Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1931-1932

The Contenders:

Wallace Beery: The Champ (winner)
Fredric March: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (winner)
Alfred Lunt: The Guardsman

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 1931-1932

The Contenders:

Arrowsmith
Bad Girl (winner)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Off Script: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)

Film: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

There’s something oddly reassuring to me about sliding into a film like the 1941 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I know what’s going to happen in general. I’ve read the story and seen the story depicted on the screen enough to be more than passing familiar with the basic run of events. The big switch here is seeing Spencer Tracy in the role of Dr. Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde. Tracy was so often a warm, paternal presence on the screen that seeing him as a sadistic monster is surprising and kind of fascinating.

This is the pretty standard story with which you are almost certainly familiar. Dr. Henry Jekyll believes that both good and evil exist in every man. Through experimentation, he discovers a formula that more or less enhances his own evil side, which names itself Edward Hyde. When he drinks the formula, the mild-mannered, decent Jekyll becomes the brutish and sadistic Hyde, who more or less lives out the dark fantasies of the good doctor.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932)

Format: DVD from Cordova District Library through interlibrary loan on laptop.

In a particular way, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde bears a similarity to The Adventures of Robin Hood in that it’s a story that almost everyone has some vague familiarity with but that almost no one has actually read. “Jekyll and Hyde” is a reference understood by almost everyone almost inherently. There are dozens upon dozens of adaptations of the story if you include spoofs, re-imaginings, and reworkings like The Nutty Professor, which was itself remade. I’ll admit I haven’t read the story, either.

Anyway, the version in question here is the 1931/1932 version (typically it’s considered a 1931 release, but IMDB lists its release date as January 3, 1932). This version is particularly noteworthy since it’s one of those rare instances where a film firmly in the horror genre not only received an Oscar nomination, but won.