Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (1912) is the earliest surviving film version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tale, writes Barry McCann
Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde is one of the three classic Victorian horror tales which, like Dracula and Frankenstein, became more popularly defined by their film adaptations. Or, more to the point, redefined.
The original 1886 Robert Louis Stevenson novella is actually titled Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, because he wrote it as a mystery story concerning the arrival in London society of the malevolent Edward Hyde. The initial concern of the story’s actual main protagonist, the lawyer Gabriel John Utterson, is not only who the mysterious Hyde is but also his apparent hold over the respectable Dr Henry Jekyll, who seems to be protecting him.
It is only in the story’s final section that the relationship between Jekyll and Hyde is revealed, and the story of how this came to be is told in flashback. When Richard Mansfield adapted the story for the stage a year later, writer Thomas Russell Sullivan replotted the action along chronological lines and added a fiancé for Henry Jekyll, and this became the model for future retellings.
The first screen version was produced in 1908 by the Polyscope Company and ran 16 minutes, but is now lost, as is the 1910 Danish version which added the twist of the whole story being a dream from which Jekyll wakes up. The 1912 version is the earliest surviving adaptation and originally ran for two reels, making it the longest to date.
Produced by the Thanhouser studio and directed by Lucius Henderson, it starred James Cruze as both Jekyll and Hyde, though actor Harry Benham later claimed to have doubled as Hyde in some scenes to speed up the filming schedule, as he could be put into makeup while Cruze was filming his scenes.
The film opens with a page from a medical book claiming it is possible to divide a person’s good from their evil with the use of certain drugs. Jekyll tries this on himself and transforms into the hideous Hyde. Having proved it can be done, Hyde takes the drug again and reverses to Jekyll.
In the months that follow, however, Hyde begins emerging without the drug and can only revert back with it. Jekyll by now is engaged to the local minister’s daughter, played by Florence La Badie, and at one point turns into Hyde while they are out courting. He also bludgeons her father to death, making him a murderer.
Now on the run from the police (well, one police constable), Hyde barricades himself in the laboratory only to discover that the antidote has run out. Faced with the prospect of being permanently trapped as Hyde, he commits suicide by drinking poison before he can be arrested.
The film is very scaled down with a small cast and is no longer set in the urban landscape of London – which is integral to Stevenson’s tale – but in a sleepy English hamlet which looks more like a mid-west village. Interestingly, the novel’s child stomping scene is represented in a scene where Hyde knocks down a small girl while on the run.
As said, this is the earliest surviving film version of Jekyll and Hyde, but not in its entirety. There are no known complete prints of the original two-reel edition. What remains today is a 12-minute reconstruction from surviving elements which manage to form a complete plot, though with some obvious leaps in the narrative flow.
For example, an early scene where Jekyll is debating use of the drug with a fellow physician only now exists as a snippet. Also missing is the section where Jekyll obtains lodgings for Hyde to cover up his connection, and a sequence where Jekyll’s friends have become aware of a connection, and wonder why such a respectable figure would have anything to do with the villain.
But there are a couple of elements that distinguish this version. It is thought to be the first where the transformation scene is achieved by a dissolve, as opposed to the 1908 original which had one continuous shot of actor Hobart Bosworth contorting his body into a hunchbacked position and sliding part of the wig he was wearing lower down over his forehead – how the 1910 version achieved this is lost to time.
It has also been noted that Jekyll’s motivation in this film is purely scientific experiment as opposed to personal indulgence in the sordid delights that gratified Victorian hypocrisy. This is probably why the screenplay had Hyde being able to further emerge without the serum after just one go with it. Jekyll’s scientific curiosity is satisfied with that one first transformation; it is Hyde who has other ideas.
This version was quickly succeeded and eclipsed just a year later by the two-reel Universal adaptation with King Baggot in the dual role, and which adhered more in tone with the novella while following the plot construction of the Thomas Sullivan play. However, the Cruze film is worth watching as another stage in the cinematic development of the story that would lead on to the classic versions with John Barrymore and Fredric March. Their roots are all there.
