Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) is a delicious horror treat from the pre-code era. Mamoulian breathes beautiful life into Robert Louis Stevenson's novella: the cinematography is beautiful and the camerawork inventive (particularly for the early 1930s); the early costume and makeup effects for Mr. Hyde are delightful; Frederic March's performance is fantastic. The one scene where he torments and psychologically tortures a bar singer before presumably raping her is some of the best film acting I've seen from the era. Editor William Shea sometimes utilizes an odd method of editing where he'll begin a diagonal wipe, linger for a moment as the two sides of the frame isolate a detail or a character, and then continue after a few seconds. The technique doesn't quite work as well as I think they hoped it would, but it's a fascinating bit of experimentation that alone makes the film worth a watch.
8/10
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