Paramount PicturesThe classic monster canon features a diverse roster of supernatural fiends, but you could connect any of them with the virtues and vices of society as a whole. Whether you see our collective god complex in the plight of Frankenstein or our suppressed shame in Dracula, these monsters have always held a mirror up to humanity. Robert Louis Stevenson arguably addressed that theme the best in 1886, with The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The story of a man who manifests a repressed personality became the groundwork for all manner of psychological science fiction... though most adaptations have spun that story into a much fantastical metaphor. If you read Stevenson’s Victorian novella, you’ll find it’s not really about dissociative identities, but the lengths that its well-to-do hero will go to indulge in his conscious vices without impunity. Adaptations of Stephenson’s work ignore that subtext entirely, leaning hard on the transformation between the pious Dr. Jekyll, the evolved man, and his “lesser” form, Mr. Hyde. The 1932 film adaptation starring Fredric March was not the one that started this trend — that honor goes to the 1920 film starring John Barrymore — but it did go a long way in reinforcing the image of Jekyll and Hyde within the zeitgeist.Though not the first Jekyll, March made the character(s) his own. | Paramount PicturesLike Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein, March’s version of Jekyll and Hyde is the one horror fans most closely associate with the story. Not only did March win an Academy Award for his dual performance, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde also gave us the ape-like, troglodytic version of Mr. Hyde — a conscious departure from Barrymore’s sinuous take on the character. March’s Dr. Jekyll is also a bit more ambitious than Barrymore’s: he’s introduced giving a lecture about the two “selves” that dwell in each man. Jekyll wants to find a way to separate the bad self from the good, to expunge the bad in every man entirely, thus removing every obstacle between mankind and a perfect society.Jekyll’s experiment works all too well. He finds a way to bring out a personality that inhabits all his vices and indulges in his every whim; the tricky part is controlling it. But Mr. Hyde, as his other “personality” calls himself, cannot be tamed, nor can Jekyll fully keep him from manifesting at inopportune moments. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a pretty brief film, clocking in around an hour and a half, but director Rouben Mamoulian explores Jekyll and Hyde’s struggle for dominance with chilling diligence. It’s hard to watch as Hyde blows up Jekyll’s life, attacking everyone from a flirtatious bar singer (Miriam Hopkins) to Jekyll’s future father-in-law (Halliwell Hobbes). But it’s easy to forget that it’s still March under that beastly wig, talking through crooked fake teeth, moving with a fiendish kind of grace. He’s clearly having a lot more fun as Hyde, adding a meta layer to the story of a man who feels good being bad. March’s transformation has become synonymous with the character of Mr. Hyde. | Paramount PicturesDr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde premiered just before Hollywood’s Hays Code censored any content deemed too sexual in nature, so the original cut of the film is pretty racy by the standards of the era. That’s not the only thing that makes it feel a touch more modern than its contemporaries: Jekyll and Hyde also made use of stunning practical effects throughout. The film opens with a first-person sequence designed to place viewers in the body — and, by extension, the mind — of Dr. Jekyll, culminating in a mirror shot achieved with a reversed set. That same effect is repeated throughout the film, most notably in Jekyll’s first transformation into Hyde. It gives Jekyll and Hyde an immersive quality, one that almost forbids us from looking away. Not every part of the film has aged as gracefully, but it remains the definitive version of this story, if one of the more underrated monster movies of the era. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is now streaming on HBO Max.