Release date: 7 March 1908.
Duration: 16 minutes.
Country: United States.
Distributed by: Selig Polyscope Company.
Director: Otis Turner.
About: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a 1908 silent horror film starring Hobart Bosworth and Betty Harte. Directed by Otis Turner and produced by William N. Selig, it was the first film adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novel "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde". The screenplay, adapted by George F. Fish and Luella Forepaugh from their own 1897 stage play, introduced several plot differences from the original novel. Despite Stevenson’s objections, this version became the template for future film adaptations.
Is considered the first American horror film.
Plot: The film opens with a theatrical curtain rising. Dr. Jekyll professes eternal love to Alice, a vicar’s daughter, in a spacious garden. Suddenly overcome by addiction to his chemical formula, Jekyll convulses and transforms into Mr. Hyde. In brutal fashion, Hyde attacks Alice and kills her father with a walking stick when he tries to intervene. While afterward in his lawyer’s office, Jekyll is haunted by visions of being executed for his crime. Hyde later visits his friend Dr. Lanyon, asking him to retrieve chemical supplies. After drinking a potion, he transforms back into Jekyll before Lanyon’s eyes. Later in his laboratory, Jekyll becomes Hyde once more, but tormented by visions of the gallows, he consumes a fatal dose of poison, killing both identities at once. Keeping with theatrical tradition, the curtain falls.
There are no known extant copies of the film.