Barrymore as Jekyll / Hyde & the Haunted Hotel!

As I was putting together some words on The Abominable Snowman, Turner Classics had Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1920) as their Silent Sunday Nights feature presentation and the incredible 1907 short, The Haunted Hotel which I HIGHLY recommend.

I hope to be around next year, which has absolutely no guarantees, to review Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde for the blog to celebrate its 100th anniversary. I had a ball tonight, though. Barrymore isn't my favorite actor, I must admit. He really annoyed me in Mark of the Vampire, but there's no discounting his value in the early days of cinema into its golden era where his name was synonymous with success. I didn't watch Mark of the Devil as I normally do every October. I still might but I doubt it as the month is winding down and I just don't plan to watch too many more. I plan a huge 2020 October if I am still kicking and alive, again, though, no guarantees. None a'tall. Barrymore's work as Hyde is just impeccable. He really ratchets up the facial depraved madman when approaching Jekyll's wife at the very end, only for the "good half" to decide that the only way to cull the "bad half" is to use poison made available thanks to Hyde wearing it in a ring on his finger. The dark side of the city is where Hyde would spend his time while Jekyll is left with what time his dark half gives him to carry around the weight and burden of what he no longer can control. Only in death can he halt what seems almost impossible to cage. Barrymore's facial work cannot be undervalued...makeup helps, for sure, with hair and costume particular to give him a nocturnal rodent like appearance. But it takes Barrymore fixing his face and eyes a sinister expression that gives Hyde distinction while he gentlemanly, debonair Jekyll is cuckholded and doomed the moment he drinks an experimental potion set to determine of the good and evil of man can be split apart. The intertitles are well done, some tinted and others fonted effectively to mirror whatever befalls Jekyll and follows the dark exploits of Hyde. The underbelly with its denizens and unfortunates are Hyde's domain, while Jekyll's castle speaks of a different side of the status depicting the two personas at war with each other. ****/****
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The Haunted Hotel has to be seen by any silent film aficionado. This old wayward traveler comes across a house that is haunted by spirits that cut bread and meat with a butcher knife, pulls away his clothes and napkins, spins the building, shakes it, and shifts it to and fro. By the end there is this large deity that might be considered the Devil, who arrives to snatch the man, shaking under the covers, from the bed to his doom. The animated sequence before the traveler arrives, with the dead tree branches moving and the house's eyes...it is a knockout. ****/**** An example of the clever, wit, and inventiveness of the innovators of early film. No telling what great work was lost in the silent era if this is any indication.