What to expect
John Barrymore makes transformation a performance before make-up completes it. The film gives Stevenson’s divided self a physically expressive silent form and helped establish Jekyll and Hyde as enduring screen figures.
How to ease in
Jekyll and Hyde are one man, not rivals. Watch Barrymore’s posture, hands, gaze, and speed change as the experiment turns private permission into public danger.
Heads-up
A quick, non-exhaustive note Includes addiction-like compulsive behaviour, sexual coercion, violence against women, child endangerment, murder, and dated racial imagery.
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I find the first transformation most unsettling because the face has barely changed. Jekyll behaves as though science created the desire, while the body suggests he has simply authorised it.
— Momo
Credits & versions
Version map
Sources for the facts
Where to go next
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