Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde is a story that has stood the test of time due to the fact that it possesses a number of metaphors and deeper meanings. Each of the metaphors represents something that is relevant in the real world, even more than one hundred thirty years later. However, John S. Robertson’s rendition of this timeless story struggles to hit the audience. It struggles to, for a number of reasons, effectively present Stevenson’s genius to the world and, ultimately, falls short in nearly every way. This was one of the first silent horror films ever produced and it shows. My experience with silent films includes only some of Charlie Chaplin’s masterpieces, but this, in no way, compared to the enjoyment of any Chaplin film (not that I expected it to). The biggest issue in the film was the fact that nothing was given the opportunity to develop. From the first few seconds, it appeared that Robertson tried too hard to explain each minute detail through dialogue. It seems obvious that forcing “dialogue” on the audience in a silent film could be a let down, but Robertson tried anyway. Due to the amount of dialogue that appeared on the screen the film felt fractured. The audience was unable to buy into the film because they were, over and over again, stopped and made to read what was being said. It seems that allowing the acting to tell the story rather than the dialogue could have worked much more effectively. Ultimately, the importance and excitement of the story was lost in translation and was unable to become whole, leaving the audience needing more but wanting less. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0011130/?ref_=nv_sr_6
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