The garter scene, in which Miriam Hopkins strips off and dangles her naked leg over the edge of the bed, was only one instance where the 1931 Dr Jekyll ran into censorship trouble.  Hardly surprising for a film which positively strains with barely-suppressed sexuality, and features some incredibly suggestive dialogue and shocking brutality for its time: the scenes between Hyde and his ‘kept-woman’ depict domestic violence, misogyny, obsession and possessiveness.

Dr Jekyll was also the first major work by the temperamentally brilliant Russian-born director Rouben Mamoulian (whom we shall encounter again on this four-star journey (in Love Me Tonight and Queen Christina).  Amongst the innovative tricks of technique Mamoulian brought to Dr Jekyll were subjective camera, extreme close-ups, match-cuts and dissolves, and possibly the slowest screen wipe in history.  He also displays in this film a sense of visual grammar that any present-day director could (and certainly should) learn from.