Jekyll/Hyde - MGM Version

Tracy as Hyde in the 1941 version

Revisited this one again tonight, and you can sure see MGM once again loading up the film with plenty of budget pizazz with all those period sets and A+ Hollywood talent, but the Hayes Code sure did a number on this one as did unfortunate miscasting. Victor Fleming, who sure made a name for himself, could definitely handle a big production, but sometimes impressive sets, flattering lighting, period atmosphere, and robust setpieces can't overcome Tracy's lack of charisma, intensity, or punch as either Jekyll or Hyde. And while the incredible 1931 film is not as shackled by conforming to decency and good behavior, more free to bend the rules in terms of London's dirtier, salacious, lustier, and base side, Tracy not sacrificing in the makeup chair nor summoning the depraved, sadistic, hideous Hyde as expected for the role is particularly difficult to overcome. Tracy would ride this failure out and recover but in terms of ill-advised adaptations, Fleming's version is bloated with all the costumes, decor, and period London production design attractive and filling the entire screen...the studio machine spared no expense.

Tracy isn't the only one just cast erroneously. Ingrid Bergman is saddled with a barmaid supposedly from the "wrong side of the city" but she's simply too glamorous and elegant, quite opposite Miriam Hopkins' lack of refinement. The sanitized presentation, soft touch to material meant to get under the skin, glossy grandeur removing any grit and darkness, nearly complete lack of intensity and suspense, and failure to really substantiate Hyde from Jekyll, something the 1931 version quite easily done, hurt this adaptation badly. And it just feels like Tracy and Bergman are trying to inhabit clothes that don't fit them. To reemphasize my personal feelings about this, Tracy is as good as any actor when the right roles came along but barely differentiating two sides, good and evil, with a small bit of dark eyeliner, wrinkles, squinty expressions, and voice lift, not the full throttle, full throat, unrestrained, barely contained, uncaged beast takes a lot of the shine off any attempt by Fleming to wow the audience with his unlimited studio resources. Lana Turner is lovely to look at, obviously even moreso when costumed in all that period dress, but she just doesn't quite make that romantic connection with Tracy. He just, quite frankly, seems bored. And Hyde can never be boring...and that is a fatal mistake the film just can't quite escape. 3/5

* I have a grudge with MGM for depriving audiences of the 1931 film for decades, even destroying copies! That the studio would stoop so low, especially since that adaptation won March an Oscar, irked me. 

*The London streets at night helped to ease my anger towards it, and Fleming isn't to fault that the casting doesn't work out.

*I know Crisp, portraying Turner's stuffy and demanding father, from the reputable haunted house film, "The Uninvited" (1944)