Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (DVD, 2004)

Story: Based on Robert Louis Stevenson's often adapted 1886 socially conscious horror novella, this version stars the incomparable John Barrymore as Dr. Henry Jekyll, a gentle, saintly Victorian physician.

Dr. Henry Jekyll experiments with the scientific means of revealing the hidden dark side of man, and releases a murderer from within himself. This silent-era classic stars the incomparable John Barrymore in the title role.

Comments: Historical Art, Love It!
When watching this you can almost ''feel'' the history of movie-making. From Theatre to Pictures, To Color, to Present-day movies.

The movie is from 1920 it says on the back, 96 minutes playing time.
I have a couple other silent-movies from the 1920's, like Nosferatu for instance, i don't find them as good as this one.

In this movie, the story is not that hard to follow, about a nice gentlemen ( Dr. Jekyll ) who is a scientist and he gets challenged by a other gentleman, he's a bit shy of women, and thinks he is too good, so he thinks off what if i could seperate the good from the evil, and that's how Mr. Hyde comes to life.
Then He gets angry and without the potion he changes into Mr. Hyde and then he murders the father of his love, and commits suicide soon after and that was the end.

The Clarity of this movie is still almost intact, it is good to follow, and if you can lip-read a bit, then you can follow some parts they say as well, with the text screens very often, you like this movie.

The background is terrific in the movie, you get a historical view from how they used to live in the 19th century and all ( mind you, movie is of 1920 and we are now in 2006, that is almost 100 years ago )

The Sound, the piano and stuff, that was a bit irritating, coz we don't live in those ''classic'' times anymore, and you rather hear some nice present day background music and all, but you can still live with it, and even if you like classical music then that would be great to listen to.

The Make-up of the actors that was also something special i believe, they have black make-up around there eyes.
The Shape of some off the actors let you see that we have evolved quite alot since 100 years, they looked more ape-like ( especially Mr. Hyde ) .

If your a REAL movie-collector and you don't have this classic silent- black & white movie from 1920 yet, then buying, seeing it, or renting it, wouldn't be a waste of money in my opinion.