Coolidge Presents Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde October 19, 2009

The Coolidge Corner Theatre's Science on Screen series returns with this special presentation of Victor Fleming's 1941 adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic Victorian horror tale.

In 1887 London, Dr. Henry Jekyll (Spencer Tracy) is a socially upstanding physician whose unorthodox theories alarm his older colleagues. He believes that all men have two selves, one good and one evil, that can be separated by science. Jekyll takes a drug of his own creation which turns him into the cruel and remorseless Edward Hyde. At first, he is able to dispense of Hyde whenever he chooses. But as he repeatedly takes the potion, the malevolent Hyde begins to dominate, until he can no longer be controlled. Lana Turner co-stars as Jekyll's loving fiancee and Ingrid Bergman as a luckless barmaid pursued and abused by the brutish Hyde.

Before the film, MIT professor John Durant and Harvard professor Anne Harrington provide a fascinating window into some of the scientific and medical theories of the era in which the famously divided Jekyll/Hyde was born.

Official Website: http://www.coolidge.org/science