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.
Review of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
