TRAILER TRASH: Jekyll & Hyde Edition!

50 Cent Discusses New Jekyll & Hyde...

Not long ago, we got wind of one of the more head-scratching new projects of late--a "reimagining" of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, to star Forrest Whitaker and 50 Cent. But since May when the project was announced, it's been pretty much kept under wraps, until now.

On Friday, 50 Cent--a.k.a. the world's worst actor--finally broke the silence, talking to MTV about the movie and his role in it:

"It's gonna be intense. [Abel Ferrara] is an excellent director, so his creative ideas will definitely be an injective into what it's actually gonna turn out to be."

A free Vault of Horror T-shirt to anyone who can explain to me what that even means... Anyway, Ferrara, some of you may know, was the director of the controversial and acclaimed 1992 Harvel Keitel film Bad Lieutenant, and of course Whitaker is one of the finest actors of our time (if you haven't seen The Last King of Scotland yet, do so immediately). Mr. Cent, however, is just another rapper wannabe-actor littering our beloved genre with his presence. Sigh...

Fitty even acknowledged the running gag of no one being sure which actor was going to play which role. For the record, according the MC, he will be playing Mr. Hyde, and Whitaker will be Dr. Jekyll. Also, the film will be modernized to take place in the present day. Shooting is set to begin at the end of the summer.

John Barrymore. Fredric March. Spencer Tracy. Jack Palance. Michael Caine. John Malkovich. 50 Cent. "One of these things is not like the other..."

The sad thing is, this would have the potential to be quite excellent with Whitaker playing both Jekyll and Hyde, as every actor who has ever previously tackled the role has done. But with the stone-faced and marble-mouthed rapper stepping into the juicy part, its much more likely that this film will be an embarrassment than anything else. As someone who has been anxiously awaiting a new adaptation of Stevenson's novel, color me frustrated.

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In the grand tradition of Day of the Woman's "This Just In" posts, I had two random images I wanted to share with you tonight. They're from the fifth birthday party of my son Skeleton Jack (a.k.a. Wee-Sol). As most of you may have gathered from our vlog yesterday, Wee-Sol is a rabid Godzilla-phile like his old man, so it was no wonder that he chose Big G as the theme for his party!

Check out the boss cake, made using a high-res jpeg I snagged off the internet. Stop-n-Shop was able to scan the image and slap it on the cake in the form of delicious sugary goodness! What will they think of next?


Later on, it was Godzilla vs. A bunch of kids, as we strung up the pinata effigy of the radioactive monster in the backyard... OK, so Godzilla isn't blue. Yeah, it's just a random T-Rex pinata. Look, we did the best we could. They couldn't tell the diff anyway, the clueless little partygoers. Anyway, here's a shot of the lynched lizard, moments before I had to step in and decapitate him with a Swiffer handle...

Retro Review: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1920)

Welcome back one and all, to the one and only, the real, the original Retro Review, right here in The Vault of Horror. Accept no substitutes!

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When asked what is my favorite silent horror film, I always went the tried-and-true route of most horror fans and chose F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu. But now, after viewing the 1920 version of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde starring John Barrymore for the first time, I may just have to change my tune. Maybe.

I'm also torn, because I always have had a special spot in my heart for the 1931 version starring Fredrich March. However, in a lot of ways, I found myself liking this silent version even better.

To my mind, it's all about Barrymore's performance. What's incredible is the fact that very little makeup is used--rather, the actor effects the transformation almost entirely through his bearing and facial expressions. It sounds hard to believe unless you've seen it, but I can assure you, it's brilliant to watch. Clearly, Barrymore's stage training came in handy in helping him communicate so much with body language and facial movement.

The 1931 version opted to go the heavy makeup route, and dazzle with transformative special effects, resulting in a simian, truly monstrous Hyde. But in a lot of ways, what Barrymore did was more challenging. Aside from a greasy fright wig, some shadowing, and fake teeth, he pretty much had to sell you on this transformation through his dramatic power. In this respect, it's actually more similar to the 1941 version starring Spencer Tracy. However, as much as Tracy is one of my all-time favorite actors, he was hopelessly miscast in the role, whereas Barrymore is right on the money.

Maybe it's because I know a thing or two about Barrymore's matinee idol status and personal demons, but it's very easy for me to buy him as both Jekyll and Hyde. Much like March, he pulls off both excellently, effecting the moralism and earnestness of the good doctor just as well as the barbarity and lasciviousness of his repulsive "friend".

And while we're on the subject of lasciviousness, I think no other cinematic version of Robert Louis Stevenson's tale that I've seen deals as frankly with the sexual subtext as this one. Jekyll & Hyde is very much about Victorian sexual repression and its consequences, and in this particular version, there is none of the vague, genteel beating-around-the-bush that we get in later versions. Jekyll's temptation into a world of sin is made quite plain, as is his creation of Hyde as a way of letting loose his carnal impulses.

In Dr. Jekyll's 19th century world, a man of his stature had to to maintain certain levels of decorum to function in polite society, wed, and prosper. But as Hyde, he is free to descend into a depraved underworld of sex, drugs and murder. March pulls this off quite well in Rouben Mamoulian's '30s version, but I'm tempted to say that Barrymore does it even better.

The only drawback in comparing the two performances, in which March inevitably wins out, naturally, is the fact that Barrymore's performance is without sound. Nevertheless, it is even more of a testament to his chops as a world-class thespian that he can mesmerize you from beginning to end without uttering a single recorded word.

Thanks to the marvelous Kino Video, they of the equally excellent Nosferatu special edition DVD, I was able to experience the film with the original color tinting restored, as well as the original score pieced back together and performed by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. And what a powerful score it is, proving that, strictly speaking, silent movies were never really silent.

In addition to the masterful Barrymore, veteran supporting player Brandon Hurst shines devilishly as the father of Jekyll's lady love, who initially leads him into temptation. Also memorable is Nita Naldi (above) in a star-making turn as the doomed Italian club singer who becomes the target/victim of Henry Hyde's appetites.

While the Europeans were doing their thing, this was the flick that put horror on the Hollywood map, and with good reason. A bona fide treat for fans of classic terror, as well as for fans of great acting.

VAULT VLOG: Lamenting the Jekyll & Hyde Situation

Gods & Monsters: A History of Horror Movies, Part 2

The advent of sound in 1927 opened the door to unheard-of possibilities in motion pictures. For the nascent horror movie genre, particularly in America, it seemed to provide the necessary impetus that allowed what had been an obscure niche curiosity to burst into the mainstream in a big way.
Of course, it wasn't just horror movies that grew in stature thanks to sound. It was at the beginning of the talkie era that the U.S., specifically Hollywood, became the center of the movie universe. And one American movie studio took it upon itself to kick off a golden age of terror flicks.
One of the smaller studios in Tinseltown, Universal didn't necessarily have the big bucks to attract the big stars and produce the prestige pictures. What it did have was visionary studio head Carl Laemmle, who in 1930 greenlit a film adaptation of the long-running stage production of Dracula. Directed by Tod Browning and starring stage headliner Bela Lugosi, the movie was a smash hit--America' first sound horror film. It was quickly followed in 1931 with another adaptation, this time Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff as the misshapen monster. It was an even larger hit.
Horror was bigger than it had ever been, and Universal was leading the way. Lugosi and Karloff became icons of the genre, and their respective films each spawned a series of sequels, most notable among being the superlative Bride of Frankenstein. Taking some inspiration from the German Expressionist pics of the previous decade, the Universal horror movies were rich in atmosphere and, intially at least, took their subject matter very seriously. Frankenstein and Dracula were followed by such films as The Mummy (1932) and The Invisible Man (1933).
Universal's success inspired some of the other studios to try their hands at horror movies. A particular stand-out would be Paramount's 1931 production of Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde, starring Fredric March.
In 1934, driven in part by what it perceived as the shocking nature of the horror genre, as well as other "unsavory" aspects of movies in general, a certain rather conservative constituency in America led to the adoption of the Hays Code. Created by studio heads as a response to the moral outcry, the Hays Code reigned in some of the content seen in movies, and horror was one of the main areas affected.
In the latter half of the decade, Universal's pictures softened somewhat in tone. Despite still being enjoyable films, they fall somewhat short of the gothic masterpieces of a few years earlier.
Universal was still rolling along by the start of the 1940s, and in 1941 produced another classic monster, The Wolf Man, played by Lon Chaney Jr.--son of the silent horror star of a generation prior. Nevertheless, after the success of The Wolf Man, world affairs would play a part in the genre's imminent decline.
With the onset of World War II, horror films fell out of favor with the American public--in large part, many have felt, due to the real-life horror hitting so close to home on a daily basis. Most of the genre, including Universal's output, devolved into more juvenile and campy fare over the course of the rest of the decade, typified by such "monster team-up" flicks as Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), or the grandaddy of all horror-comedies, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).
Still, there was some quality horror being made even during those doldrum years. Chief among the horror filmmakers of the era was Val Lewton, who produced a series of pictures for RKO that included such gems as Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and The Body Snatcher (1945).
By the end of the 1940s, the United States--and the world, for that matter--was a very different place from what it had been just a decade before. America's place in the world had changed; sensibilities had changed; and what frightened people had also changed. As horror movies inched toward another renaissance, the genre would reflect this as well.
Other major releases:

• Freaks (1932)
• White Zombie (1932)
• The Black Cat (1934)
• Werewolf of London (1935)
• Dracula's Daughter (1936)
• Son of Frankenstein (1939)
• The Mummy's Hand (1940)
• The Uninvited (1944)

Part 1: The Silent Dead

Soon to come: Part 3 - It Came from Hollywood