Hello,
Not having cable, I wasn't able to catch the cable version of Jekyll and Hyde. If they are doing it as analogous to drug addiction, that's the wrong track. Nor was it intended as a story of alcohol addiction. Most scholars agree it was an early psychological story more related to schizophrenia and bipolar disorders than substance abuse.
Anyway, I haven't seen the Spencer Tracy version very many times. I do know they did few changes from the Frederic March script. I do enjoy the March version quite a lot. The director chose Hyde's look as a degeneration into a more primal man. He becomes neanderthal-like as the film progresse. Barrymore's version is more closely based on a pure good and evil. Barrymore had Hyde becoming more like a human spider as he regresses. Dick Smith based Jack Palance's look on bust of Pan from a piece of classical mythology statuary.
I always like Dan Curtis' production. I once read it was the only version in which Jekyll has extensive makeup, as they wanted Palance to look more aristocratic. As a matter of fact, I like this much better than either the Dan Curtis Frankenstein or Dracula. Despite how much Dan loves his Palance Dracula, I think the script is one of Richard Matheson's weakest with several flaws and leaves Dracula without enough to do. The sets look way too cold, they have the bleak austerity of what looks like and probably was Cold War era eastern europe. On the other hand, Curtis's Jekyll and Hyde was shot on video on studio sets and has more of the same feel as DS did. Even moreso as Robert Cobert overlapped music between the two.
I have seen Mary Reiley too and while John Malkovich is always interesting as he's always so intense, it was a little too graphic for me. I heard Al Pacino was offered the role before Malkovich.
Okay, I love the classic horror films. One last piece of trivia,
David Lynch used a few film references to the Tracy version in "Fire Walk with Me." Most especially where Hyde envisoned the ladies as horses he was whipping.
CyrusL, aka Michael
your cousin from Virginia
When in New York , be sure to visit the Jekyll and Hyde club, uptown near Central Park, and downtown in the village.