"Without me, you see, Jekyll has no drives...
...And without him, I have no restraints."
Source of the
Jekyll And Hyde trope, this book by Robert Louis Stevenson has been much filmed, but practically all the films
turn the plot inside out. Note that the original title was
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, omitting the "The" for some reason.
The book begins with a mystery. When a girl is brutally attacked late one night, her attacker, calling himself Mr Edward Hyde, buys off the witnesses with a cheque for a small fortune, signed by the eminently respectable Doctor Henry Jekyll.
Jekyll's friend and legal advisor, Gabriel John Utterson, is disturbed when he learns this, since Jekyll has recently made Hyde his heir. While Utterson investigates this, Hyde is witnessed committing a savage murder of a prominent Member of Parliament. Jekyll claims there is nothing to worry about, but Utterson becomes convinced his friend is being blackmailed.
Before Utterson can do anything, Jekyll's butler Poole contacts Utterson to report that a stranger has locked himself in the lab. When they break into the room they find Hyde, having committed suicide by poison, and two letters explaining everything.
Jekyll had been trying to invent a
potion which could separate his good and evil sides, but when he tested it, he was transformed into Mr Hyde, a manifestation of his evil side with no trace of morality. After some cautious experimenting, Jekyll decided he liked this side-effect. As Mr Hyde, he could indulge himself in every pleasurable vice, and never be suspected.
However, after a few months of this, Jekyll began spontaneously changing into Hyde. Only by drinking the potion could he retain his own form, and the potion was running out — not to mention that ever since the murders, the police had been searching relentlessly for Edward Hyde. When Jekyll made a new batch of the potion, it didn't work; his original chemical samples had been contaminated, and it was the impurities that had made the transformation possible. Facing the prospect of being trapped forever behind the face of a wanted murderer, Jekyll committed suicide.
There have been several film adaptations and parodies of this book, including:
- Straightforward adaptations in 1919 (with John Barrymore), 1931 (with Frederic March and Miriam Hopkins), 1942 (with Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner) and 1960 (a Hammer version with Paul Massie). All these adaptations made substantial changes to the main plot - in particular, Jekyll tends to be cast much younger than he is in the novel, and a female love interest is usually added. Also, the March version is the only one to use the (little-known) correct pronunciation of "Jekyll" (Jee-kyll).
- The Janus Head, a 1920 silent German film version directed by F.W. Murnau and starring Conrad Veidt. It changes the characters' names to Dr. Warren and Mr. O'Connor. Also has a very young Bela Lugosi as the butler. It is also apparently lost forever, but if the production notes are to be believed, it has the first moving camera in cinema history.
- Hammer's version, I, Monster keeps to the original plot but changes the names of Jekyll and Hyde in an attempt to keep the twist.
- The Nutty Professor, both Jerry Lewis' and Eddie Murphy's versions.
- The 1971 horror Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde and the 1995 comedy Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde both add a Gender Bender twist to the story.
- Mary Reilly tells the story with a romance/horror twist: Hyde was Jekyll's attempt to become young and strong again.
- Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse adapted it during the '90s into a stage musical, Jekyll & Hyde.
- Jekyll, a 2006 modern day TV miniseries involving a descendant of the pair, written by Steven Moffat.
- In The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie, Jekyll and Hyde can communicate. Jekyll sees Hyde in mirrors, and omnipresent in his subconscious. Hyde's powers of perception are not usable by Jekyll except if the former advises the latter. Jason Flemyng's portrayal of the character is probably the only good thing in the movie. The comic depicts Hyde as a huge, monstrously strong humanoid, which Hyde himself explains - separated into distinct individuals, Jekyll grows weak and frail without Hyde's passion, while Hyde grows in power without Jekyll's morals to limit him.
While the book is presented as a mystery, with the identity of Hyde as the
Twist Ending, this is absent from the films, mainly because
the twist is now too famous to surprise anyone.
The films also typically show Hyde as looking monstrous, contrary to the book's description. Hyde is described as looking repugnant, but not because of any physical abnormality. His appearance is perfectly normal; it's just that people can somehow sense his great depravity.
Further, in pretty much every later adaptation, Jekyll is unaware of Hyde's actions, suffering from
split personality amnesia. This is not in any way suggested by the book, in which Jekyll
does remember everything he did as Hyde, but begins to find his own depravity horrifying and tries to dissociate himself from it.
This book provides examples of:
- Adaptation Decay
- Applied Phlebotinum
- Body Horror
- Devil In Plain Sight: Subverted. Hyde looks like a normal victorian era 'gentleman', but everyone can sense that there is something wrong with him, mostly because he is pure evil
- Driven To Suicide: After Jekyll realizes, that Hyde will take all controll of him - both of his body and his personality - he restrains himself to his lab and eventually poisons himself before the final transformation, because the idea of living in a murderer's body for the rest of his life isn't so great option
- Gone Horribly Wrong The potion what separates good and evil seemed like a good idea, but Jekyll forgot that one little possible side-effect
- Hearing Voices: It is highly suggested in the final chapter that Jekyll was able to hear Hyde inside his head, because "(Hyde) was constantly demanding to get out". However, there aren't any sentence that 100% confirms this.
- Involuntary Shapeshifting
- It Was His Sled
- Jekyll And Hyde
- Mad Scientist
- No Plans No Prototype No Backup: this is deliberate on Jekyll's part, and it's an unknown impurity that makes the stuff work anyway.
- No Pronunciation Guide: it should be "JEEK-il", not "JECK-il".
- Professor Guinea Pig
- Shadow Archetype
- Split Personality Takeover
- Taking You With Me: When Jekyll commits suicide, that's also the end of Hyde
- Twist Ending
