(2 of 3)
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (Paramount) presents for actors the fascinating problem of how to change from the sleek and handsome Dr. Jekyll into the menacing and ugly Mr. Hyde. This problem John Barrymore solved in the silent version by rubbing his face with one hand and writhing. Fredric March takes advantage of the camera and makes the transitions less of a tour de force. The face of the handsome young British sawbones becomes by barely perceptible degrees of trick photography the visage of a sabre-toothed baboon with pig eyes and a tassel of primeval hair. The story—most macabre product of the queer brain of Robert Louis Stevenson, sometimes politely sentimental, sometimes insanely, savagely gloomy— goes much as usual, with Hollywood variations. Mr. Hyde pursues a music hall girl (Miriam Hopkins) and brutally mistreats her while Dr. Jekyll makes intermittent and respectable love to the daughter (Rose Hobart) of a bigwig. Dr. Jekyll promises the music hall girl immunity from Mr. Hyde, then finds he can no longer regulate his horrid transformations. As Mr. Hyde, he goes to the trollop's rooms and kills her. Mr. Hyde has tried clubbing the father of Dr. Jekyll's fiancee and embracing the girl herself before the picture ends with a shot of a corpse in Dr. Jekyll's laboratory.
