Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The oldest surviving screen Jekyll and Hyde, and a compact one-reeler from the Thanhouser Company of New Rochelle. Lucius Henderson follows Thomas Russell Sullivan's 1887 stage version more closely than Stevenson's novella, telescoping the dual-identity tragedy into twelve minutes. James Cruze, later the director of The Covered Wagon, plays a white-haired physician who drinks a formula to divide good from evil and becomes a taloned sociopath. Florence La Badie is the minister's daughter he loves. After repeated transformations Hyde emerges unbidden, tramples a child, and murders the vicar. An accident exhausts the antidote; trapped as Hyde, Cruze drinks poison as the police axe through the laboratory door. The surviving print is a condensation of what was originally two reels.