Dr. Jekyll et Mr. Hyde

This is the oldest version of "Jekyll and Hyde" in existence. The film stars James Cruze, who is most famous for his film "The Covered Wagon". It was made by Thanhouser Film C. and was released on January 16 1912. and clocks in at about 11 min. I may have took a star away due to the fact that it could have been longer(the 1913 version was 26 min. only a year later). Actually, in a 1963 interview, a stock crew member named Harry Benham who worked at Thanhouser, said that he portrayed Mr.Hyde in some scenes. When you watch the film you can tell them apart because James is taller and their Hyde makeup is slightly different.

The film starts off with Jekyll briefly talking with an elderly man apparently about drugs. Then Jekyll locks himself in his lab and tests his "potion" on himself. Immiediatly a dark haired taloned beast appears in the chair, looks in his mirror (he is slightly shorter than before mmmmmmmmm)takes the drug again and transforms back into Jekyll, and then begins to write something down.

Jekyll (with his wife a ministers daughter) meet each other in front of her house and talks with her father. The next scene shows Jekyll reading a book cries out in agony rushes into his lab and now Jekyll is Hyde, Hyde grabs his hat runs out into the street knocks down a little girl rushes back to his lab and transforms into Jekyll.

Jekyll is talking to his wife in the the park and then he suddenly runs away kneels down and in the next shot is Hyde. He runs back, tries to strangle her, her father comes (from nowhere) and Hyde kills him instead. Jekyll says to his wife he is "going away" and then he runs back to his lab, a card says his potion is gone now he must remain Hyde to the end. Hyde is in his lab now. He go's on a rampage destroying his lab looking for something. Police have tracked down Hyde and are breaking down the door. just as they are about to break the door down, Hyde takes a fatal dose of poison........... when the police come in Hyde is dead. THE END

Even though this version is short, it is still pretty good and recommended.

This film is somewhat interesting for comparison to later screen adaptations, but it's probably not worth watching otherwise. It's only one reel, however, so it's not a waste of time, either. There's a lot of condensing of the story, of course, to fit the one-reel standard. (For the one-reel format, I tend to prefer the original scenarios to the adaptations, due to this subtraction.) The plot here is reduced to mostly just the transformations. The most interesting element, otherwise, is how they film those transformations. The first two are done with substitution-splicing (or stop-substitutions), but after that, the other ones are done with direct cuts, crosscutting scenes (i.e. scene of Jekyll cuts to spatially separate action, then cuts back to prior scene with Jekyll now as Hyde).

Additionally, one actor plays Jekyll and a different actor plays Hyde (at least in some scenes). I don't recall that being done in any other screen adaptations of Stevenson's novella. Thanhouser, at the time, gave sole star credit to the one playing Jekyll, James Cruze. Hyde is the meatier role here, though.

The nearest I've come to reading Robert Louis Stevenson's original text of DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE is via a Marvel comic book adaptation so I've no idea how well it compares to its source and can only judge it on its own merits and of the contemporary comparisons of cinema

Being only little over twelve minutes there is a brevity to the storytelling which doesn't harm it all and despite eliminating any complex character studies on the dark side of the individual that Stevenson might have included in his novel the story does bring a tight plot to screen

Director Lucius Henderson doesn't bring the jaw dropping visuals J Searle Dawley brought to the 1910 version of FRANKENSTEIN and you can easily guess how the transformation was achieved of Jekyll in to Hyde , one of stopping the camera , putting the make up on actor James Cruze and then having the camera run again . Very simple when you know how in 2013 but one that probably impressed an audience one hundred years ago

Of course if you want to be cynical you could claim that Cruze interpretation of Hyde is very hammy and unsubtle but let's not forget that method acting didn't exist in silent cinema and everything is melodramatic with an unwritten rule of the time that someone always has to to hold their hand to their forehead when emoting any strong feeling of surprise bus as I said you have to remember the context of when it was made

James Cruze is remembered by silent film buffs as a man who worked behind the camera, most memorably as director of one of the first great Western epics: The Covered Wagon, released in 1923. However, in earlier years he worked as an actor for the Thanhouser company of New Rochelle, New York, a studio of modest size that was active circa 1910-1917. Cruze can be seen in the role of Dr. Jekyll in Thanhouser's one-reel version of Robert Louis Stevenson's famous tale, an adaptation that is neither the best nor the worst but surely one of the fastest film versions, clocking in at just over eleven minutes. Given the time constraints, these filmmakers really had to cut to the chase! After a brief shot of Dr. Jekyll discussing his theories with an unidentified companion, he's in his lab mixing the potion, and the first transformation takes place before one minute has elapsed. Perhaps it goes without saying that we get only the highlights of the story here.

Don't expect the cobble-stone streets of Victorian London, for this is a low-budget production that appears to have been filmed in the suburbs of New Rochelle, identified only as "the village" in title cards. The presentation is straightforward and rather subdued, and the performances are low-key by the standards of the day. Hyde's makeup job is fairly restrained too, big teeth notwithstanding, certainly when compared to some of the later versions. I was a little surprised to learn that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are played by two different actors, at least in some shots. If you watch carefully you'll see that Harry Benham's Hyde is distinctly shorter than Cruze's Jekyll. Ordinarily actors relish the opportunity to play both of these roles, but perhaps the technical limitations of the time dictated this unusual casting decision.

There is one especially effective moment when Jekyll realizes he's on the verge of a transformation into his evil alter ego in the presence of his fiancée, and attempts to get away from her. Viewers familiar with the source material might be interested in a couple of minor alterations from the novel: here, Jekyll's fiancée is the daughter of a minister, and there is a plot twist in the final scene relating to Hyde's death that may come as a surprise. Over all, however, this rendition of the story is little more than a moderately interesting curio. It isn't all that exciting, sorry to say, though allowances should be made for pioneer filmmakers. You know it's still early in cinema history when the shelves in Jekyll's study are painted on the walls -- and you know the movie isn't sufficiently exciting when you find yourself examining Dr. Jekyll's bookshelves.

When I was a kid the only thing I knew about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was that they were alter egos of the same person. I knew one was good and one was bad. I thought Dr. Jekyll was bad and Mr. Hyde was good.

Why?

Because Jekyll was such a strange name. Doesn't it sound bad?

Of course I know better now. And I know that this short is just a Cliff notes version of the book. It conveys the necessary message, but it also conveys that it's all a result of drugs. There's an excerpt from a book at the beginning that reads, "The taking of certain drugs can separate man into two beings--one representing EVIL the other GOOD."

The implication being that we all have good and evil within us but we are largely able to keep the evil in check. If we should ever imbibe on drugs then we lose that inhibition and the evil takes over. The more drugs we take, the more the evil takes over.

I wish it was just drugs that brought the evil out of people.

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