By the early 1930s, the popular Robert Louis Stevenson novella had already been adapted for the screen several times. Frequently cited as the best version, Mamoulian’s take dexterously integrates his signature technical flourishes into the tale’s symbolism and subtext. Opening with a strangely suspenseful point-of-view tracking shot of Dr. Jekyll—and introducing the tale’s examination of subjectivity—the film is sewn together by luxuriously long dissolves that allow one reality to overlap the next. London’s foggy, shadowy and more risqué substrata visually intrude upon the mannered rules and repressions of Jekyll’s world. Of course, Mamoulian’s most infamous effect—and his secret for decades—the Jekyll-to-Hyde transformation is miraculously achieved with no cuts and is completed by Fredric March’s tour-de-force performance as the insidious, unbearable monster. Likewise, Miriam Hopkins’ easy charmer is virtually unrecognizable after her believable metamorphosis into tormented victim. Mamoulian derives much of the film’s terror from this focus on the mutability of self and draws the more fantastic elements down to earth by linking class difference with sexual freedom and repressed drives with psychotic action.