Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Rating:
Summary: Barrymore Rocks
Review: * Darn is that loud. Have to turn volumen from 34 down to 12. Note - Have to learn how to change dvd player's on-screen instructions from Spanish back to English.
* DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE has a LOUD church organ accompaniment. This being an Alpha Video release, the music has nothing to do with the on screen action.
* The print quality really varies. It looks like someone patched this together from a number of prints.
* Boy, they sure like getting profile shots of John Barrymore, don't they?
* Hmmm. Characters are chattering away like jaybirds and there's nary a title card to be seen. Wonder if people were better at lip reading in the `20s? Wouldn't help much with this one - some scenes, or portions of scenes, are out of focus.
* Sheesh, some scenes are REALLY washed out.
* The male actors seem to wear more white pancake make-up, eye-liner, mascara and lipstick than the female actors.
* Putting a two-bit white powder wig on the head and talcum on the eyebrows of a bit player does NOT make them look realistically old.
* Ah. Sleaze. The music hall and the Italian dancer Gina (Nita Naldi.) She's performing the "Over-Dressed Veil Dancer's Sashay of Seduction" for the Temptation of Dr. Jekyll scene.
* It worked! He's hooked! This can't be a good thing.
* "... he wakened to a sense of his baser nature" indeed. Stupid title card.
* I don't think they did much make-up work on Barrymore for the Mr. Hyde scenes. Just a little bronze face paint and finger extensions. When he's Jekyll Barrymore looks like David Byrne. When he's Hyde he looks like Ray Davies.
* Woo-hoo. That little transformation jig is a lot more entertaining than Naldi's hootchie dance.
* John Barrymore may be a ham, but he's fun to watch.
* Why does being bad always look like so much more fun than being good? Mr. Hyde goes to a saloon/house of prostitution/opium den (I think), chats up a couple of cute chippies on the ground floor, pokes a sleeper in an open bunk on the second floor and plays peek-a-boo around an overdressed nubile young woman with an Asian man dressed in a silk rickshaw outfit.
* For all of Mr. Hyde's depravity, it's hard to imagine he'd get anything more than 6 months of community service if brought to justice. They might get him on solicitation of prostitution, but he'd be more likely to have his picture posted on a web site than convicted. He DID plant his left foot in that young boy's back when running across the street, literally running him over, but the boy's father accepted the 100 pound check for damages suffered. Granted, he did whomp the snot out of Millicent's father, but Johnnie Cochran could beat that charge before it was even brought to trial.

Rating:
Summary: Barrymore Rocks
Review: * Darn is that loud. Have to turn volumen from 34 down to 12. Note - Have to learn how to change dvd player's on-screen instructions from Spanish back to English.
* DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE has a LOUD church organ accompaniment. This being an Alpha Video release, the music has nothing to do with the on screen action.
* The print quality really varies. It looks like someone patched this together from a number of prints.
* Boy, they sure like getting profile shots of John Barrymore, don't they?
* Hmmm. Characters are chattering away like jaybirds and there's nary a title card to be seen. Wonder if people were better at lip reading in the '20s? Wouldn't help much with this one - some scenes, or portions of scenes, are out of focus.
* Sheesh, some scenes are REALLY washed out.
* The male actors seem to wear more white pancake make-up, eye-liner, mascara and lipstick than the female actors.
* Putting a two-bit white powder wig on the head and talcum on the eyebrows of a bit player does NOT make them look realistically old.
* Ah. Sleaze. The music hall and the Italian dancer Gina (Nita Naldi.) She's performing the "Over-Dressed Veil Dancer's Sashay of Seduction" for the Temptation of Dr. Jekyll scene.
* It worked! He's hooked! This can't be a good thing.
* "... he wakened to a sense of his baser nature" indeed. Stupid title card.
* I don't think they did much make-up work on Barrymore for the Mr. Hyde scenes. Just a little bronze face paint and finger extensions. When he's Jekyll Barrymore looks like David Byrne. When he's Hyde he looks like Ray Davies.
* Woo-hoo. That little transformation jig is a lot more entertaining than Naldi's hootchie dance.
* John Barrymore may be a ham, but he's fun to watch.
* Why does being bad always look like so much more fun than being good? Mr. Hyde goes to a saloon/house of prostitution/opium den (I think), chats up a couple of cute chippies on the ground floor, pokes a sleeper in an open bunk on the second floor and plays peek-a-boo around an overdressed nubile young woman with an Asian man dressed in a silk rickshaw outfit.
* For all of Mr. Hyde's depravity, it's hard to imagine he'd get anything more than 6 months of community service if brought to justice. They might get him on solicitation of prostitution, but he'd be more likely to have his picture posted on a web site than convicted. He DID plant his left foot in that young boy's back when running across the street, literally running him over, but the boy's father accepted the 100 pound check for damages suffered. Granted, he did whomp the snot out of Millicent's father, but Johnnie Cochran could beat that charge before it was even brought to trial.