2014 Horror Countdown: Dr. Jekll & Mr. Hyde (1913)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1913) dir. Herbert Brenon, Independent Moving Pictures Co. of America.

The third version of Robert Lewis Stevenson’s classic (and the second oldest surviving), was also the prototype of the Universal Monsters, with the Independent Moving Picture Company opening a second branch in Hollywood not long after the film’s debut. The executive, a young immigrant named Carl Laemmle, quickly changed the company’s name to Universal Pictures. 

The film opens with Dr. Henry Jekyll (King Baggot) sending a note to his fiancée Alice (Jane Gail) and her father (Matt Snyder), cancelling his plans to attend the opera with them, as he needs to focus on his charity clinic. At the clinic, Jekyll is berated by his friend Dr. Lanyon (Howard Crampton) and his lawyer Utterson (William Sorrel), who consider his theories dangerous. 

Later that night, Alice and her father visit Jekyll. Jekyll apologizes for his actions, but he insists that his work must come first. Once the two have left, Jekyll turns his attention to his lab. There he ingests a strange potion; one he hopes will purge him of his evil side.  One agonizing transformation later the long haired and nailed being in Jekyll’s rooms calls himself ‘Mr. Hyde’ and introduces himself first to Jekyll’s servants and order them to obey him and then the city of London. 

From there things progress much the same as the previous versions. Hyde runs amuck and is cornered, forcing himself to change back, but much to Jekyll’s horror he finds himself transforming without using any chemicals. 

A rather large departure from previous versions of the story, this feature runs at nearly twenty-seven minutes, which for the time meant it was practically an epic. The story also introduces some ideas that would reappear in nearly every subsequent version, namely that Hyde is Jekyll’s sex drive given form. Midway through the film, when Jekyll is trying to cure himself of Hyde, he starts to transform…mostly when he is around Alice or even looking at her picture. There is also the possible reason for Hyde’s creation in the first place. When Hyde debuts, he rushes out to the seediest side of town and starts to rent rooms. The film tells us that “the evil man had many adventures by night” which start out with him drinking and scaring people and finally ends with him beating a child nearly to death. Hyde is presented as being pure evil, although actor Baggot seems to think ‘pure evil’ means slouching and pulling his face back.