Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde premiered in Los Angeles on 24 December 1931 before wide release in January 1932.
Rouben Mamoulian‘s production was the 11th film version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella, but the first of the sound era.
39-year-old John Barrymore was asked to reprise the role, which he had played in a 1920 silent version, but Barrymore was under contract with another studio and could not appear. 34-year-old Fredric March was then cast.
The film was a commercial and critical success, and was nominated for 3 Academy Awards, including Best Adaptation (Percy Heath and Samuel Hoffenstein) and Best Cinematography (Karl Struss). March received the Oscar for Best Actor.
March’s initial transformation from Jekyll to Hyde (before the false teeth and ape-like hair) was not revealed for years, but was a combination of Wally Westmore’s makeup and Struss’s use of camera filters that suggested his face was changing.
When the Production Code was introduced in 1934, 8 minutes of the original film had to be removed (due to “sexual content”).
