Its storyline is based on the 1886 Gothic novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde written by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson.

Hyde instigates mayhem in the music hall, tripping one man, hitting another with a cane, poking another in the eye, pitting one patron against another until a brawl ensues.

Hyde flees back to the laboratory, and, unable to enter through the street door, pushes past Jekyll's butler, Poole.

Meanwhile, as police investigate Sir Charles's body, Lanyon arrives, observes that Jekyll's cane was the murder weapon and realizes what happened.

"[3] Smith summarizes that the film's treatment of the source material "suggests the complex network of physiology, neurology, psychology, sexuality, and environment that is shaped in the relationship between impairment and medicine.

Both Hollywood productions differ greatly from the original literary work due to their heavy reliance on Thomas Russell Sullivan's 1887 stage adaptation of the story.

According to the Robert Louis Stevenson website being archived and preserved by the British Library, subsequent to that acquisition MGM studio executives “hid the [1931] film away to avoid competition with their remake”.

[4] The Oscar-winning 1931 version then, due to ongoing legal restrictions and the lack of readily available copies, was effectively “lost” for over a quarter of a century, not generally available again for re-screenings and study until 1967.

[4] MGM's 1941 remake was produced by Victor Saville and adapted by John Lee Mahin from the screenplay of the earlier film by Percy Heath and Samuel Hoffenstein.

There is also at least one superbly photographed chase of the maddened Hyde running amok through the fog-bound London streets, his cape billowing behind him like a vision of terror.

The film has, finally, the extraordinarily polished production that only Hollywood's technical wizards can achieve.” Beyond that, he found it to be a “preposterous mixture of hokum and high-flown psychological balderdash…a Grand Guignol chiller with delusions of grandeur,… In a daring montage or two, which must have caught the censors dozing, a weary Freud is dragged in by the coat-tails…A little Freudian theory is a dangerous thing.

Faced with the choice of creating hokum unabashed or a psychological study of a man caught in mortal conflict with himself, the producers have tried to do both—and failed by nearly two hours of pompous symbolism.

After its preview of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in late July 1941, the trade paper Variety cited some weaknesses in the development of characters and situations in the film's plot; but, overall, the popular New York publication gave the production a very positive assessment.

[10] It compared too Hyde's physical appearance with his portrayals in the 1920 and 1931 interpretations of Stevenson's novella:...Tracy plays the dual roles with conviction.

His transformations from the young physician...to the demonic Mr. Hyde are brought about with considerably less alterations in face and stature than audiences might expect, remembering John Barrymore and Frederic March in earlier versions.

[11] The trade paper, which was widely read by theater owners or “exhibitors”, complimented Fleming's pacing and staging of the story and described his “handling of the players” as “flawless”.

[13] The monthly did, though, find the film's plot passé and Tracy's Hyde far too understated in appearance to be effective:In the ten years that have elapsed since Frederic March won his Academy Award for his work in the title roles, movie-goers have become too sophisticated for the sort of medical hocus-pocus on which the Stevenson story is based.

[13] Another fan-based publication, Modern Screen, was less subtle in its November 1941 review of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, calling the film “quite the oddest picture of the year”.

[14] The magazine, in part, considered the remake “funniest when apparently it is trying to be most serious and never so routine as when it is trying hardest to be different.”[14] With regard to more recent critical responses to this version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, American film reviewer and historian Leonard Maltin in 2014 gave the production 3 out of a possible 4 stars, praising in particular Tracy and Bergman's performances.