Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920 Haydon film)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Directed by J. Charles Haydon
Produced by Louis Meyer[1]
Written by J. Charles Haydon
Based on The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Starring Sheldon Lewis
Release date
  • April 1920 (1920-04)
Running time
 40 minutes
Country United States
Language Silent film
English intertitles

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a 1920 horror film directed and written by J. Charles Haydon. It is the second of three adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde to be released in 1920.[2] (The first 1920 adaptation is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring John Barrymore and the third is Der Januskopf, directed by F. W. Murnau). The Haydon version is somewhat overshadowed by the version starring Barrymore which was released by Paramount Pictures the same year.

Plot

As the first transformation into Hyde begins, Jekyll's butler exclaims that Jekyll is now "the Apostle from Hell!" Hyde, complete with fangs and scraggy hair, skulks through the city committing such heinous acts as stealing a woman's purse. The police eventually catch up with Hyde, interrogate him, put him in jail and strap him to the electric chair. Sitting in his chair at home, Jekyll awakes from his nightmare to declare, "I believe in God! I have a soul..." and decides not to create the chemical potion.

Cast

  • Sheldon Lewis as Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde
  • Alex Shannon as Dr. Lanyon
  • Dora Mills Adams as Mrs. Lanyon
  • Gladys Field as Bernice Lanyon
  • Harold Foshay as Edward Utterson
  • Leslie Austin as Danvers Carew

Production

The film's producer, Louis Meyer (*not the mistakenly thought to be Louis B. Mayer), was concerned about copyright infringement relating to the other two film versions of the story released in that same year, so he set the film in New York and altered the plot structure. The final product was so crude that J. Charles Haydon had his name removed from the credits.[2]

Contemporary newspaper accounts have this film in production before the Paramount version. One of the stars of this film, Gladys Field, died in August 1920 in childbirth, a few weeks after the release of the picture.

Notes

Sheldon Lewis returned once again in 1929 to play Dr. Jekyll in an early one-reel sound film short.[3]

References

Notes
  1. ↑ Louis Meyer(1868-1945), IMDb, not to be confused with Louis B. Mayer who at this time was an independent producer releasing his films through Metro Pictures or First National Retrieved July 3, 2018
  2. 1 2 Hardy 1995, p. 27.
  3. ↑ Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, 1929 at silentera.com, a one reel sound short starring Sheldon Lewis
Bibliography
  • Hardy, Phil, ed. (1995), The Overlook Film Encyclopedia, 3, Overlook Press, ISBN 0-87951-624-0


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