Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

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Turner Classic Movies recently showed two versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the 1931 film which starred Fredric March and the 1941 version starring Spencer Tracy. I DVR-ed them and watched each on consecutive nights. The storylines were very similar, but I rather prefered the Fredric March version to the Spencer Tracy edition.

I could never really buy into Ingrid Bergman as the dance hall girl, Ivy. Miriam Hopkins was superlative in that role in the earlier movie. Also, the Jekyll-Hyde transition effects in both films were crude by modern standards, however, I thought the 1931 provided a more convincing changeover. I did feel that Spencer Tracy's Hyde character was more believable than March's.

As I had enjoyed watching both films, I chose to download and read the Robert Louis Stevenson novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from Project Gutenberg. I was quite surprised to find that the story told in the 1888 novel was very different from that presented in the films. The relationships between Hyde and Ivy and between Jekyll and his fiance (Muriel Carew in 1931, Beatrix Emery in 1941) were central to the films' storylines. In the novel, neither Ivy nor Muriel/Beatrix ever existed.

If I were to quantify the degree of similarity on a scale from 0 (virtually nothing in common) to 5 (nearly identical), the similarity factor of the two films would be 4. The similarity of the novel with either film, I'd rate as a 2.

The next theatrical version written by, directed by, and starring Mark Redfield was released in 2002. I have not seen this version, but I feel it might be interesting to take a look at it some time soon.

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