New posts

Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="Octopus, post: 345320, member: 4"] To clarify, this isn't a thread for reviews of movies starring octopods, though that would be cute as fuck. No, this is where I'll occasionally dump little movie reviews and probably be focusing almost entirely on old school stuff, as that's my favourite flavour of jam. Anyone else can feel free to add on or post their own stuff here too, I don't mind at all. Let the discussion and memes flow. This first review will have to be done in two posts to clear the 10k character limit, but will need a bump in-between to break the rule of merge posts sharing the same character limit. [HR][/HR] [HEADING=2][CENTER]Part One[/CENTER][/HEADING] [CENTER][ATTACH type="full" width="356px" alt="1760280101366.png"]118432[/ATTACH][/CENTER] Let's talk about one of my newest movie favourites, 1931's [I]Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde[/I]. This movie entirely surprised me, honestly. I went in with really no expectations other than I heard it was pretty neat, and I wasn't prepared for just how neat it was. Dr Henry Jekyll (Frederic Marsh) is a scientist who's become convinced that through a specific chemical concoction that he's capable of severing the 'good' of a man from the 'evil', the two sides that are eternally chained together in the human soul, each affecting the other in negative ways; the evil is repressed by the good, and the good side feels guilt over the evil. By ridding the evil out of a man's soul through science and shit, his idea is that the good would then be untethered; [I]"what heights it might scale!"[/I] The evil then would be free to fulfill itself without bringing down the good side. I'm really not sure how this separation happens logistically as it sounds like he's talking about literally duplicating someone in effect, but [I]it's science, don't worry about it.[/I] [CENTER][ATTACH type="full" width="700px" alt="1760280273679.png"]118436[/ATTACH] [I][B]Frederic Marsh actually won an Academy Award for his dual performance in this movie, at the third Academy Award ceremony ever; the Oscars started in 1929.[/B][/I][/CENTER] Great effort is made to sell Jekyll as a truly upstanding man. He often performs surgery for free on the downtrodden, takes time away from silly social gatherings to help random precocious little poor girls walk again in a really oddly drawn out scene. He's also engaged to and in love with Muriel Carew (Rose Hobart), and through him constantly stating it we come to learn [I]hopelessly so[/I]. He wishes to marry her right away, but her father, General Carew (Halliwell Hobbes) demands that they wait, as 'that's just how it's done'. After an argument with his father-in-law, Jekyll and his fellow distinguished gentleman and good friend, Dr John Lanyon (Holmes Herbert), then argue about Jekyll's 'ridiculous' theory and his preposterous potion that can separate a man's moral psyche. Their interrupted by a kerfuffle down the road, and rescue lounge singer Ivy (Miriam Hopkins) from being old-timey accosted by a fellow of low character outside the boarding house she rents a room. What a rescue indeed; Jekyll delivers a fisticuffs as only a man of true and strong moral character could while wearing a cape and top hat. [CENTER][ATTACH type="full" width="700px" alt="1760280327000.png"]118438[/ATTACH] [I][B]I live for the day capes are socially acceptable to wear out in public again.[/B][/I][/CENTER] Ivy is a very friendly woman indeed, and really tries her best to tempt Jekyll with some activities of an [I]amorous nature[/I]. We'll touch more in depth on this later, but this movie got away with some scandalous stuff for 1931. The scene culminates in her just grabbing him after stripping down (tastefully of course) and giving him a big ol' kiss. [CENTER][B][I][ATTACH type="full" width="700px" alt="1760280361389.png"]118440[/ATTACH][/I][/B] [I][B]She's definitely not subtle, and holy shit avert your eyes; there's the faintest hint of cleavage! in 1931![/B][/I][/CENTER] While he's clearly tempted, Jekyll of course laughs this sexual assault off as a man of such moral character would. The next day, he decides to test his concoction out on himself of course, as this was the story that essentially inspired the entire schtick trope of the tragic/mad scientist. This gives way to not just the end of my play-by-play set up of the movies plot but one of the greatest strengths of this entire thing; the goddamn transformation scenes as Jekyll warps into his evil spit personality, Mr Hyde. [CENTER][ATTACH type="full" width="700px" alt="1760280394922.png"]118441[/ATTACH] [I][B]From Dr Jekyll...[/B][/I] [ATTACH type="full" width="700px" alt="1760280416362.png"]118442[/ATTACH] [I][B]...into the simian-esque Mr Hyde.[/B][/I][/CENTER] I cannot hammer home enough how utterly convincing the makeup and framing is for the Hyde transformations, and it's something that must be seen in video rather than just some screenshots; [URL='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP7RyURZAa0'][B]I implore you to watch this[/B][/URL]. The technique used is much easier to understand when you see it in motion, as it happens in real time. The first transformation scene, the one most show-off of the whole thing, plays out as a POV shot of Jekyll staring into a mirror as he takes the serum, begins to choke on it, then in real time his face begins to change before the camera backs away, and starts getting all abstract on us with a twisted montage of Jekyll's various frustrations as it spins around the room. When it cuts back, the transformation is complete; Jekyll is now Mr Hyde, who represents all of Jekyll's repressed evil urges, his unbridled passions and his hidden violence in its primal form. His driving motive and only desire is to do what ever he wants, and he definitely does just that as the movie plays out. The makeup technique used here that let Jekyll's face change right in front of you is insane. When the scene begins and Frederic Marsh is looking into the mirror, the makeup you see later is already applied to his face; since it's only in black-and-white, you can't see it as the makeup itself is coloured. Once the transformation begins, a coloured glass lens filter is slowly removed from the camera, again hidden by the fact that no colour is discernable in black-and-white. As this filter is removed, the makeup begins to contrast to the different lighting that you again can't see on camera, and the makeup then beigns to slowly show on Jekyll's face, giving the illusion that he's changing in real time. It's an utterly inventive and revolutionary technique for 1931, so much so in fact that how they did this was entirely a secret until 1969 when the director, Rouben Mamoulian, revealed it in an interview. It's one part of the best strength of this movie, with the other half being the makeup on Hyde proper. The only other movie I'm aware of that uses the same technique was 1937's [I]Sh! The Octopus[/I] which I think is a cool title for no specific reason at all. Mr Hyde looks absolutely stellar in this movie just from the practical makeup done on Frederic Marsh. He starts out looking something still related to human, but as the movie goes on he gets more and more devolved with each transformation which is a nice touch. It's as if the acts that he commits over the movie degenerate him more and more, and by the end he's even more monstrous looking. It's also a really nice touch to have him clearly inspired by an ape-like look; it goes well with the idea of him being the repressed side of Jekyll, so repressed that he's fallen back on the evolutionary scale itself. This look and idea of Mr Hyde I think has been the most influential in pop culture going forward for a reason, in that it's fantastic. Hyde is stocky, agile, and has got some real nasty teeth. Marsh's acting also really sells it as he acts entirely differently as Hyde, playing him in fits of excitable, twitchy mania but always utterly despicable. He is a complete and utter fiend in ways that specifically follow the book source material pretty closely compared to the rest of the movie; we'll get into that at the end. [CENTER][B][I][ATTACH type="full" width="700px" alt="1760280543813.png"]118444[/ATTACH][/I][/B] [I][B]Marsh's ability to still give clear Hyde dialogue with that large of a set of fake chompers in is seriously an accomplishment. You earned that Academy Award, buddy. To be continued, after (hopefully) a bump...[/B][/I][/CENTER] [/QUOTE]

Verification

Online statistics

Members online: 87

Guests online: 290

Total visitors: 377

Totals may include hidden visitors.

Forum statistics

Threads: 13,879

Messages: 336,156

Members: 885,607

Latest member: Eyeholes

Reply to thread

Online statistics

Forum statistics

Advertisers