In my post on Dracula (1979) I wrote about the most popular characters in cinematic pop culture. I found over 350 versions of mad scientist Dr. Jekyll and his murderous alter-ego Mr. Hyde, but few are well known, and I’ve only seen 10 titles for this project. This version is from Paramount Pictures, trying to cash in on Universal’s success. They gave the film a sizable budget and cast big stars, ending up with 3 Oscar Nominations, including a Best Actor win for Fredric March.
The reason why the success rate for this story is so low is that Hyde is crafted to be a de-evolved human, so he often has an ape-like appearance, that makeup artists love to lean into, but you don’t have to go too far before it becomes comical that people would even engage with this ape man. Hyde is also meant to represent primal man, so he’s a brute, and especially likes to beat women with his cane. That part of the story is always hard to watch, especially when Ivy is the most developed role for an actress. So we have the physical and emotional abuse on someone we like, such as Miriam Hopkins here or Ingrid Bergman in the 1941 version.
The 1941 version stars Spencer Tracy, who does the dual role with minimal makeup, but is hardly more successful. (It’s just outside the Top 1000). My favorite version of this story is the 1960 Hammer Horror, The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll, which makes the brilliant decision to have Hyde be the more handsome and classy version of Dr. Jekyll, capturing the charm of evil.
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