Firstly, I would like to take this space to officially say "Go fuck yourself" to the old Nintendo game, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The idea was that you are Dr. Jekyll, walking through jolly old London, dealing with yapping dogs and various muggers. You have a cane with which to poke your enemies (but the lag time between pressing the attack button and actually impotently thrusting your cane at a dog made even this attack staggeringly inefficient). If your frustration meter filled enough, you became Mr. Hyde...who was a total badass. You could jump farther and kick people's asses with ease. The problem with the game was, if you got further with Mr. Hyde than you did with Dr. Jekyll, you lose. And it is so much easier to get somewhere with Mr. Hyde. Yeah, anyway, fuck that game.
This movie is the 1920 silent version with John Barrymore as the titular duo. His performance is pretty fun to watch as he alters his appearance and body language depending on which personality he is exhibiting. I can see why people thought they were two separate people in this version. My patience with silent films runs out after about an hour. I get restless and just want the slow scenes to move faster. I almost made it through this one before I had to fast forward a bit.
The story is simple. Dr. Jekyll is a do-gooder who helps heal the poor for free. The father of his love interest kind of pulls a dick move and tries to tempt him into boinking a stripper (essentially). Jekyll, already looking for a freaky experiment, decides he will separate his sinfulness from his chaste personality using "science." Hyde is born and basically just goes whoring a lot and smokes some opium. The famous trampling scene is handled about as badly as you could imagine.
By the time Hyde straight up kills a motherfucker, you just want him to really cut all the way loose. It was a fun enough story, well-acted by silent film standards. The title cards were well written and the effects are pretty cool. Not essential viewing but not a bad silent movie.
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