Jekyll insists during this conversation with Lanyon that he doesn't believe that he's beyond help, both in this life and the one beyond, for what he's done but when he reads of Ivy's murder in the newspaper the next day, he's clearly terrified for what will happen to him, saying aloud, "Oh, God. This I did not intend. I saw a light but did not know where it was headed. I have trespassed on your domain. I've gone further than man should go. Forgive me." That night, he goes to Muriel and sets her free from him so as to spare her the torment he's been through, but before he can leave the grounds, the sight of her crying over the piano causes him to turn into Hyde again, leading him to try to have his way with her and resulting in a scuffle with the general that leaves him dead. Another big difference between John Barrymore and Frederic March's portrayals of Jekyll is how the two of them go out: whereas in the silent film, Jekyll commits suicide to stop Hyde once and for all, here he tries save himself by throwing the police off his trail when he's made his way back to the laboratory and changed back from Hyde. However, his plan is foiled when Lanyon tells them that Jekyll is the man they're looking for and he becomes Hyde again in front of them, apparently out of rage towards Lanyon for betraying him, leading to his being shot dead by the police after a violent escape attempt.
What really makes March's performance in this film so compelling is how he's able to play each role in such a way that they do feel like two completely different characters. As much as I like Spencer Tracy's performance in the 40's film, when he's playing Mr. Hyde there, I'm still able to tell that it's him, just being sadistic and psychologically abusive; here, I don't see Frederic March playing two sides of the same character but rather, I see Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. March's performance as Hyde is very hyper, spastic, and utterly wild and free of any inhibitions whatsoever. When he's first transformed, he acts like an animal that's just been let out of its cage, as he pants heavily, hides behind a nearby screen for some reason, stretches, has bizarre facial tics, and declares himself free when he looks in the mirror, saying, "Mad, eh, Lanyon? Eh, Carew? Deniers of life! If you could see me now, what would you think, hm?", before laughing maniacally. While this first experience of his untamed, primitive side is cut short when Poole tries to enter the lab and he has to become Jekyll again, when Jekyll becomes restless during the time Muriel is away, Hyde is once again let loose and this time, there prove to be no restraints to hold him back. Putting on a top hat and cape and brandishing a walking cane, Hyde makes it out of the laboratory, relishing the rain that's coming down outside, allowing it to wet his face and trickle down his throat, and makes his way to Ivy Pearson's flat. The landlady tells him that Ivy works at a nearby music hall and Hyde, after taunting her with his cane, heads over there, and proves to everyone he runs into that he's cruel, unpredictable, and not to be messed with, with how he refuses the waiter who brings him some champagne a tip and trips and smacks him with his cane when he hears him say "blighter" behind his back in response. When he spots Ivy as she appears and begins singing with some of the male patrons, he has the waiter bring her over to him, where he compliments her on her beauty in a very crude way and offers a toast to it. She tries to leave but Hyde stops her, tells her that he knows that her home is a very rundown and poor flat, that she deserves the very best in life, and he's the one who's going to give it to her. He then shows that in this form, Jekyll's discontent with the conservative nature of those around him is complete unbound, as he tells Ivy, "I am no beauty. Perhaps you prefer a gentleman, eh? One of those fine-mannered, virtuous, and honorable gentlemen. One of those panting hypocrites who like your legs but talk about your garters. After a man who was with Ivy earlier tries to take her back, only for Hyde to run him off by smashing a champagne bottle and threatening to cut him with it, Ivy tries to leave again but Hyde stops her and makes it clear he has no intention of letting her go, telling her, "I want you and I get what I want. I love you. You come with me." That scene ends with a close-up of Hyde's face coming in, as he audibly sniffs her.
Hyde is out of the movie for a little while after this, as Jekyll decides he's had enough and tries to keep him under control, as well as make things right with both Muriel and Ivy, but then, he learns that Hyde can return without his drinking the potion whenever he witnesses something upsetting to him, like when he sees a cat kill and eat a little bird in a tree as he's walking through the park. Hyde comes back with a vengeance then and heads straight for Ivy's flat, where he terrorizes her by telling her that he knows she went to Jekyll for help, that he's aware of the extent to which she begged him for help, and lets her in on the secret that he and Jekyll are one in the same. Ivy tries to flee but Hyde manages to catch her in the bedroom and strangle her while pulling her down to the floor, where it's very likely that he raped her as she died, given the symbolism of a little statue on the nightstand behind them and his line, "Isn't Hyde a lover after your own heart?" This commotion draws the attention of everyone else at the boarding house but, while Hyde is able to evade them and the police, he's unable to get back into the lab because Jekyll threw away the key to the backdoor. When Poole refuses to let him in, Hyde has to resort to getting Dr. Lanyon involved by writing him a note to get together the chemicals necessary to change him back into Jekyll so he can pick them up at his house as a parcel. Hyde tries to take the parcel and leave but Lanyon demands to be shown proof that Jekyll is alive and well and pulls a gun on him when he's unable to do so. With no other choice, Hyde mixes the potion together right there and gives Lanyon one last chance to let him go, telling him, "Think before you decide, I tell you. Do you want to be left as you are, or do you want your eyes and your soul to be blasted by a sight that would stagger the Devil himself?", but when the doctor is unmoved by his threat, Hyde warns him that he must remember the vows of his profession and that he must not reveal what he's about to see. Hyde then tells him, "Now, you who have sneered at the miracles of science, you who have denied the power of man to look into his own soul, you who have derided your superiors, look! Look. Look," and drinks the potion, reverting back to Jekyll before Lanyon's horrified eyes. Despite Jekyll's insistence afterward that he'll find a way to conquer Hyde, his brutish bad side comes back when he's upset by the sight of Muriel crying after he's called off their engagement and tries to have his way with her. This leads into a struggle between Hyde, General Carew, and his butler Hobson, with Carew being caned to death by Hyde. He manages to evade the police again and make it back to the laboratory, where he reverts to Jekyll, but Lanyon's breaking his vow and pointing him out as the murderer causes Jekyll to turn into Hyde one last time. Hyde tries to escape and attack Lanyon and the police but is ultimately shot dead and turns back into Jekyll.
Just as important to the film's success as March's performance as Hyde is the iconic makeup that he wears in the role. In my humble opinion, this look is in the same vein of Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula, Boris Karloff made up as the Frankenstein monster, and Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolf Man in terms of how it's become the unshakeable popular image of this classic literary character. I'm not just saying that because it was the first image of Mr. Hyde I ever saw but also because of how well-known this film is and how it's entered into the cultural lexicon. More than likely, this is what comes to mind for a lot of people when they think of Mr. Hyde. As such, it's fitting that it came out in the same year that Universal began to create its iconic versions of those legendary monsters that I mentioned, and one would be forgiven for not knowing that this isn't from that studio, as Wally Westmore, a member of the famous Westmore family of makeup artists, created a monster makeup design that was certainly worthy of the legendary Jack Pierce. Amazingly, this was Westmore's first film and, save for the characters he made up for Island of Lost Souls the following year, he would never do any other monster makeups but this was more than enough for him to leave his mark. It was really an inspired choice to take the notion of Hyde being a representative of man's repressed, primitive instincts and run with it to the point of making him look ape-like, with hairy, clawed hands, a pointy, simian-like head, thick eyebrows, a flaring, flat nose, and enormous teeth that constantly stick out of his mouth. Just as startling are some shots you see of March when he's in the middle of transforming, as he looks like Jekyll there but you can see the features of Hyde starting to become more prominent. And as it is in a number of film adaptations of this story, Westmore designed the makeup to where Hyde looks more and more hideous each time you see him. The first few times you see him, despite his ugly, ape-like face, he still looks halfway presentable and fresh, especially when his hair is slicked back and combed, but in the latter parts of the film, he begins to look more haggard and unkempt until you get to the ending, where his face looks more deformed, with his eye-sockets looking as if they're pulled down and his hair a crazed mess. It may have been tough for March to wear (he was actually hospitalized following production) but it was worth it for him to endure this makeup, as he showed us the definitive way in which Mr. Hyde is supposed to look and act.
Aside from Frederic March's amazing performance, the most memorable character in the film is Ivy Pearson (Miriam Hopkins), whom Jekyll first meets when she's been beaten on by a man outside of the poor boarding house where she lives and he carries her up to her apartment. This is something that isn't uncommon for her, given what one of the tenants standing outside tells Dr. Lanyon, and when Ivy comes to in her room, her rage at being treated like that is replaced with interest in Jekyll, as she didn't expect such a good-looking man to treat her so gently and show concern for her. While she's not seriously hurt, Ivy feigns being badly injured in an attempt to keep Jekyll there, claiming to have a broken rib, and she makes her intentions unmistakable, as she places his hand in-between her legs, strips off her clothes and gets under the covers naked, and kisses him when he gets close enough. As he finally does leave, she tells him to come back to see her, insisting that he can when he says he can't, and swings her leg back and forth as it hangs off the bed. This encounter leads to her being targeted by Mr. Hyde when he's unleashed, and when he finds her while working at a seedy music hall, it's clear that she is something of a woman of easy virtue, as she sings a song, Champagne Ivy is My Name, that alludes to such while entertaining the male patrons. She's actually intrigued when the waiter tells her to go over to Hyde's table, especially that he's not someone to be trifled with, but she's immediately repulsed and uneasy at the sight of him. She tries to leave a couple of times but Hyde makes it clear he has no intention of letting her, and after she sees just how dangerous and unpredictable he is when he threatens another guy she was with using a broken champagne bottle, you can see true terror overtake her when he tells her she's to come with him. Ivy's life soon becomes an unrelenting nightmare, as she gets a much more luxurious apartment thanks to Hyde but is subjected to physical and psychological, as well as very possibly sexual, abuse from him and suffers from the terror of never knowing when he'll show up. It's quite disturbing to see what she has to go through on an almost daily basis when he plays his mind-games with her, daring her to say what she's really thinking, only for her to lie out of fear, and to endure a night of torment before Hyde leaves her for a few days, not knowing when he'll return. That scene ends on a very troubling note, as Ivy is forced to sing the song she sang in the musical hall, eventually collapsing on the bed, crying helplessly, and Hyde, reveling in her torment, forces himself on her.
The next time we see Ivy, it's revealed that Hyde brutally whipped her about the back, and she's reached the point where she'd rather he'd kill her than forcing her to live in terror like this. He's got her so frightened, in fact, that she's too afraid to run away or go to the police, feeling that they wouldn't care to protect someone like her, anyway. Ivy gets quite a pleasant surprise when Dr. Jekyll's butler, Poole, arrives and gives her fifty pounds from his master. Not knowing who Jekyll, she goes to see him at his house that night, per her landlady's insistence, as he might be able to help her with Hyde, and she gets another welcome surprise when she realizes it's him. However, her joy turns to panic and fear when Jekyll explains that "someone" told him she needed the money and she shows him what Hyde did to her, mentioning that she tried to commit suicide by drowning herself but couldn't do it. She pleads with Jekyll to either help her or, at the very least, give her some poison so she can end her miserable existence. She insists that she'll do anything for him if he helps her, and while she's initially skeptical and still frightened when he assures that Hyde will never bother her again, she decides to take his word for it, as he insists he never breaks his word. After this, Ivy is pretty happy and confident about the way things are apparently starting to turn around for her, drinking some wine and toasting that she never sees Hyde again and that Jekyll will think of her every once in a while. This and the previous scene of her pleading and crying out of mortal terror for Jekyll to help her makes what happens next all the more tragic, with Hyde creeping into her apartment and her reacting in shock and horror when she sees him reflected in the mirror she's looking into. She's even more horrified when he tells her that he knows everything that he said to Jekyll, revealing himself to be Jekyll, and while she tries to escape, he ultimately traps her in the bedroom and strangles her to death, as well as likely rape her as she dies or even afterward.
Dr. Jekyll's butler, Poole (Edgar Norton) is, as he's often portrayed, unflinching in his loyalty to his master, sometimes having to remind him of certain engagements he's to attend, like the beginning of the film where he informs that he has 15 minutes to make it to his appointed lecture on time, prompting Jekyll to refer to him as a nuisance but one he doesn't think he'd be able to do without. Poole also shares in his master's frustrations with being separated from Muriel for a very long time, as well as his happiness when their wedding is moved up to the following month, and never questions anything he does in the slightest. His most significant part in the story is, upon seeing how restless he is during the time he and Muriel are separated, when he suggests that Jekyll should "amuse" himself with the opportunities London offers for a gentleman like himself, unknowingly prompting him to really let Hyde out of his cage. Poole is just as dumbfounded as the police when, at the end of the movie, Lanyon insists that Jekyll is the man who murdered the general and is devastated after he's been shot and killed. Finally, Ivy Pearson's landlady, Mrs. Hawkins (Tempe Pigott), doesn't have much of a role but she lends her tenant a sympathetic ear during the time she's being tormented by Hyde, trying to talk her into leaving him and bristling at his rage when he shows up to find the two of them talking over tea. Following Ivy's horrific night at Hyde's hands, Mrs. Hawkins helps her with the whip-marks he left on her back, warning her that he'll kill her eventually. She's also amazed when it becomes clear that the esteemed Dr. Jekyll knows Ivy enough to send her 50 pounds, encouraging her to go thank him in person and to ask him for help with Hyde. When Hyde murders Ivy, Mrs. Hawkins is the one who names him as a suspect to the police.
You need only look at the film itself to see that Paramount spared no expense and got the very best for this production, especially when it comes to the production design by Hans Dreier. From what I've read, they built 35 sets for this film, all of which were historically accurate, and they all look marvelously lavish, giving it a sense of scope that the John Barrymore film was kind of lacking. The sets are able to accurately convey the different tiers of life in the Victorian era, from the extremely wealthy, with Dr. Jekyll's big mansion (complete with an enormous drawing room where he plays his organ and a long, angled staircase out in the parlor), General Carew's similar house (which has a large ballroom where people dance after dinner and a lovely garden outside), the fancy apartment Mr. Hyde stays in with Ivy Pearson, the enormous auditorium where Jekyll gives lecture at the beginning of the film, and what we see of Dr. Lanyon's house, to the poor, with the surroundings of the poverty-stricken patients in the "free ward" and the low-rent boarding house where Ivy initially lives, and the downright seedy, with the music hall that Ivy works at. The film doesn't forget its Gothic roots, either, as we get plenty of shots of the fog-shrouded, gaslight-lit streets of Victorian-era London, especially when Mr. Hyde is prowling about the more slummy parts of it, which is to say nothing of Jekyll's old-fashioned laboratory that's separate from his main house and is certainly worthy of Dr. Frankenstein himself. It's the classic mad scientist-style laboratory: an enormous, dimly-lit room, filled with beakers and test tubes, as well as big racks of bottles of chemicals (making it look akin to a wine cellar), a model skeleton, and the like. The costumes that the actors wear are just as classic and historically accurate as the sets, with the fancy suits, top hats, and canes that the gentlemen and Mr. Hyde wear, lovely dresses for Muriel and the other women of high society, the more raggedy clothes for the destitute, and the rather sexy clothes, with low-cut tops, that Ivy wears, complete with garters around her thighs.
The cinematography, courtesy of Karl Struss (who had a long esteemed career from virtually the dawn of movies, having worked with F.W. Murnau, and would go on to photograph other notable horror films like Island of Lost Souls and The Fly), is also excellent, and not just because the film simply looks good in the black-and-white, with the deep shadows and such that come with it. There are a lot of really well-done images and instances of camerawork to be found here, many of which are quite inventive and daring for the time. In fact, the movie begins with an extravagant and usual use of the camera, as the first few minutes of the story are shot through a first-person perspective that's meant to be Dr. Jekyll's POV. We see his hands as he plays the organ, his looking at Poole when he comes in to tell him that he's going to be late for his lecture, and his point-of-view as he walks out of the drawing room, down the hall, looks at himself in the mirror as he's handed his cape, cane, and hat (the first time you actually see Frederic March), goes outside to his carriage, is driven to the medical university, and walks into the auditorium where he gives his lecture. While you can tell it's not all done in one shot as they'd like you to believe, as the cuts are very obvious, this is still quite inventive and very technically competent, particularly those long, moving shots that you know were done decades before the Steadicam was even an idea. More daring than this opening bit is the fact that Jekyll's first transformation into Mr. Hyde is done through his point-of-view, as you see him walk up to the mirror in his lab, the camera gets tight on the reflection of his face as he drinks the potion and begins to change, backing away from the mirror and going into a flurry of images in his mind as the camera spins around before we come back to see him walk in front of the mirror again, revealing Hyde for the first time. Speaking of the camera, it's constantly moving and panning around through the sets, showing you significant images as well as simply following someone, akin to what James Whale was doing in the horror films he made over at Universal around that time.
While not as elaborate as those I've just talked about, there are a few other POV shots in the film, like when Jekyll and Muriel looking at each other when the former is going on about how much he loves her (which is recreated in a more sinister light when Hyde makes it clear to Ivy Pearson that she's his), Jekyll looking right at Poole the butler when he happily announces that he's going to be married the following month, and when Dr. Lanyon points him out as the man who killed General Carew to the police during the climax, among others. There are also some very tight close-ups on people's faces in general during those POVs, as well as other shots like of Lanyon's face when he watches in horror as Hyde turns back into Jekyll in front of him and Poole when he watches his master happily play the organ after telling him of his forthcoming wedding. I find it interesting that there are so many shots of mirrors in this film, both in those point-of-view moments I've talked about and in others, like when Hyde, upon being released for the first time, declares himself free while looking at his reflection and when Ivy is looking at herself when she thinks things are looking up for her, only to see Hyde enter her apartment behind her in the reflection. Given how big cameras were at that time, it's astonishing that you never see it reflected in those mirrors, once again a testament to Rueben Mamoulian's directing talent. Finally, there are some notable instances of really good lighting in the film, like those where Hyde is lit to come off as very menacing, the complete darkness surrounding Jekyll and Lanyon in the latter's study after he's learned his friend's horrific secret, and the shot of Hyde's shadow on a building as he runs from the police, very evocative of German Expressionism.
Mamoulian's talent for visual storytelling is also reflected in ways that he uses the camera and editing to juxtapose a character with something that acts as a symbol to what's going on with them internally. One that made me smirk the first time I saw it is when, right before he takes the potion for the first time, Dr. Jekyll looks off-camera and it then pans over to show that he's looking at the model skeleton in his lab. Panning back over to him, we see him then write a message to Muriel just in case something goes wrong and he dies from the experiment, telling her that he did it in the name of science and that he'll always love her. Later, when Jekyll is restless in his laboratory during the time when he and Muriel have been separated, we cut from a close-up of him smoking his pipe as he looks out the window to him tapping his fingers on the table and doing the same with his foot, when Mamoulian then cuts to a pot boiling over a fire. When Jekyll finally throws caution to the wind and decides to let Hyde out again, the lid on the pot pops off, symbolizing how his desires have boiled over and now can't be contained. A very effective one occurs when Jekyll's seeing a cat pounce on a bird in a tree causes him to turn into Hyde without taking the formula, not just because the upsetting sight causes it but also because the dialogue he says is significant if you think about it. He starts out happy enough by quoting what I'm guessing is a poem, saying, "Thou was not born for death, immortal bird," and when he sits back down after the cat kills it, he again says, "Thou was not born for death," albeit in a more sinister way before he becomes Hyde. Keep in mind how Hyde always referred to Ivy as his "little bird" and similar names and, once he's been let loose again here, he growls, "But it is death! It is death!" before taking off to deal with Ivy, eventually killing her. During his strangling her, the two of them bend down out of frame to reveal a little statue of an angelic figure embracing a woman in preparation to make love to her, making for a very grim allusion to something Hyde told her a few moments before when he revealed himself to be Jekyll (whom Ivy considered to be her angel), telling her that he's the very man he promised to do anything for, as well as a parallel to a shot of statue in the garden when Jekyll and Muriel were out there alone earlier. And after Hyde has been shot dead and has turned back into Jekyll for the last time, the last shot of the movie is that boiling pot from before, with the water now overflowing out of control over the flames, alluding to how it's consumed him.
In addition to this, the film features other instances of editing and compositing work that, like the other technical aspects, are very sophisticated for the time and help give the movie a very stylized feel, as Mamoulian was more interested in his films being poetic rather than realistic. There are a couple of instances where a shot is suddenly divided in two at an angle, showing what's going at two different locations at once, the most notable of which comes during the third act when Jekyll becomes Hyde in the park and rushes off to confront Ivy, while at the same time, we're shown what's going on at General Carew's dinner party, as people are wondering where Jekyll could be. There are also interesting ways in which Mamoulian shows the viewer what's currently weighing on Jekyll's mind at a given moment through visual means, such as when he and Muriel part ways after their desire for an earlier marriage has been shunned by the general and a shot of her watching him go fades only halfway when the scene transitions to show Jekyll and Dr. Lanyon walking home, indicating that he can't stop thinking about her. A similar thing happens when he leaves Ivy after examining her, as a shot of her swaying her dangling leg back and forth, accompanied by her voice repeatedly saying, "Come back," in a sultry way, is superimposed over the next shot of Jekyll and Lanyon leaving the boarding house and stays there for a bit, showing that such an act left an impression on the former's mind. During his first transformation into Hyde, the shot of his point of view as he backs away from the mirror while he changes becomes a dizzying whirlwind of images and sounds that run through his mind, like General Carew and Lanyon's criticisms of his actions, his anger towards Carew for denying him an early marriage, and images of both Muriel and Ivy (as well as a heartbeat that I've read was actually Mamoulian's own after he'd run up and down some stairs for a couple of minutes), until we cut back into the laboratory to see Hyde for the first time. It reminds me of a similar montage we see in The Wolf Man right before Larry Talbot changes for the first time, and the Spencer Tracy version a decade later would have a similar scene. This is all really cool stuff and more of an indication of how ahead of his time Mamoulian was.
Speaking of the transformation, the way Jekyll's face and hands appear to change right on-camera, with no cutaways at all, was something that confounded people for decades and, according to Universal Horror, the secret behind it was only revealed after Mamoulian's death (in that documentary, they showed an interview with him in the 60's where he politely declined to reveal the secret, saying that he'd prefer to keep it so for as long as he could). It was done through a fairly simple process of putting this early stage of the makeup on Fredric March in various colors and use different colored filters in the film and change them in order to make the makeup slowly appear, which is why parts of March's face and hands appear to darken as he grabs at his neck and gasps and chokes. Looking at it today, it's still interesting to watch, even if you can see the cuts where they shift from that to the various stages of the Hyde makeup in order to make it look like it's happening all in one shot. In addition to that process, they also used an early example of the lap-dissolve technique that would become the norm for werewolf transformations following the success of The Wolf Man for the shots where Hyde reverts back to Jekyll in front of Lanyon and at the end when Jekyll becomes Hyde in front of the police and turns back into Jekyll after he's been shot and killed. Old-fashioned and dated, yes, but it works for what it has to do.
One thing that really struck me when I first saw this film and which still gets to me even now is what a sexual film this is for its time. At the time I saw it, I wasn't really aware of what's known as the "Pre-Code" era of Hollywood, alluding to the years before the Motion Picture Production Code became strictly enforced, although I did know that a number of the horror films being released around this time were deemed controversial. Save for a few exceptions, namely Tod Browning's Freaks (which is still uncomfortable to watch to this day because of its use of real people with deformities), I always figured that it had to do with the delicate sensibilities of the period and the fact that people hadn't seen anything like these movies at that point but, since I've been doing this blog, I've learned that, when you really delve deep into them, it becomes obvious how sick and subversive a number of these films are. But then again, there are some that have it right on the surface, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a prime example of such a movie. I couldn't believe what I was seeing when it came to the first scene with Dr. Jekyll and Ivy Pearson, as she puts his hand between her thighs, has him feel around her ribs while claiming that they're broken, takes her garters off and throws them at his feet in a very sultry, teasing fashion, and gets underneath the covers of her bed, having clearly stripped completely naked. She'd already suggested that he join her by responding to his suggestion that she should get some rest by asking, "Do you think I ought to go to bed?", and then, when he gets close, she pulls him in for a deep kiss, which he doesn't fight in the slightest. Add that to her being on his mind after he leaves, swinging her leg back and forth while telling him to come back to see her some time, and you have a film in which the sexual content is off the charts. I was absolutely flabbergasted when I saw this, as I didn't think movies back then could get away with this kind of stuff, and it's further punctuated by Jekyll and Dr. Lanyon's discussion about what Jekyll was doing and his referring to his actions as basic impulses. Moreover, Ivy herself alludes to the fact that she's a woman who's up for anything a man has in mind with her song, which she sings at the musical hall, "Champagne Ivy is my name. Champagne Ivy is my name. Good for any game at night, my boys."
A less overt hint towards sexuality, of the repressed type, at that, comes in the form of Jekyll and Muriel's desire to be married as soon as possible. While it is clear that there is a genuine bond and feeling of tenderness between them, Jekyll's desperate need for her, saying that he can't wait any longer, does indeed sound like somebody who's starved for sex, which fits into his constant bucking of the conservative nature of the time in which he lives and his frustration with General Carew, as well as Dr. Lanyon, for constantly enforcing celibacy and conformity onto him. And while she's not as earnest in it as her better half, Muriel wants this too, as she often tells him that if she could, she'd go to him without a second's thought, but because she doesn't want to hurt her father, she remains loyal to his wishes. As a result of this, Jekyll's unleashing of Mr. Hyde is just as much about his letting loose all of his pent up sexual frustration as it is separating the good and evil halves of his psyche, which adds another layer to why Hyde is so cruel and brutal towards poor Ivy. He is the id run wild in every possible way, with how he openly admires Ivy's body when she comes to his table at the music hall, will not take "no" for an answer and will force her to be with him if he has to, and proceeds to make her life a living hell to satiate his desires. Not only is he physically and mentally abusive but it's not at all far-fetched to think that he's probably put Ivy through rough sex numerous times and has every intention of really putting her through the wringer on the night before he leaves for a little while, given some of his dialogue, the way he kisses her right above her cleavage while embracing her, and the way that scene ends with his suggesting she not wear her garters so tight before picking her up and forcibly kissing her. And like I said, as horrific as it seems, Hyde more than likely raped her while or even after strangling her to death, given his line, "Isn't Hyde a lover after your own heart?", the way he forces her body to the floor while choking her, and that aforementioned evocative little statue on her nightstand that Rueben Mamoulian makes sure we see as they lean out of sight of the camera, which is to say nothing of the nude drawings you can see in the background.
As radical and daring as it is, though, the film does ultimately start to go back to a conservative, Christian way of looking at things during the third act. Not only do we get the age-old notion of this being a case of a scientist who went too far in his experiments and stumbled into God's sacred domain, Muriel is turned from a contributing factor of Hyde's being unleashed into an instrument of salvation for Jekyll, who tells her of the "strange path" that he's been walking lately and that she's his only way back. Muriel, sensing his distress but not completely understanding it, decides to help him in any way she can, which leads to their once again asking for her father's permission to have their wedding earlier and eventually winning his consent, with Jekyll's joy over this being partly due to hoping that her presence may help him to shirk off the taint that Hyde has left on him (a similar thing would happen much later in Hammer's The Curse of the Werewolf, where Leon realizes that Christina's presence and her love for him is all that can keep him from changing into the murderous beast). With Jekyll also promising the general to work on what he perceives to be flaws with his personality, it's almost as if they're trying to make it clear that conformity and repression is the way to go. More to the point, when Jekyll becomes guilt-ridden over Hyde's murder of Ivy, he pleads with God for help, and when he tells Muriel that he's setting her free, he goes on and on about being damned, about being in hell, having no soul, and ultimately declaring this act his penance before leaving the house. While it is understandable that someone may feel the way he does given the situation, seeing Jekyll going from someone who was so radical and felt that there were no boundaries to being so subservient and begging to God feels a little bit sudden (while he never said it, it's very probable that he didn't believe in any of it before). It might have been better for them not to have gone that way, as it's also the one moment where Frederic March's acting becomes really melodramatic, but given the time period and the sensibilities, I'm guessing it's to be expected.
As with most of the movies made in the early sound era, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has no actual score but does feature music during the opening and closing credits, as well as pieces occasionally heard whenever someone actually plays them in the scenes. Save for the Champagne Ivy song and the waltz heard during the dancing scene between Dr. Jekyll and Muriel (which is repeated near the end when he comes to see her to give her up), they're all classical compositions, particularly Johann Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565, which is what you hear during the opening credits and the first part of the movie as Jekyll is playing it on his organ. People always appear to associate it with classic horror, although I don't think they always get it right as to which film it was featured in (in his Angry Video Game Nerd episode on Dark Castle, James Rolfe says that people always think it's in Dracula but I assumed that if it were to be any movie, it would've been The Phantom of the Opera, as it's played in a parody scene of that movie in Gremlins 2). You hear another Bach piece, Ich ruf' zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ in F Minor, BWV 639, which Jekyll plays when he comes home, happy about how his marriage has been moved up within the next month. Finally, when Jekyll goes to see Muriel for the last time, she's playing Aufschwung from Fantasiestucke, op. 12: II by Robert Schumann, which, according to IMDB trivia, is an interesting choice given how, in reality, Schumann created two alter egos of himself for his work in music criticism. None of these pieces are particularly significant to the movie itself but they do help set the mood of this being a period piece and keep it from being nothing but dead air for the duration.
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