(1920)
Dir - John S. Robertson
Overall: MEH
Already adapted to the screen a number of times in the silent era, the first full-length cinematic telling of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was the Paramount produced, 1920, John Barrymore-starred version, (two more would be released by other studies the very same year). It is in fact a tour de force for the stage actor who achieves marvelous results during his transformation scenes, (one of which involving zero camera tricks or even make-up), and in provoking genuine unnerve as the Edward Hyde half of the persona. Contorting his body language and tilting his head back to prominently display his fiendish grin and overall highly expressive and deliberately grotesque facial features, Barrymore's Hyde is as good as any the film medium has ever seen. This was also the first time that the female characters Millicent Carew and the exotic dance girl were introduced into one of the films from Thomas Russell Sullivan's stage production, but even still, the movie is a tremendous bore outside of Barrymore's performance. These pacing issues would be no more come the Fredric March version eleven years later, but this one is still a spectacle at least when the second half of its title character is on screen.
(1922)
Dir - Edward D. Venturini
Overall: MEH
Allegedly this 1922 version of Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hallow is the oldest existing film adaptation and the first feature-length movie of any kind to be filmed entirely in panchromatic stock. It is therefor a historically important work, but unfortunately its place as a cinematic footnote is all that it is really worth. It is odd in and of itself that they went with the title The Headless Horseman since it almost could not be more misleading. Said iconic horror literature villain is given a whopping two and a half minutes of screen time if one was to be generous. Which is bad enough. Added to that fact is that his "blink and you'll miss 'em" appearances are void of atmosphere and shot in unconvincing day for night scenes with no emphasis on any even remotely moody lighting. Added AGAIN to that is the fact that they are not even given a supernatural origin; it just ends up being some asshole pulling a practical joke, which is essentially what the entire movie feels like. The actual hour and some change that makes up everything else is numbingly uninteresting and just revolves around the Sleepy Hollow village prattling on about their own business and bickering with their new school master for no reason. There is simply nothing else here worth investigating any further.
(1927)
Dir - Paul Leni
Overall: MEH
Having snagged German Expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni from his native country, Universal gave him The Cat and the Canary as his first project for the studio. An adaptation of the stage play by John Willard, Leni got to bring some of the impressive, stylistic flare to this textbook haunted house comedy that would get remade a handful of times, most notably with Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard in 1939. Inventive intertitles and camera movements, dissolves, superimpositions, and set designs by both Leni himself and Charles D. Hall who would later go onto to do such work on both Dracula and Frankenstein, it certainly has the appropriate, spooky look going for it. The presentation is far more interesting than the slow, predictable story where a bunch of people are cooped up in a ridiculously creepy house with an equally creepy housekeeper, waiting for everyone to get either picked off or startled into fainting spells while an old relative's will is fought over. As far as the humor goes, it is certainly present though not necessarily gut-busting. Visually it is captivating enough, but nothing else really latches onto you the way it probably should.
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