dir. Jean Renoir
writ. Jean Renoir, based on Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde feat. Jean-Louis Barrault, Teddy Bilis, Sylviane Margollé, Jean Topart, Michel Vitold
The unquestionable highlight of Renoir's version of Stevenson's classic tale is the performance by Jean-Louis Barrault as Opale (Hyde). Through astonishing makeup, simple but clever costume changes, and sly cinematography, the dapper aristocratic doctor is transformed into a hunchbacked, puffy faced, wolfman. Opale steals the show with his shambling swagger, limber-necked lothario poses, and persistent menace. His introduction, tormenting a solitary little girl, suggests a venomously energetic Hyde, not only escaping society's norms, but eager to exact a bitter coward's revenge, to hound and destroy the weak and vulnerable.
Unfortunately, other than a lively turn by Michel Vitold as a rival doctor, the film lags whenever Opale is absent. Marveling at Dr. Cordelier's face, doubtful that it could be the same actor in both roles, only engages for so long. This isn't for lack of effort on Renoir's part. When it appears that Opale must have escaped through a high window, angular shots of high exterior windows, treacherously narrow ledges, and officers scouring the roof pair with an eerie score for a moment that would be delightfully unsettling if we didn't already know the gag. Saddled by the viewer's prescience of what should be the stunning final reveal, the better set pieces are defused, their thunder stolen, the ominous edge of the picture drained of its potentially ghoulish impact.
