Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

I gave that four and a half.

And then I watched Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from 1931, which I gave five stars and it did replace forgotten Island on my top four.

Wow.

Big news.

Now at this point, Frederick March was one of the top actors in Hollywood.

He won an Oscar for Best Actor in 1932 for his version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

He also starred in popular films like Designed for Living.

Death Take a Holiday, Les Miserables, Anna Karenina, Anthony Adverse, and the original Star is Born from 1937, along with Nothing Sacred.

Now, since this is an episode about exploring Bach in all his dimensions, let us talk about Bach in film and television, because his music has been woven into the fabric of cinema in ways that are sometimes profound, sometimes surprising, and occasionally downright sinister.

The earliest significant film use of Bach was the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, one of the most recognizable pieces of music ever written, which appeared as early as Ruben Mamoulian's 1931 film, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, establishing what became a lasting association between this particular work and darkness, mystery, and the macabre.

Walt Disney's Fantasia in 1940 used the same work in a spectacular abstract visual sequence arranged by Leopold Stokowski, bringing it to mass audiences worldwide.

The Goldberg variations have had a particularly cinematic afterlife.

And we're going to very shortly get into another one that she stars alongside Frederick March.

But she plays a huge part in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which is also another, I think, I would consider one of the most important pre-code films.

And I think that alongside her performance in this show, what they could get away with in cinema.

And you could also see how American cinema was like, we need to scale back a little bit.

And she gives really great performances.

And their collaboration really is magic to me.

And then Frederick March also had starred in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

His most prominent roles were still ahead of him.

Yeah.

Which is going to be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The Frederick March version, 1931.

Yeah, the 31 version.

We got Frederick March.

who won for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

But there was an interesting footnote to this.

What's that, Adam?

Potion counts as science fiction.

But he does win, and it's a great performance.

If you've not seen the original, the very original Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1931... with Frederick March.

Highly recommend it.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde came out in 1931 and is the first horror movie to take home an Academy Award.

We're talking about it this week on the Golden Hour Film Podcast.

Music Hello everybody, welcome back to the Golden Hour Film Podcast.

I do try and save them for September, October, November.

But we'll talk about every film that we've watched recently towards the end of this episode.

First and foremost, we are talking about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as they all call him in this film.

This...

Mm-hmm.

So they join a group before them that, uh, w- is remarkably short, includes, uh, Fredric March in 1931's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Ruth Gordon nearly four decades later for Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby-

Right

...

It's the 1935 adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, featuring an iconic performance by Ronald Colman.

And rounding out this incredibly elite club is a pre-code horror masterpiece from 1931, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, adapted from the Robert Louis Stevenson novella.

A very different kind of adaptation.

It is.

A truly great fundamentally sound narrative doesn't require a cinematic gimmick to score above 90%.

That makes a lot of sense.

Take the 1931 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The director, Rouben Mamoulian, utilized groundbreaking subjective camera work and revolutionary practical makeup to capture the visceral horror and the psychological duality of Stevenson's text.