Review – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)

I thought going into this that Spencer Tracy was an odd choice for the bifurcated antihero of this classic tale. But to his credit he does a solid job, only occasionally dipping into the ham on the Hyde side. Lana Turner and Ingrid Bergman do their parts to back him up as the good doctor’s intended and the brute’s lady-of-the-night victim respectively. But my favorite element of this production is the years-before-its-time portrayal of the psycho-sexual aspects of the warring personalities. Of particular note are the hallucination sequences that accompany Jekyll’s early transformations. Tracy frantically whipping two chariot-pulling horses that turn into bare (from shoulders up at least) Turner and Bergman … wow. Mildly amusing