Horror Movie Classics IX

It would seem that the last three films I've saved to watch are all going to be silent films.

Today's entry is "Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"


The Plot:

You take kindly old Doctor Jekyll, who spends most of his free time helping the little orphan kids down at his charity clinic. When not doing good deeds he can be found trying to court his love interest Millicent.

Her dad, Sir George belittles the good doctor, telling him he is too good and to prove it takes the young doctor to a music hall. I suppose it's suppose to be like a Victorian strip club because Doctor Jekyll becomes obsessed with a dancer named Gina.


Doctor Jekyll comes up with an idea that he'll separate his two selves, into the good and for lack of a better word the "evil" side. As most of us know, this is Mr. Hyde.

The belief is that Mr. Hyde can help conquer the doctor's basic primal needs while keeping his soul squeaky clean.

As Mr. Hyde becomes more and more depraved it becomes increasingly harder for Doctor Jekyll to keep him under control.

Eventually he murders Sir George and as Millicent grieves the doctor slowly goes insane from the guilt.

I'm not gonna lie, I've never been a big fan of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde storyline. I mean you've got a 'gentleman' who underneath it all is really just a 'psycho'. I've seen it done so many times before from "Silence of the Lambs" to the Showtime series "Dexter". I suppose people like the idea that the nice guy who lives next door to your grandma and helps her take her trash out every Wednesday has half a dozen bodies buried under his cellar.

I dunno...

But-

This film was actually quite good. For a silent film the pace was good. The sets were excellent and for 1920 the special effects were out of this world. (There is a particularly good scene where a giant spider climbs on the doctor's bed and begins the devour him - and remember this was filmed in NINETEEN TWENTY!!!)

But what I really liked about the film was how it was really a comment of Victorian England and it's class system.

Let me digress for a moment...Horror - at it's best, is really just a comment on your society.

Films like "Invaders From Mars" and "Them" produced in the 1950s - were really about the Russian invasion and nuclear fallout.

Films like "Last House on the Left" and "The Exorcist" (which came on in the 1970s) reflect a world out of control...which isn't surprising for a generation that was let down after the 1960s failed to deliver what it had promised.


Films like "Friday the 13th" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1980s) show what happens when groups of teenagers run around and have sex...they die. Funny that these films started coming out when AIDS was really hitting the news.


You see horror shows us what's wrong with our society...what we REALLY fear, and let me tell you something...I fear Ronald Regan and George W. Bush more than I fear zombies and vampires.

But let me get back to my point.

Mr. Hyde can be depraved only because of the good doctor's money. He pays for impovrished women and then discards them like trash. He attacks a young boy on the street and then simply writes a check for one hundred pounds to pay the father off. It's like no matter how bad he is he can just throw money at it and keep acting however he wants. (No that's scary...because we all know it's true).

My favorite part of the movie (or at least the one that sent chills up my spine the most) was where the organ music changed to this upbeat madrigal stuff which accompanied Mr. Hyde beating Sir George to death with a cane. The music dosen't go with the violence (which goes on for quite some time) and John Barrymore is brillant in his grotusque bloodlust. Very disturbing. I can't imagine what the audiences at the time thought.

Anyway...good film over all...I'll give it four skills and an old white guy.