Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1912)

The creaky classic is given an above-average treatment in this silent short. The running time clocks in at a mere 12 minutes which means that there's no time for extraneous material or slow spots, just a basic run-through of the Stevenson novella.The transformation from Jekyll into Hyde is achieved with a simple camera trick, substituting one actor for another. The story is straight-forward and comes complete with an appropriate opening (the first transformation), middle (a tragic romance) and end (a battle). The film contains a setting which was repeated for later versions. James Cruze is good as the scientist who transforms into an evil twin, coming across as a respectable gent. The actor playing Hyde goes over the top, of course, yet his portrayal works. The running time is extremely short as well, meaning that this early variation is well worth a watch.

It may have been only over 8 minutes long but films like this one bought literature to the masses, many of whom may not have been able to read. Thanhouser, based in New Rochelle, was able to take advantage of suburban streets, parks etc and it also boasted a popular group of players - later famous director James Cruze, beautiful Florence La Badie and little Marie Eline. In this Cruze plays the title role and the change over is done pretty seamlessly, Florence plays his worried fiancée and little Marie plays a little girl, knocked down by Hyde as he is fleeing to his laboratory after realising he has no control over keeping his evil ego Hyde hidden. Excellent little movie that belies it's age.

Lucius Henderson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is the second movie adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel, and the oldest surviving version. There was a 1908 version of which no prints are known to exist, making it a lost film. This movie is only about 11 minutes long, so they only adapted the most basic things about the story. Most of it's pretty anticlimactic.The Thanhouser Company, which made the movie, produced about 1,000 movies between 1909 and 1918. This is the first one that I've ever seen, and I watched it on Wikipedia. Apparently, Florence La Badie (Jekyll's sweetheart) got killed in a car wreck a few years after the movie got released.I suspect that most of my generation first learned of the story from Looney Tunes cartoons. For example, there was "Dr. Jerkyl's Hide", in which Sylvester is running from some dogs. He accidentally swallows some of the formula and turns into a monster who makes mincemeat of the bulldog but always reverts to his normal appearance when in the presence of the small dog. And then of course there was "The Nutty Professor" (both the Jerry Lewis version and the Eddie Murphy version).This is an OK version. Nothing impressive. You're just not going to end up with any great adaptation of a classic novel if you only have eleven minutes. The best adaptations are the ones with Fredric March and Spencer Tracy.

Ah, the days before the world wars -- was the last great military activity the civil war of the 1860's? Mr. Hyde wears strange false teeth and is rather anal about hanging up his hat before destroying his alter-ego's laboratory. The Doctor's fiancee, a minister's daughter, wears two pretty dresses, one in white, then one complete with fur pelts, all in black after her father's demise. Dr. Jeckyll's jacket had satin accents at the collar. Each location is to be treasured for its simplicity. There is a cinematically framed image of people running down a sidewalk -- my favorite scene (I also like the shot in Cameron's Titanic where the boy sends a top spinning across the parquet floors of the ship's deck.)