Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Mamoulian, 1931): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 6.10pm
Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins excel in Rouben Mamoulian’s superb
adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella, now beautifully restored in 2K and part of the Big Screen Classics strand at BFI Southbank. Programmer-at-large Geoff Andrew will introduce the film.
Chicago Reader review:
Directed
by Rouben Mamoulian, this 1932 screen adaptation of the Robert Louis
Stevenson classic is a remarkable achievement that deserves to be much
better known. Fredric March won a well-deserved Oscar for his
performance as the lead, and Miriam Hopkins and Rose Hobart play the two
women who match the opposite sides of the hero’s nature. The
transformations of Jekyll are a notable achievement for March and
Mamoulian alike, and the disturbing undercurrents of the story are given
their full due (as they weren’t in the much inferior 1941 Victor
Fleming version with Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, and Lana Turner).
Mamoulian was at his peak in the early 30s, as this film shows.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
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