It's strange to think that when this film was released, in 1920, it was the first cinematic version to the best of my knowledge, or at least the first full length one. And, as such, it had a problem to navigate: Robert Louis Stevenson's original novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, is possibly the most spoiled novel of all time, through no fault of its own. Yes, the fact that Jekyll and Hyde are one and the same is the twist at the end... and the novel's very success has ruined that twist for all subsequent generations.
So how to handle this? By 1920 the twist was known to everyone, so the telling of the story is changed. We're introduced to Dr. Jekyll as a paragon of virtue, but Jekyll is in turn introduced to the vices of, er, the music hall(!) but his prospective father-in-law. Tempted to indulge these vices, he invents a serum to change himself into Hyde as a means by which he can do so. Unlike later adaptations, Hyde and Jekyll are not distinct personalities- although I think, unlike in the novella, there is a difference- but Hyde is merely a means for the "virtuous" Jekyll to knowingly indulge his vices. The film therefore, despite its changes, preserves from the book the concept that this is a tragedy, one springing from moral flaw's that are fundamentally Jekyll's.
I confess I was driven to frown at the changing of the setting from Edinburgh to London; the original novel is very redolent of the capital. I also frowned at some intertitles early on that mocked the vowels of the Cockney accent- "accentism" is not cool. But it can't be denied that this is a profoundly thoughtful and inspired adaptation, closer to its source than most or perhaps all of its successors.
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