DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1931)
This movie was not at all what I was expecting in that the subject matter was much darker than I ever imagined it would be. The abuse Mr. Hyde inflicts on Ivy is just so terrible. The movie is well made and interesting, it will keep your attention, and even features some POV camera perspective shots which were certainly innovative for its time.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Trigger Warning Domestic Abuse, Implied Rape, Suicide Attempt
Our movie starts with the familiar and haunting Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Bach. It also begins with our good doctor giving a speech but I have to be entirely honest with you, I had to watch the speech twice because the first time I was so completely and utterly distracted by his stage makeup. It isn’t ostentatious but it is just enough to notice that it’s there (the tails of his eyebrows are the dead give away) and it seeps under my skin and plucks at my attention. On the second listening of his speech I hear him talking about the splitting of the self, the good and the evil becoming two (2) separate entities. Most people brush off his lecture but others think he is a genius. Next he goes to visit his patients and is late to seeing his lady love and other guests because of said patients. A friend tells him he cannot keep shirking off seeing important people just to keep caring for patients (how dare he be a good doctor!) and Jekyll responds, “It’s the things one can’t do that always tempt me.” By the way his name isn’t pronounced the way I’m used to hearing it, “Jek-” is pronounced like the word “cheek.” Anyway, once Jekyll makes it to the party he dances with his lady love, Muriel, then absconds with her to the garden. They want to get married soon but her father is making them wait several months which is incredibly disappointing to the lovebirds. They ask him at the end of the party if he will let them marry sooner and he is offended by the ask. Dejected, and rejected, Jekyll begins to work his way home when he overhears a commotion, a woman in distress. This is when he meets Ivy who tries to hypnotize him with her bare leg. She steals a kiss from him just as his friend walks in and the friend thinks a lot more than a kiss went on. Jekyll is still pretty singularly minded on loving Muriel but doesn’t deny eyeing Ivy, he is, after all, only human.
Now Dr. Jekyll is working in his lab with his stunning eyeliner on, they really got his waterline just right. He mixes up a potion with all the bubbling beakers and odds and ends on his work table. He looks at the glass in his hand with the madness only a scientist can muster and (after locking the door, writing a quick note (in case he dies), and eyeing himself in the mirror) he drinks his elixir. At first he just remembers things that made him mad, but then he starts to turn. The transformation is very ape-like with teeth protruding out past the lips and sharp canines sticking out like fangs. Jekyll doesn’t stay in this new form long because his butler knocks worryingly on the door so Jekyll has to answer as himself. When asked who was speaking before, Jekyll names his alter ego “Hyde.” While visiting Muriel, Jekyll finds out she will be going away for a while and he will see even less of her than he already does. Completely defeated by this news, he reminds himself about his scientific successes and turns back into Hyde. Once in his new skin Hyde makes a beeline for Ivy and finds her at the music hall. He beckons her to his table. She is largely taken aback by his appearance, most people are. Hyde is also very aggressive, when someone else tries to get Ivy’s attention he breaks a bottle and brandishes it at the man. Ivy is very scared of Hyde now who is not so subtly threatening that they better leave together or else.
Cut to Jekyll’s butler answering the door for a friend but Jekyll isn’t in and hasn’t been for days, he has been largely MIA. Back at Ivy’s, she and her landlord discuss her violent new roommate who appears as if summoned. The landlord leaves so it is just Ivy and Hyde, Hyde who grabs Ivy and squeezes her tightly. She recoils at his touch but tries her best to act like she isn’t repulsed. She answers him in yes and no, Sir’s. He touches bruises on her wrists and threatens to do much worse if she is to step out of line. Hyde read in the paper that Muriel would be returning and he knew he had to go back to being Jekyll so he told Ivy he would be gone a while. She was relieved and he got angry at her for being relieved. Then he heavily implied he was going to force her to have sex with him before we cut away. It was a hard scene to watch, Ivy went through a lot. Back at home, Jekyll, who looks like Hell, throws away the back door key and tells his butler he won’t be using it anymore (no more naughty nights out). But what about Ivy who is having her back treated because she was whipped? She receives an envelope from Dr. Jekyll containing money (guilt money) and is stunned. Jekyll is now back on his early marriage kick and he and Muriel ask her father if they can be wed sooner. This time he gives in on the principle of their happiness. Dr. Jekyll is over the moon, he returns home and plays a jaunty tune on the organ. But he has a visitor. Dr. Henry Jekyll really thought he could send a perfect stranger an envelope with money (and no message) and that she wasn’t going to follow up. Men are wild creatures. He looked genuinely surprised when Ivy walked in the room and held up the money.
Ivy refused to accept it and when Jekyll asked why she just showed him her bloodied back and burst into tears. She told him about the abusive Hyde and how she would never be rid of him. The look on Jekyll’s face is one of deep horror and remorse. Ivy sobs at his feet. He promises Ivy she will never see Hyde again. She believes him. The next day Jekyll is on his way to the party at which they will announce the new wedding date when seeing a cat going after a bird somehow triggers Hyde to reappear without drinking any concoction. Hyde heads right for Ivy. Poor Ivy, drinking wine, feeling safe and relieved, when the man of her nightmares comes in her door. He is furious with her for confiding in Jekyll, the man he hates most in the whole world. More than just being afraid that Hyde is back, Ivy is hurt that Jekyll not only broke his promise but apparently told Hyde all about their conversation. Just like that Hyde strangles Ivy to death. Her neighbors arrive but they are too late. Hyde then runs, he runs like a bat out of hell. He gets a note to a friend who gathers the chemicals he needs to become Jekyll then brings them to Hyde. The friend then holds a gun to Hyde, he wants to see that Jekyll is safe, so Hyde must make the potion, drink it, and transform, in front of the friend. He does just that and then he just sort of holds his arms out in a low caliber “Ta-da” sort of motion. The friend is stunned because now he also knows that Jekyll is a killer.
Jekyll must call things off with Muriel and he goes to do just that. He does a piss poor job of it, though. He just sort of whines and makes her feel bad for him without explaining any of why he has to break it off with her (I don’t know why he can’t just say he was unfaithful, it is certainly true). As he is leaving, seeing Muriel sobbing on her piano triggers Hyde to surface and he attacks Muriel! Her father and butler come to the rescue so thank goodness she wasn’t killed like poor Ivy. The handle of Jekyll’s cane broke off in the struggle as Hyde ran home so even though he turned back into Jekyll the police had found the broken handle and knew he was somehow Jekyll! Then he turned into Hyde right in front of everyone. It was a mad dash all around the lab, Hyde climbing all over everything and throwing various equipment at cops and townsfolk. Finally Hyde was fatally shot and he slowly turned back into Jekyll. In the end, only the butler was sad for Dr. Jekyll’s death.
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