MY DVD Collection - 09 Feb 2007

(Dr. Jekyll und Mr. Hyde [de])

USA 1931
d: Rouben Mamoulian
Warner Home Video (Region 1 us)

>> The Cast & Crew [click to show or hide]

Still the best version of Stevenson's novella, shot in pre-Hayes Code days and therefore able to trace Jekyll's troubles to their source in sexual repression. Jekyll's frustration over the enforced delay in his marriage becomes a reiterated motif in the dialogue, and just in case anyone misses the point, it is underlined by diagonal wipes linking him to his fiancée at moments of stress preceding transformation. Cunningly, Mamoulian opens the film with a lengthy subjective sequence, so that our first real view of Jekyll (an admirable performance from March) is when he embarks on his lecture on the possibility of separating the two natures of man: a ploy which simultaneously arouses curiosity about this man, indicates his soaring intellectual arrogance, and divorces him from society as represented by his distinguished, disapproving audience. The rest, stunningly shot by Karl Strauss as a visual tour de force, is both superb and slyly subversive.
— TM, Time Out Film Guide
•••••
Robert Louis Stevenson's classic thriller of split personality has been filmed many times, but no version compares with this masterly adaptation by Rouben Mamoulian, which fully exploits the erotic motifs of the original story. As Hyde's victim, Miriam Hopkins is both sensual and sympathetic in her masochistic debasement, while Fredric March handles the transitions from scientist Jekyll to depraved beast Hyde with amazing technical command and is entirely convincing in both personae. How Mamoulian filmed one Jekyll-Hyde transition in a single take is still his secret—it's a miracle of makeup and acting. As Andrew Griffin (citing the late UC Berkeley professor William Nestrick) wrote, “Mr. Hyde seizes center stage in Mamoulian's early masterpiece, leaping banisters and social boundaries. Mamoulian described his Hyde as the Neanderthal within, ’not the evil but the animal' in man, and therefore innocent; Nestrick called him ’this reversal of a sublimation, this dream-like projection of the dethroned elements.'”
— PFA
•••••
March deservedly won an Oscar for his astonishing "dual" role (shared with Wallace Beery for THE CHAMP), but perhaps the real star of the film is director Mamoulian, whose audacious use of symbolism and careful pacing increase the mystique of this strange story. His heavy use of point-of-view editing is entirely appropriate to the story, and Struss's outstanding photography is a marvel to behold.

Made before the Production Code clampdown in 1934, DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE not only uses violence to great effect but also does not shy away from the links between horror and sexuality. During the first transformation scene Mamoulian includes a montage which makes it clear that Hyde represents Jekyll's id, the socially and sexually repressed side of the doctor's psyche. The highly charged scenes between March and Hopkins (who's marvelous as Ivy) are the film's highlights, while those between March and the suitably demure Hobart pale by comparison.
— TV MovieGuide

The Mark of Zorro

(Im Zeichen des Zorro [de])

USA 1940
d: Rouben Mamoulian
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (Region 1 us)

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A superb swashbuckler, less athletic than the silent Fairbanks version but making up for it on the romantic side, and cleverly choreographing its action scenes until they whisk along like a ballet. Above all it looks terrific, with Mamoulian indulging his passion for shadows, while Arthur Miller's camerawork makes striking use of the contrasting white Spanish architecture and black of Zorro's cape and costume. Rathbone, rarely without a rapier in his hand and forever ferociously limbering up ('He's always stabbing at something' someone wearily complains) until he is summarily skewered in the magnificent final duel, is outstanding as Zorro's malevolent adversary.
— TM, Time Out Film Guide
•••••
Power cuts a stylish and convincing Zorro, vigorously playing the brilliant swordsman, although his more strenuous routines are performed by stunt double Albert Cavens. Mamoulian cleverly cuts in and out of his terse scenes to suggest more action than really occurs. The final deadly confrontation between Rathbone and Power is a thrilling duel no less exciting than the final contretemps between Errol Flynn and Rathbone in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD. Rathbone is terrific as the villain, always fondling his sword, prepared at any moment to draw blood for sport or sadistic amusement. "Most men have objects they play with," Rathbone remarks in one scene. "Churchmen have their beads; I toy with a sword." Love is as sturdy as ever, the paunchy Bromberg and the sleek Sondergaard are a delight as the sleazy rulers, and the unique Palette gets to reprise his performance as Friar Tuck from ROBIN HOOD. Darnell doesn't get to do much more than glow in soft focus, but she does show lush promise beneath the prim dictates of her role.
Skilled swordsman Rathbone paid Power a supreme compliment: "Power was the most agile man with a sword I've ever faced before a camera. Tyrone could have fenced Errol Flynn into a cocked hat." There have been other Zorros, of course. Yakima Canutt, the great stuntman, played the role in 1937 in ZORRO RIDES AGAIN; Frank Langella had a swipe at the part in a middling 1974 TV-movie; and George Hamilton overplayed the double-sided nature of the tale's hero to the point of cheap homophobic caricature in ZORRO, THE GAY BLADE. But none would ever equal Power. He looked and acted like a man who could, with bold acts and brave heart, change the course of history. And, of course, for the burgeoning coffers of Fox, he did.
— TV MovieGuide
•••••
'In order to accomplish what I set out to do', Diego tells his young bride, 'I've had to deceive a great many people'. Diego is a man of impulsive actions and has a penchant for role-playing that divulges a complex and fractured character. After the death of Capitan Pasquale, killed in a dazzling duel with Diego that shows director Mamoulian at the apogee of his almost balletic direction, order is re-established in the city of Los Angeles.
However, for all his rebelliousness Diego is no revolutionary. The transgressive figure of Zorro is retired as he throws away his sword and his father is reinstated as alcalde, maintaining the status quo of the exploitative social order, even if it is in this more appealing and benign form. The supposed enemy, Don Luis is given the opportunity of a face saving 'resignation', then departs for Spain. The outcome of events render the three swishes of Diego's trained blade that cut out the 'Z' for Zorro mark seem remarkably ineffectual for all the subterfuge, heroic deeds, dangerous escapades and flashy swordplay. It is in the film's final moments that Diego's transition from virtuous protagonist to symptomatic opportunist is revealed. When quizzed by Dona Inez as to when he will be returning to Spain with his new wife, Diego concedes, in reiterating the adage from earlier in the film (in this instance derision replaced with sincerity) that he only longs 'to marry, raise fat children and watch his vineyards grow'. Being born into a privilege status, the Zorro creation only served to perpetuate what Diego considers as his and his family's rightful place in society. Ultimately, he emerges as the model citizen for Spain's expansionist credo.
— Julian Savage, Senses of Cinema August 2000

Blood and Sand

(König der Toreros [de])

USA 1941
d: Rouben Mamoulian
20th Century Fox (Region 1 us)

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One of the great colour films (with Mamoulian taking the inspiration for his lush visuals from Spanish masters like Goya, Velasquez and El Greco), this is melodramatic romance of the first order. The story is hardly a stunner, taken from Ibañez and telling of a young man's rags-to-riches rise as a matador, only to fall under the spell of Hayworth's aristocratic temptress, who lures him away from virginal childhood sweetheart Darnell. What makes the film so enjoyable is the sheer elegance of the execution, with Mamoulian's sense of rhythm, the rich Technicolor, and Richard Day's sets conjuring up an imaginary Spain of the heart, poignant location of love in the shadows and death in the afternoon.
— GA, Time Out Film Guide
•••••
Several directors of the 80s, including Jean-Jacques Beineix and Francis Ford Coppola, could have learned something from the failure of this 1941 film by Rouben Mamoulian, which takes the old Ibanez story of a young bullfighter destroyed by a wealthy femme fatale as a premise for stunning visual effects and intimations of abstract, eternal themes. Yet, like Beineix's The Moon in the Gutter, the film is abstract in all the wrong ways: the elaborate compositions (in black and red Technicolor) serve only to draw more life from the already debilitated characters; Mamoulian's grab for eternity leaves him with a fistful of hot air.
— Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
•••••
Technicolor at this stage had mastered the industry. Rennahan continued, under his contract with Technicolor, to move from one studio to the next, and in 1941 he shot what is perhaps his greatest achievement. Blood and Sand, a remake of the Valentino silent concerning the rise and fall of a Spanish bullfighter, was directed by Mamoulian, with Tyrone Power in the starring role. Influenced by the styles of various Spanish painters, Rennahan and Mamoulian used the vivid and striking hues of Goya for the film's dramatic bullfight scenes, while the solemn hues of El Greco were employed for many of the film's quieter, more reflective moments. In short, the color not only aided the tone of the action—the bullfight scenes owe more to the actual photography than either the editing (which never fails to hide the use of a double) or the acting (Power is unsuitably timid in his role)—but also helped to articulate the theme. Rennahan's use of shadow and gloom perfectly captures the film's foreshadowing of, and preoccupation with, death.
— Peter Flynn