Best movie of this year hands down!

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The genius of Robert Louis Stevenson's is to have immortalized through "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" the internal (and eternal) battle of the forces of good and evil. The story was bound to become a myth, providing a metaphor as classic as the good and bad angel whispering conflicting advice. And Hollywood didn't wait for the talkies to tackle the subject, John Barrymore played the iconic figure in a 1920 classic. But it's the 1931 version, directed by RoubenMamoulian but most often referred to as the "Fredric March" version; that became the staple. While it's only fair to identify the movie from the character playing the lead because this is the aspect upon which relies the film's suspension of disbelief (one man but two opposite personalities), the directing of Mamoulian contributed to the film's overall impact and not just on the special effects' department. The opening alone with the subjective camera conveyed perfectly the universality of the story, we don't see Jekyll because we are Jekyll, talk about a tone- setting masterstroke.Now about Fredric March: his performance as Jekyll/Hyde earned him one of the earliest Oscars ever, establishing a long love story between the Academy and 'split' performances. Astonishingly, March doesn't play different personalities but polar opposites that make you believe they're generated by the same psyche. When March is Jekyll, you can sense some passion boiling inside his soul, when he's haranguing his students with his theories or courting his fiancée (Rose Hobart), he's like letting off the passion, a passion that comes from a tree we suspect to provide more rotten fruits. And Jekyll's speech allows him to verbally express what his performance induces, he believes we all have guilty thoughts and impulses, and maybe we're never as good as we're capable to resist the bad temptations, in the fight between good vs. evil, we are what we choose to be. There are several religious undertones, many people practice religion on a "thou shall not" basis, and even in Islamic culture, a bad action comes is a whisper from the devil. Jekyll is convinced of his power to separate between the two parts of one personality as you do with chemical products, in other words: he's playing God and displays one defining facet of his personality: hubris. And Hyde has nothing to do with it. Jekyll is strong-minded and so brave he resists the temptation by yielding to it and drinks his own potion. 1931 was the year of "Frankenstein", "Dracula" and there was no reason for "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" to be a visual disappointment. In the first mirror scene when Jekyll turns into Hyde, I expected some transitional cuts but it was so smoothly done I really felt he was changing. Animation can do it easily, but Malmounian came up with one of the most impressive special effects I've seen in an early movie. But the focus isn't just on the transition, the face also makes a statement about the nature of Hyde. The face develops a more tanned aspect and becomes hairier, more simian looking with huge teeth and large nostrils, which is not about the bestiality of Hyde but his Neanderthal look, he's not a beast but he's our ancestor, a man freed of the conveniences of good society and capable to express his lust and violence the hard way. He contradicts all these pompous Victorian men stuck in the hypocrisy of rigorous etiquette and reveal indirectly Jekyll's own impulses. When he desperately tries to convince his father-in-law to be (Halliwell Hobbes) to marry his daughter, in fact, he secretly wants to kick the old man's ass and go 'consume' his relationship. That's what's eating him. That's how I felt it anyway from March' performance.But how about a woman who literally gave herself to Jekyll? I'm speaking naturally of Ivy Pearson, the real heart of the film, played with emotional density by Myriam Hopkins. She falls in love with Jekyll after he rescued her from some brutish thugs and when she can see that he's attracted, she tempts him. Jekyll embraces her, kisses her but then pulls himself together and leaves her. Was it because of the providential intrusion of Pr. Lanyon (Holmes Helbert) or because he had to wait for Muriel for months? Whatever the reason is, there's name for the bitterness in Jekyll's mind: frustration. Jekyll can handle it but Hyde wouldn't have none of it. In a story all based on a metaphor, even the conflicting forces are symbolized through one character and they fantastically collide over the course of the film.Now, the directing deserves a mention. Yes, special effects do justice to the story and exude that Gothic atmosphere from Victorian or Dickensian London and the distorted ominous shadows in the fogs but Malmounian does more. Afire with the thrills of the story, he uses split screens many times to remind us the leitmotif of duplicity, some boiling water illustrates Jekyll's impulses and what can you say about the sight of Hopkins making her ankle swing and the image slowly fading out but still transposed with the face of March, playing like a ticking bomb. Fritz Lang couldn't have done it better.And 1931 wasn't just the peak of expressionist cinema, it was the pre-Code period, which is perhaps why this version is so superior to the remake. Myriam Hopkins personifies the sexual temptation Jekyll is describing and once he becomes Hyde, he gets at her as if she was the incarnation of this temptation, forgetting that it was Jekyll's goodness that attracted her. As if the duplicity wasn't just in the actions but the reactions, quite a comment on society's hypocrisy.Indeed, the story holds up very well today, as for the ending, well, we know hell is paved by the good intentions, Jekyll's were excellent, but hubris... no one plays God and gets away with it.

Less a horror film than a morality fable (you can choose evil but then you cannot choose good again), this entry of Stevenson's story is sublime. Supremely endowed by Mamoulian's directorial prowess and effective proclivity to innovation, the film towers above its own dated restrictions freeing itself to an aesthetic highland where even pose and verbose dialogue cannot hinder its virtues.March is neurotically fierce as Jekyll and grotesquely fearsome as the Neanderthalian Hyde, Hopkins does her usual superlative work and, above all, Mamoulian brings it home thundering his well-honed, yet experimental, mastery (pov narration, split screen imagery, pioneering use of sound, camera movement, editing pace, visual effects, you name it..). A master('s)work.

This film is far superior to the 1941 version with Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner. Fredric March's portrayal was more subtle than Tracy's. March's Mr. Hyde is terrifying, especially in his scenes with Miriam Hopkins, but at the same time, he was able to imbue his "bad side" personality with sympathy, especially toward the end when he realizes the monster that he's become because he messed with his natural impulses through the use of chemical augmentation. The scene where Jekyll is watching his fiancée cry and he desperately tries to control his impulses and keep himself from transforming was well-acted by March and was very sad to watch. I thought March did an excellent job and he earned his Oscar.Spencer Tracy's rendition of Mr. Hyde was way too hammy and the makeup was ridiculous. He seemed forced and over the top, whereas March's portrayal of the two sides of his personality was more complex. Both Jekyll and Hyde had their bad parts. Hyde, even though he did some awful things, may have had some good qualities despite his selfish and unconscionable behavior. Based on March's portrayal, it seems that the best of human nature lies somewhere in the middle of Jekyll and Hyde.Miriam Hopkins is very good here as the professional trollop who gets more than she bargained for in Hyde. I thought her cockney accent was a little uneven, but it didn't detract from her performance. Miriam's bad girl liked to take chances, and thus she gets herself into questionable situations, but she didn't deserve the fate of being stuck with the abusive Mr. Hyde.I really liked her opening scene with Dr. Jekyll where she flaunts her legs and ends up nude in the bed with a strategically placed sheet, that was pretty risqué, even for a pre-code. Unfortunately, her whispered "come back" was a temptation for Dr. Jekyll, but it was an invitation for Hyde. The scene where Mr. Hyde attacks her was very frightening and I thought that Hopkins and March acted it well.I think that director Mamoulian managed to keep the secret of Hyde's transformation until his death or pretty close to it. That is an accomplishment in and of itself - keeping a secret that long. At any rate, highly recommended.

Based on Robert Louis Stevenson's iconic story, this horror film focuses on a scientist who develops a way to transform into a Neanderthal-like man with animalistic impulses. It is an interesting concept with lots of dialogue about evil existing inside everyone and repressing one's base desires, but the real standout element here is the filmic style. The film features innovative point-of-view camera- work that frequently tracks and pans. Then there is a superb lethargic dissolve of a woman's leg to show how ingrained the image is our hero's mind. Plus there is a great bit in which reaction shots between two lovers gradually zoom in closer... and the list goes on. The film is so technically advanced that it is still impressive by standards today; only the over-the-top makeup effects (complete with buck teeth) disappoint. With so much attention dedicated to the look of the film, it is perhaps unexpected that the story sags a little. Absolute no romantic sparks exist between Fredric March and Rose Hobart, which makes his pining to marry her a little hard to buy, and a subplot with a wanton Miriam Hopkins (not part of the original story) only works slightly better. When the film concentrates on March though and his increased difficulty of keeping Hyde under wraps, it rarely missteps. As alluded to, the film has a lot to say about dualities with the nature of humankind and the visuals are absolutely top notch.