Round Up 1941, Part One

According to the Internet Movie Database, of the 974 films made in 1941, 24 fall under the headings of horror, science fiction or fantasy. They are:

Adventures of Captain Marvel 
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 
Here Comes Mr. Jordan 
Hold That Ghost 
Horror Island 
Invisible Ghost 
King of the Zombies 
La corona di ferro 
Man Made Monster 
Mr. Bug Goes to Town 
Old Mother Riley's Ghosts 
Princess Cinderella 
Slaying Dragon by Supernatural Power 
Smilin' Through 
Spooks Run Wild 
Sweetheart of the Campus 
The Black Cat 
The Body Disappears 
The Devil and Daniel Webster 
The Devil Commands 
The Ghost Train 
The Monster and the Girl 
The Wolf Man   
Topper Returns   

Universal's The Wolf Man interests me less than it probably should, but if you know anything at all about classic horror films, you don't need my opinion on it anyway. What we're in search of here is the odd, obscure, and overlooked -- and yet, I find I can't go there until I find out something about the Spencer Tracy Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (Dir: Victor Fleming).

I've never seen any of the early Jekyll and Hyde films, largely because, until fairly recently, I didn't like the concept. It just sounded like another mad scientist to me. What changed?

Well, I was unexpectedly taken with Neil Jordan's unfairly maligned Mary Reilly, starring Julia Roberts as a particularly delicate member of Dr. Jekyll's household cleaning staff. The first time I saw it I disliked it, but as sometimes happens to me, it stuck in my memory, and when I went back to it I discovered a new favourite. It's based on a novel by one Valerie Martin, which its fans say was desecrated by the film, but I haven't read it yet and therefore cannot comment.

Then I saw Walerian Borowczyk's Docteur Jekyll Et Les Femmes, aka Bloodlust, aka seven other titles, which made an even bigger impression upon me with its hallucinatory, nightmare sexuality (its unavailability on DVD is a terrible oversight that I hope some outfit like Severin will correct at some point in the near future). So I read the Robert Louis Stevenson original, and let's just say that I'm a convert. It's astonishingly fine, vivid, powerful stuff. Consider the following excerpt:

I was coming home from some place at the end of the world, about three o'clock of a black winter morning, and my way lay through a part of town where there was literally nothing to be seen but lamps. Street after street and all the folks asleep -- street after street, all lighted up as if for a procession and all as empty as a church -- till at last I got into that state of mind when a man listens and listens and begins to long for the sight of a policeman. All at once, I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who was running as hard as she was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child's body and left her screaming on the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see. It wasn't like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut. I gave a few hallos, took to my heels, collared my gentleman, and brought him back to where there was already quite a group about the screaming child. He was perfectly cool and made no resistance, but gave me one look, so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me like running. The people who had turned out were the girl's own family; and pretty soon, the doctor, for whom she had been sent put in his appearance. Well, the child was not much the worse, more frightened, according to the Sawbones; and there you might have supposed would be an end to it. But there was one curious circumstance. I had taken a loathing to my gentleman at first sight. So had the child's family, which was only natural. But the doctor's case was what struck me. He was the usual cut and dry apothecary, of no particular age and colour, with a strong Edinburgh accent and about as emotional as a bagpipe. Well, sir, he was like the rest of us; every time he looked at my prisoner, I saw that Sawbones turn sick and white with desire to kill him.

Now that I read it again I see that the little girl was not as horribly injured as for some reason I misremembered her being, but the callousness of Hyde -- he is so indifferent to suffering that he doesn't even notice her until the mob stops him -- frightens me on a level to which only Dostoevsky, David Lynch and (oddly enough) G.K. Chesterton have ever penetrated. And when the doctor has that atavistic reaction to the man -- a revulsion as violent and powerful as if he beheld a poisonous spider or reptile -- and his professional instinct suggests that it would greatly benefit the human condition if he were to simply cut Hyde out of it, well...

It's the human being without empathy, but fully equipped with all the other usual drives and desires, that frightens me more than just about anything else. They're like sharks with pants on. And that's why Jekyll and Hyde, now that I think I understand where Stevenson was coming from, interests me very much indeed. Borowczyk understood it; Neil Jordan's Mary Reilly appears to have been inspired by Stevenson's trampled innocent; the question becomes, did Victor Fleming connect with the material, or is the Spencer Tracy Jekyll and Hyde just another day at the studio?

Well, the story goes that Tracy was forced into the role against his will, and the All Movie Guide review suggests that his Hyde looks more drunk than diabolical (check the Nick Nolte style mugshot on the left to see if you agree). On the other hand, it appears to be the consensus that the previous, pre-code version starring Fredric March is very good indeed, and it comes on a double feature DVD with the Tracy. So that's appealing.