Otis Turner | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde / 1908 [Lost film]

 an early model

by Douglas Messerli

 

George F. Fish and Luella Forepaugh (screenplay, adapted from their stage drama and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), Otis Turner (presumed director) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde / 1908 || Lost film

 

Perhaps the earliest Jekyll and Hyde films, now lost, was Otis Turner’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of 1908, a 16-minute, one reel film, adapted from another play from the one I mention above, a four-act drama, by George F. Fish and Luella Forepaugh, which was presented on stage in 1904, also derived from Stevenson’s novella. Turner’s film is also considered to be the first US horror movie.

     Like many of the films that follow, Dr. Jekyll (Hobart Bosworth) begins the film vowing his love for a woman, in this version named Alice (Betty Harte), the vicar’s daughter. Suddenly, seized by his chemical addiction to the formula, he begins to convulse, transforming into the evil beast who attacks Alice, her father attempting to come to her defense but, as in numerous later versions, is murdered by Hyde.

      In his lawyer’s office soon after Jekyll now faced with being executed for the crime, momentarily returns to being himself, but apparently again turns into Hyde, begging from his friend Dr. Lanyon the chemicals he needs, which Lanyon provides. Drinking the potion, he returns to Jekyll once more and is again haunted by visions of himself on the gallows. He takes poison, killing both himself and Hyde as do nearly several of the other versions of Jekyll that follow.

      The film was evidently successful enough that producer William N. Selig released another 7-minute version in 1909 titled A Modern Dr. Jekyll, a film that has also been lost. Apparently it was a comic version where, in one of his transformations, Jekyll turns into a girl on a swing.

      Another version of the film by the same name, directed by Sidney Olcott, was also released in 1908, and in 1910 August Blom directed a Danish language version of the film Den Skaebnesvangre Opfindelse (The Fatal Invention). That same year saw another Jekyll/Hyde film titled The Duality of Man.

        Before 1920, there were 11 further versions, the 1912 Lucis Henderson Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde I write about below, and the following: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1913, Herbert Brenon);  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1913, Kineto-Kinemacolour in color); A Modern Jekyll and Hyde (1913, Robert Broderick); a German film Der Andere (1913, Max Mack); Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1914, Starlight productions); Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Done to a Frazzle (1914, Charlie de Forrest); another German film, parts of which have been restored by the Munich Filmmuseum, Ein seltsamer Fall / Sein eigner Mörder (1914, Richard Oswald); Horrible Hyde (1915, Howell Hansell); Miss Jekyll and Madame Hyde (1915, Charles L. Gaskill), the first female version; and Luke’s Double (1916, Harold Lloyd), a comic version about a man who after reading the tale has a nightmare.

       The same year that saw John Stuart Robertson’s 1920 version, about which I write below, there were five other remakes of and other works derived from the Stevenson story: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920, Charles J. Hayden); a German work, Der Januskopf (Janus-Faced, aka Love’s Mockery) (1920, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau); Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920, Arrow Film Corporation); When Quackel Did Hyde (1920, Charles Gramlich); and an animated short staring the comic strip figure Happy Hooligan Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Zip (1920, Gregory La Cava). In 1925 Percy Pembroke and Joe Rock directed another comic version starring Stan Laurel, Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde, which I review below.

       I review Rouben Mamoulian’s 1931 version of the film, but after that, 9 more films appeared from 1932 to 1940 including a Betty Boop movie, a Mickey Mouse version, and a Looney Tunes stuttering pig cartoon. I again tackle Victor Fleming’s 1941 remake and other later versions.

 

Los Angeles, December 1, 2021

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (December 2021).