Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)

"The world is yours, darling...the moment is mine."

Dr. Henry Jekyll (Tracy) is a gifted and revered doctor.  He is in love with Beatrix Emery (Turner), but her father, Sir Charles Emery (Crisp), is concerned with Jekyll's radical new ideas.  Jekyll thinks it's possible to remove the good and evil natures of a person.

He throws himself in the study and creates a serum that could work, and begins testing it on himself.  The serum changes everything about him, and he creates a different persona: Mr. Hyde.  Hyde is a violent person, with a gruffer personality and voice.  Hyde begins a relationship with barmaid Ivy Peterson (Bergman), who expressed an interest in Jekyll after he rescued her.

What life will Jekyll choose?

Like Frankenstein, this is a horror classic that I thought I knew (based on cartoons of my youth), but in reality, I didn't have the whole story.  I knew the story of Jekyll and Hyde because of Bugs Bunny:

I know, I know, as a Literature lover I should read the actual novel... but till that happens, I read a basic description online.  Also, for Christmas last year, I bought TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Horror (House of Wax 1953 / The Haunting 1963 / Freaks / Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1941).  This Halloween seemed like the perfect time to start watching these films.  I decided to start with the oldest film, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde... which ended up being the only film I watched (as 1. I was busy and 2. I had several "classic" horror films in my Netflix queue, so I decided to work my way through those).

When I looked up this version on IMDb, the comments said that the 1931 Fredric March version was better, and that this film was considered a black mark on Spencer Tracy's career.  At this point I haven't seen any other version of the story (unless you count the 2007 BBC series "Jekyll," so I don't know how it compares to other films.

Spencer Tracy is an interesting choice for the lead.  He is a talented actor, but I don't love him in this part.  And it was interesting to see Ingrid Bergman as the "bad" girl.  She was supposed to play Beatrix, but convinced the producers to switch her to Ivy.  She does ok in the part.  Based on the talent of the cast, I expected this to be better.  It isn't bad, but it isn't great.  Perhaps it gets better with subsequent viewings.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) 113 minutes
Director: Victor Fleming
Starring: Spencer Tracy as Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde
Ingrid Bergman as Ivy Peterson
Lana Turner as Beatrix Emery
Donald Crisp as Sir Charles Emery
Ian Hunter as Dr. John Lanyon