Watch Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde For Free

Fantastic!

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

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Approaching Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" novella is pretty much impossible to do in 11 minutes. Then again, tons of short film adaptations were made during the silent era. It is said the first was made in 1908, as a filming of a stage play adaptation, but sadly this movie has been lost. A 1910 movie was made of it, but that's lost too. Thus, this 1912 "adaptation" by Lucias Henderson is the earliest surviving version. It is very, very simplistic and doesn't hardly follow the novel, but for the time it's about as good anyone could've done it anyways.The story begins with Dr. Jekyll messing around with formulas and mixing this potion which turns him into Mr. Hyde. He becomes fascinated and keeps changing himself until he can no longer control his transformations. He starts uncontrollably transforming on the spot while making out with his girlfriend (who wasn't even IN the book originally) so after a bit she begins to get suspicious. Eventually, this all leads up to the finale. There's no Mr. Utterson, Mr. Carew, or Dr. Lanyon at all. It's a nice film but is by no means a real adaptation, so you might be better off reading the book first before watching the film.

I've heard many people complain that a book just can't be wrapped up in a mere 2 hour long feature...imagine having only 10 1/2 minutes to work with! This is of course an extremely condensed version of The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, but it's not a bad little film. It took 5 days to complete these few minutes which is a longer amount of time than most film productions of the day were given, film being more of a novelty back then. There's no real introduction to the story or our characters, the movie just gets right down to business with Dr. Jekyll's experiment. As far as the necessary special effects for this story go, the initial transformation cut shot is a bit silly but the fade back into the good doctor looks much better. On a more positive note, we get a lot of Hyde which is good as what horror movie fan doesn't want to see more of the monster and overall this film is a nice, simple telling of the basic story. Whereas it may not be as skillful or as important as Georges Méliès' A Trip To The Moon or Thomas Edison's Frankenstein, it's still a short film worth seeing if you're a fan of early silent cinema or Robert Louis Stevenson.

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.

This adaption of the Robert Louis Stevenson Gothic horror novel is the oldest one in existence. Not only that but along with Frankenstein (1910) it's also one of the very first horror movies proper. It was produced by a film studio called Thanhouser who ran operations out of New York. Because of its age it is a much abbreviated version of the tale. Films from the time were rarely much longer than this. This means that it's fairly limited when compared to future versions. However, you really have to take into account its historical context and accept the flaws that are inevitable in such an ancient production. It was after all one of the first to develop a story based around a horror tale so on this basis alone it deserves some attention.As others have pointed out, this production features different actors in the roles of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This is, of course, highly unusual. But the basic idea seems to be the same, where we have the good doctor gradually taken over by his dark side. The potion he develops being the root of this, so it's very much a warning about the dark side of drug use and the way it can transform some people into violent monsters. All in all it's a pretty decent early horror movie, if nothing too remarkable.