Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Essential Viewing

USA

Feature Film

Director: Rouben Mamoulian

Writers: Percy Heath, Samuel Hoffenstein, Robert Louis Stevenson

Cinematographer: Karl Struss

Cast: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Rose Hobart, Holmes Herbert, Halliwell Hobbes, Edgar Norton, Tempe Pigott

Mamoulian’s wonderful film - the screen’s greatest adaptation of Stevenson’s much filmed novel, combining unparalleled visual poetry, ageless special effects, and some accomplished performances (Hopkins’s portrayal of the sexy and strong yet vulnerable Ivy Pierson is particularly eye-catching) - is a cut above the Universal monster movies of the time, and something of a genre masterpiece. Iain.Stott