Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1931)

1931 adaption - Rouben Mamoulian
Mamoulian appears to work by the agage; don't cut unless you have to. With some wonderful pans and tracks, almost autonomous (indeed so) on occassion, we dare use the word 'Ophuls' at times. It gives a freedom, a fluidity to proceedings. The two and three shots allow the scene to be played out, not to push. There is also a great sense of that great thing, reticence; we don't see the bird be killed, instead we stay on March.
This isn't to say that Karl Struss hasn't also made with Mamoulian some remarkable expressionist touches. It is here that we find the auteur. The opening sequence, the point of view, is remarkable, as is the long tracking shots that go with it. There is, on the very few occassions when he wants to change position for dialogue, a straight to camera framing that brings out a certain strangeness. Perhaps the most exciting framing though is the extra close-up, used on just one or two occassions.
The sets further deserve mention; exteriors and ante-rooms are wide, deep, shot with a remarkable depth. Mamoulian's sets are most interesting in their use of the vertical; they appear above all tall, with floors above floors, quite unexpected in the usual set-building. And the lighting; fill seems to dominate over key, and there is strong, even ethereal, backlighting, especially for the love scenes.
The most is affecting because Frederic March, allowed to act, brings a pathos to Jekyll. By all rights priggish, March is playful and, somehow, we care deeply when his word is broken.
This film is famous for being pre-code, but that doesn't mean it is lasivious; it is simply honest. Why must truth be hid? The superimpostions show that this is a film about desire and sex, betrayed by arbitary conservatism; and why not make a film about this, speak the mind? Why not show sensuality, desire, allow to show some flesh, if that's what the film's about. An impressive introduction, for me, to Mamoulian.