The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde has four screen versions here: John S. Robertson’s 1920 film with John Barrymore, Rouben Mamoulian’s 1931 film with Fredric March, Victor Fleming’s 1941 film with Spencer Tracy, and a 1968 television film with Jack Palance.
The novella is short — about 26,000 words, roughly 87 minutes of reading — and every version is longer than that. Densities run from 3.0 to 4.6 minutes of screen per thousand words, the highest in this collection.
Every screen version at a glance
4 versions are listed here: 3 made for cinemas and 1 for television, released between 1920 and 1968. Runtimes are the length of the version as released, taken from the Wikipedia article for each title and checked against its IMDb entry.
| Year | Version | Director | Length | Leads |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1920 | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — film | John S. Robertson | 79 min | John Barrymore, Martha Mansfield, Charles W. Lane |
| 1931 | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — film | Rouben Mamoulian | 96 min | Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Rose Hobart |
| 1941 | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — film | Victor Fleming | 113 min | Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner |
| 1968 | The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — television film | Charles Jarrott | 120 min | Jack Palance, Denholm Elliott, Tessie O’Shea |
How the versions differ
The 1920 film runs 79 minutes with John Barrymore, and it is the earliest version here. Its density of about 3.0 minutes per thousand words is the lowest of the four.
Mamoulian’s 1931 film runs 96 minutes and won Fredric March an Academy Award for Best Actor, the only horror performance of the period to be so honoured. It uses a first-person camera for parts of the film.
Fleming’s 1941 film runs 113 minutes with Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner. The 1968 television film runs 120 minutes with Jack Palance, Denholm Elliott and Tessie O’Shea, the longest and most compressed at about 4.6 minutes per thousand words.
Reading time against screen time
The novel runs to about 26000 words, which is roughly 1 hours at the 300 words a minute the rest of this site uses. Every screen version fits its own reading of the story into the times below.
| Screen version | Format | Running time |
|---|---|---|
| 1920 · Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | film | 79 min |
| 1931 · Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | film | 96 min |
| 1941 · Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | film | 113 min |
| 1968 · The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | television film | 120 min |
| The novel (1886) | 26000 words | ~1 h to read |
The 1968 television film has the most screen time at 120 minutes; the 1920 film the least at 79. All four are longer than the novella’s 87 minutes of reading.
Questions readers ask
How many Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde films are there?
More than a hundred, counting shorts and parodies. This page lists four features and television films that are widely available: 1920, 1931, 1941 and 1968.
Which version is closest to the novella?
By density of screen time against text, the 1920 film at about 3.0 minutes per thousand words. The novella is about 26,000 words, roughly 87 minutes of reading.
Did any Jekyll film win an Oscar?
Fredric March won Best Actor for the 1931 film, which runs 96 minutes and also stars Miriam Hopkins and Rose Hobart.
The novel itself is on editions.ink as a free ebook: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, with EPUB, AZW3 and KEPUB downloads. The full list of filmed classics covers 13 books, and the rest of the catalogue sits under classic fiction.
Other books on screen
- Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus on screen — 4 versions from 1931 to 1994
- Dracula on screen — 4 versions from 1931 to 1992
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland on screen — 5 versions from 1951 to 2010