From the 1940s: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

1941 Horror-Drama

From MGM

Directed by Victor Fleming

Starring

Spencer Tracy

Ingrid Bergman

Lana Turner

Donald Crisp

Ian Hunter

C. Aubrey Smith

Peter Godfrey

I confess I had never seen this movie before three days ago and I had never wanted to.  I always heard that it was Spencer Tracy's worst acting job and one of Ingrid Bergman's worst.  Who needs to see the worst work of two actors I much admired in one of my least famous movie genres... the horror film?

But I have now seen it because a regular reader of the blog requested it.  She never said why she wanted me to review it although I know she is quite taken with Lana Turner.

And about 10 minutes into watching it, I knew I was in trouble.  I just didn't care for what I was seeing but I kept hoping it would get better.  The fears I had all these years about watching it finally came true.  It is just not a good film.

For many, of course, there is the lure of the sheer fame of this story.  Is there anyone who has not heard of it?  It was written as a novella in 1886 by Robert Louis Stevenson and titled The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.   There was a silent 1920 version with John Barrymore and then a lauded 1931 version with Fredric March who would win an Oscar for his efforts.

This film is not based on Stevenson's work but rather that 1931 film.  The novella did not have either of the two female characters although the 1931 film did.

The story concerns itself with a 19th century English medical doctor whose experiments into the nature of good and evil transform him into the violent and murderous Mr. Hyde.  You probably already know much of the story so let's dispense with our usual blow-by-blow description and get on to some things you may not know.  But first a few of my criticisms.

When I typed in the word horror at the top of the page, I was sorely tempted to backspace through it.  Horror?!?!   More like horrorible.  My pulse was not raised for a second.  Frankly I thought Mr. Hyde murdered more than two people.  Here they are both people he knows and the murders don't happen until the end of the film.  So if by chance you might be looking for that horror, you're gonna have to wait until the end to experience it.  And even then...

A publicity photo

Additionally one doesn't get to see either of the people actually killed.  Without a movie killing being gratuitous, I do need to see a little of the about-to-be-departed.  That is where the horror comes from.  He strangles one by throwing her over a sofa but we see only his face.  We see nothing of her.  In the other scene he beats a man to death with a cane and we never see the victim even fall to the ground much less anything further.  I find myself courting a giggle when I realize neither actor who was being killed would even have to show up for work.  

One of the film's and MGM's greatest blunders was allowing Jekyll and Hyde to look the same.  The fact that his loyal, live-in butler doesn't recognize that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person is just laughable.  Oh, they do the usual clever scene of allowing us to watch a scene of transformation but, of course, it's nothing more than special effects.  Whether Jekyll or Hyde, it is so obviously Tracy.  Was MGM's makeup department on strike?  This is not something that went unnoticed by anyone and the film suffers as a result.

Then what about those British accents... or the lack of them?  Maybe some would give Bergman a bit of a pass here because, although her accent is not British, it is an accent.  But Tracy and Turner?  Turner allows her voice to go soft and feathery and one almost strains to hear her.  But Tracy, arguably America's greatest actor of his time, doesn't even give it a try.  Almost ever... in any film.  He said I don't like to do accents.  And when you're Spencer Tracy...

Victor Fleming was not the best choice for the director.  Again the studio might have considered one of their British directors.  Fleming was more the maker of adventurous, manly adventures but he thought filming a classic would be a feather in his cap.  He was looking for another prestigious picture like his own Red Dust, Captains Courageous. Test Pilot, Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz.   He was MGM's favorite director and got what he wanted.  One thing he wanted was to work again with his drinking buddy Spencer Tracy.

Tracy, Turner and Crisp

Hollywood's wicked production code was not thriving in 1931 for the prior version so it was able to dip into the psychology of the good doctor's sexual repression.  By the time of this film, things had changed and though MGM may have tried to be more daring, the code hacked away at some things, most of which would have brought some sense to the proceedings.  Here, that repression is watered down and it all seems rather shallow.  

When first released critics ripped the movie to shreds.  It was a hit with the public and its leading actors appear to be the reason why.  Tracy claimed it was his least favorite of all his films and he thought he was awful.  

The studio rejected Tracy's idea that Katharine Hepburn (at that time simply an acquaintance at the studio) would play both female parts.  MGM wisely said no.  Tracy perked up when he was told that another fellow MGM player, Lana Turner, would be added to the roster and that the studio had borrowed Ingrid Bergman from the clutches of David. O. Selznick.

But it wasn't the emoting with two beautiful costars in a classic film that exited him.  Tracy knew that he and the ladies and the director all had reputations of bedding coworkers while they made films.  Turner's reputation would grow more in a couple of years and while Bergman's would as well, she was already on her way.  Both of the men were bigtime philanderers.  

At the beginning of filming, Fleming told Tracy that he was spending time with Bergman.  Tracy also found out she was in love with the director though he didn't love her.  Then Tracy and Bergman also enjoyed a physical relationship which continued now and then for several years after completing the film.

The doctor meets the barmaid

Bergman campaigned for her role as Jekyll's sweet-as-pie fiancée, Beatrix, and she got her boss Selznick to do the same.  She said her objective at that point was to work with Tracy in just her fourth American film.  But after she signed on the dotted line, she spoke with some of the MGM brass and expressed her wish to play the bad girl.  She had played good girls in her first three films and felt she was heading in a direction she didn't want to go.  The lusty barmaid role, Ivy (a prostitute in earlier versions), was the one she coveted.  Just tell Lana Turner we're going to switch roles, she purred.  Critics found Bergman miscast as the barmaid but the actress would go on to say it was her favorite of all her roles.  I'll bet it was (wink, wink).

In her autobiography, not surprisingly Turner had another version of the role-switching.  She said that L.B. Mayer called her in for a chat.  She told him that she thought she was too young, inexperienced and afraid to play the barmaid.  She claimed the role was too deep and didn't know if she could reach those emotions.

Turner's book was a definite fun read but there were so many times I thought she was fibbing and this was one of them.  In 1941 alone she had good dramatic roles in Ziegfeld Girl, Honky Tonk and Johnny Eager.  I can't see that this barmaid was beyond her ken.  

Her peaches and cream beauty and gowns as the rich, good girl fiancée of Dr. Jekyll, whose strict father (Crisp) is opposed to the relationship, were breathtaking.  She had no problem with this role and no one complained about her acting.  Of course no one particularly applauded it either.  

While the two actresses have no standard scenes together, they do appear together in a dream-like sequence that occurs after Jekyll takes the serum.  They appear side-by-side, bare-shouldered, long hair flowing behind them and Tracy is seen behind them with a whip.  The idea was to see them as a pair of horses with Tracy lashing them.  If this was MGM's or Fleming's way of letting some repressed sexuality into the proceedings, the censors and their scissors took care of most of it.  What's left is muddled and silly.

It is interesting to me that both Turner and Bergman's personal lives, with a great focus on their sexual proclivities, would one day cause them great anguish in the face of a public backlash.

Filmed entirely at the studio, the movie does offer some realistic sets by Edwin B. Willis and art direction by Cedric Gibbons and Joseph Ruttenberg's is sheer perfection.

Here's a trailer:

Next posting:

A "B" Fox romance-drama