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