Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on the IMDb
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Warner Brothers: Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman,
Lana Turner, Donald Crisp,
Ian Hunter in a Victor Fleming film. Part of a "Classic Double Feature"
with the 1932 version on the other side of the disc. Light on features
(though there is a commentary track on the earlier edition) with just a trailer
for this movie and a Bugs Bunny cartoon. I just watched this one tonight
for the first time in about 15 or so years, and it came off better than I had
remembered it -- I've always been a little prejudiced against this version, and
to a lesser degree John Barrymore's 1920 Jekyll and Hyde, because I grew up with
Fredric March drilled into my head as Mr. Hyde (I think I had a game where March
represented the villain on the game card!). Anyway, I had a beer at the
start of this one, which caused me to doze off for about ten minutes right
around the halfway point of this film, waking up to Ingrid Bergman, as poor girl
Ivy, being terrified by the nasty version of Tracy. I'm not a huge Bergman
fan, but she really was excellent in this movie. Her real accent would
surface every so often, but her British accent was a nice attempt, especially
considering Tracy spoke like Tracy. That's no knock on Spence, it would
have been too distracting had he attempted an accent, and his performance was
great enough where it was not needed. Donald Crisp was fine playing Lana
Turner's father, though Lana playing Jekyll's fiance kind of disappears because
of the other performances. A lot of sexual tension in this one, surprising
for the time period, but that's as the story should be -- Jekyll frustrated over
the delayed wedding to Beatrix (Turner) visits lower-class Ivy after taking his
potion. After awhile he doesn't need the potion to turn and when he
finally reveals his other (truer?) self to Ivy he strikes down the main cause of
all of frustrations, her father (Crisp). Sorry if that's a spoiler, but
it's the basic outline of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel and all of the movies,
so you really shoulda known already! The best scene in the entire flick,
and I'd be surprised if this wasn't a universal opinion, it that little vision
that Spence has the first time he turns over to Hyde, the one involving both
Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner where he's wielding a whip, which I would think
is pretty strong stuff to slip by the code--maybe the film redeemed itself in
the eye of the censor by opening in Church and closing with the 23rd Psalm.
By the way, Peter Godfrey is also very good in this as Jekyll's butler, Barton
McLane gets high billing but very little camera time.
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