1920 might have been 100 years ago, but the films made that year are nothing to be scoffed at. It was a good year for horror and German expressionism, with both Robert Wiene and F.W. Murnau flexed their muscles in great films, some of which are considered lost. It was also a good year for film adaptations based on gothic literature, marking the beginning of the book vs film debate that torments and enthralls us to this day, while moving away from both literature and theatre by exploring what the new medium had to offer.
The Curious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, is, together with Frankenstein, one of the most popular and adapted gothic stories of both literature and film history. Its appeal lies with the darkness that looms just beneath the surface, the duality that hides with each of us. What makes us revisit this story time and again, with countless film adaptations and reinterpretations? Let’s focus on one of the earlier adaptations and find out, shall we?
One of these adaptations, which is over 100 years old and which still resonates with audiences today, still inspiring generations of filmmakers, film scholars and film composers, is John S Robertson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, released in 1920, starring John Barrymore in the dual role. What makes John Barrymore’s silent performance stand out and echo over the decades as one of the most creative and creatively frightening performances put to celluloid? The clash between the old and the new world, where technical achievement meets entertainment meets literature, that’s where you’ll find Barrymore’s performance in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Robert Louis Stevenson’s material is deeply ingrained in Victorian values. It presents the two facets of human nature as a response to the tight lacings of an Imperialist society, for which the appearance of respectability was everything. Riddled by a crippling illness all his life, Stevenson himself was fascinated by the idea of escape from one body, from one way of life into another, to transform, to become someone else. He was also fascinated with the duality of human nature, as well as with the effort the Victorians were putting in keeping up with appearances. Behind the façade of respectability, the rot was starting to smell. A direct response to this is the late 19th century gothic literature, which is also represented here by references to Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Here we go again, though, focusing on the lives, experiences, and writings of middle-class white men. Why? The answer is – historically, as we all know, the voices of anyone who wasn’t a middle-class English-speaking white man, echoing across the ages, have been silenced, or attempted to be silenced. In a way, focusing, as Robert Louis Stevenson did, on the burden of the “poor middle-class British gentleman” proved to be fruitful for literature. It was this burden that led, and still leads to many a frightful story, some chillingly true, some allegorical, but all ultimately reflective of a society that has been telling men out there for centuries to “buck up” and put on a respectable front for the sake of the propriety, manliness, or an equally imagined prestige. To exacerbate these imagined rules of behaviour amongst men, along came Hollywood. Early Hollywood was the 20th century equivalent to the first stone carvings.
We could argue that what gave birth to the youthful spirit of the Roaring Twenties was the cultural boom in both America and Western Europe in the wake of the Great War. Cinema was a chance to represent the youthful and creative sensibilities of the artists who were about to shed their Victorian tight lacings, break boundaries, live freely as if there were no tomorrows.
In 1920, Hollywood was still a teenager. For its parents, the theatre and English literature, it was the quiet before the storm. The big studios weren’t yet fully established, as they were just sprouting wings and getting the hang of this new media channel. Stardom was in infancy, the first ever publicity stunt having just transformed “the Biograph Girl” into the movie star “Florence Lawrence.” Stage actors had now stopped turning their noses at roles in front of the cameras, understanding that the new medium was not a fad. It had been 35 years –he cinema was here to stay. Already, at the turn of the century, visionary directors had begun to experiment. France’s Alice Guy, Louis Feuillade, and George Méliès led the way in terms of special effects, while Max Linder taught both Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton a thing or two about slapstick.
That very same year, John Barrymore was a light comedian and theatre matinee idol who would play 2 important roles: Richard III on stage and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on screen. The latter had been done for the cameras before and would be again, many times over, including no less than four competitive versions released that same year — now forgotten by history or lost. One such lost film would forever be dreamed of and regretted by diehard fans, as it was directed by F.W. Murnau, starring Conrad Veidt and Bela Lugosi. It was Der Janus-Kopf, now a whispered whiff of nitrate smoky dream that belongs in German Expressionism heaven.
Delving deeper into Barrymore’s background, one can see the shadows of a Hyde character as well as remnants of Victorian respectability that defined his character. Born in 1885 to a family of Philadelphia’s theatre royalty, he may have known a thing or two about having to uphold a certain image to the public. As he shed the matinee idol persona and ventured into serious acting, Barrymore’s persona became the more controversial the more serious roles he tackled. His name would forever remain in the annals of cinema history as one of the greats. In the mid-1920s, he took the London stage by storm with his Shakespearean tour, proving he was much more than just a great profile and impressing a young Laurence Olivier along the way. With Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Barrymore announced himself as a great screen talent, marking the beginning of a tumultuous cinematic career.
Like any great piece of cinema that stood the test of time, this version of Stevenson’s novella reflects on society, by being the first film adaptation to introduce threads of other Hyde as not only evil, but also lustful. He is a well rounded character that moves beyond the pure evil label. He is not beastly like Frederic March’s ape-looking Hyde. He has human traits, showing the evil that may lurk within each and every one of us. This Hyde also relates to another gothic literature antihero – Dorian Gray. This is cleverly done by screenwriter Clara Berenger, who, playing on Wilde’s Dorian Gray character development, lets the Hyde persona develop gradually. Moreover, the separation of the beings, both in appearance and in essence sets this Mr. Hyde apart from the others that came before him or after.
Mr. Hyde’s first transformation needs very little artifice. The evil hasn’t set in fully. It is not fully developed. It’s just separated from the seemingly pure Dr. Jekyll, so how grotesque can he be? The face of Dr. Jekyll is still there. The difference is minimal, but the effect is long lasting. The madness reflects in the eyes. There is something insidious about Barrymore’s performance. He gradually grows into Hyde’s persona, as if to indicate that there’s not so much a separation, but a respectful alliance, a transformation that happens almost organically, an abandonment to the dark side, a dance of the wills. What Robert Louis Stevenson tried to convey in the novella and what Barrymore succeeds with ease is to show the audience that the two characters are not complete opposites.
We see Dr. Jekyll looking after the sick and the poor at the start of the film, but he is not a happy man, who dedicates his life to healing those in need out of the kindness of his own heart. He is a tormented man who does what he can to avoid temptation and to uphold the middle-class status that has been bestowed upon him. His motives in this case may be more similar to American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman than Mother Theresa. In spite of how great a humanitarian everyone believes him to be, he manages to come across as a sourpuss in search of praise for the good deeds he has done. Instead of searching to separate the evil part of his soul, what Jekyll succeeds in doing is finding a shield, a shadow behind which he can behave as he wishes, a place where there are no consequences for his actions. During the day, the Christian model of morality must be upheld at all times, but at night, or under a different guise, one is safe from judgement. At least in his mind, Dr. Jekyll can find a loophole in the new set of rules he’s been abiding by his whole life, in order to escape his own damnation. Alas he cannot. Jekyll’s soul is damned from the beginning, or at least in the eyes of the Church. A sin by thought is as bad as one by deed, according to the scriptures, so Jekyll has nowhere to hide. He is exposed as much to himself as he to the god he is trying to hide from, in spite of all his meanderings.
They say that the eyes are the windows of the soul. John Barrymore knew that and used it to great effect. In fact, the minimal make-up and prosthetics in the first transformation scene could lead one to compare Barrymore’s performance to his personal life. Barrymore didn’t want to be an actor, in spite of how excellent he was at it. He wanted to move away from the “family business”; be a true artist, a painter. He worked as an illustrator for various magazines, but this didn’t pay. Rumour has it he was already used to a certain lifestyle from an early age. The demon of alcoholism needed feeding.
Barrymore’s own experiences with alcohol were perhaps echoed in Stephen Frears’ adaptation, Mary Reilly. In it, Jekyll’s maid, Mary, talks about her father’s drinking problem and how it turned him into a different man, the alcohol being the special potion setting the evil within free. One can’t say that John Barrymore himself had a truly evil side of him that would emerge whenever he got drunk (although stories and legends abound), but we can assume that the darkness within, the bitter taste of failures and frustrations, real or imagined, might have surfaced from time to time to torment our thespian, giving him an insight into this unholy connection between good and evil.
The descent into the pits of hell also happens step by step. Hyde is only seen towards the end acting like the monstrously violent character he is portrayed in the novella. He begins by being a humpbacked lurid man, but as he becomes more independent of his host, he ventures further into the depths of depravity. His face becomes more and more uneven, as if the flesh is about to drop from his cheeks, yet another reference to The Picture of Dorian Gray. His evolution, or involution, is complete when he commits murder. There are very few close ups of Mr Hyde during the film, the camera leaving us almost an observer, until the moment when the evil becomes uncontainable and we must face our fears, look the devil straight in the face. It is all the more frightening the more we have been waiting for it, the moment Hyde unleashes his wrath upon an unsuspecting Carew, throttling him. This is the murder of the same man who invited him into temptation, thus bringing the story full circle. It is no coincidence that the Carew character who tempts Jekyll into a life of pleasure is so much like Henry Wotten, the epitome of hedonism in Oscar Wilde’s oeuvre.
By the end of the film, what becomes of Dr. Jekyll’s evil self is an arachnid, who comes to attack him and take over the host. In an ending that resembles Dorian Gray (in which Dorian has to kill his painting in order to die), Jekyll has to kill himself in order to kill Hyde, the creeping evil he’s unleashed upon the world and taken over his innermost dreams. The spider costume we see crawling into Jekyll’s bed in an ultimate act of takeover was donned by John Barrymore himself.
The special effects might not have stood the test of time, but the overarching feeling of horror that lies within the human spirit certainly has. Although the 1931 version of the story is widely considered the best one, mainly because of Rouben Mamoulian’s exquisite directing and Frederic March’s Oscar-winning performance, the 1920 version certainly has more darkness to it that transcends the mere parody of the Neanderthal man. We don’t need to hear John Barrymore utter a single word to understand his torment between what he truly is and what he’s supposed to be. His eyes are haunting our nightmares, both as the good doctor and the evil man he’s become. His performance is enriched with every new generation of music composers whose live accompaniments at the screenings of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde make the experiences even more authentic. One must remember – silent films are never silent.
