Filming on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde began in February 1941 at MGM studios in Culver City, California. For star Spencer Tracy it was never a particularly happy experience. "Spencer Tracy wasn't really very happy...because he didn't like doing these two characterizations: the sane doctor and the monster Mr. Hyde," said Ingrid Bergman in her 1981 autobiography My Story. "He wanted to play himself, his own personality, which of course was the warm and marvelous personality that had made him a great movie star. He hated playing this double-natured character, showing the hideous reality of the brutal and evil man lying within Dr. Jekyll." Although he kept it to an absolute minimum, Tracy also hated having to wear makeup in order to play Mr. Hyde. He felt it was a nuisance and wanted to convey Mr. Hyde's monstrousness through facial expressions and body language. Unfortunately, the minimal makeup was confusing to some. MGM director George Cukor was visiting the set one day and brought with him the writer W. Somerset Maugham to observe filming. Maugham looked at Spencer Tracy and reportedly said, "Which [one] is he now?"

Tracy also had trouble with the physicality that the dual role demanded. In particular, he didn't like doing the scene in which Mr. Hyde was supposed to carry Ivy up a flight of stairs, presumably to the bedroom. At 41 the unathletic Tracy was no spring chicken, and at 5' 9" Ingrid Bergman was no featherweight. The scene was an absurd situation for both, according to Bergman. To demonstrate how Tracy should do the scene, director Victor Fleming demonstrated it first himself. "Big and strong, [Fleming] picked me up and ran up the stairs as if I weighed nothing," said Bergman. "Spencer wailed, 'What about my hernia?' So they rigged up a sling which supported me so they could hoist me upward while Spencer hung on and raced up behind me looking as if he were carrying me. But it wasn't that easy. First they hauled me up so fast that Spencer just couldn't keep up, and Victor Fleming said, 'Take her up at a natural pace...It was most difficult. Up and down, up and down, for the whole rehearsal time. Then, on the twentieth attempt, the rope broke. I dropped down into Spencer's arms. He couldn't hold me, and we went rolling head over heels to the bottom of the stairs. How either of us was not injured I'll never know. It was just a miracle. But there we were at the bottom helpless with laughter, roaring with laughter, while Victor came racing up, all sympathy and concern, but really so relieved that both his stars were not hurt and could continue to work."

While Spencer Tracy was miserable making Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Ingrid Bergman was elated. She thrived playing a part so different from her usual roles and relished the chance to show American audiences what she was capable of. "I wanted to be different," she said, "to try my hand at everything, to play every part in the world." During filming she wrote in her personal journal, "Shall I never be happier in my work? Will I ever get a better part than the little girl Ivy Petersen, a better director than Victor Fleming, a more wonderful leading man than Spencer Tracy, and a better cameraman than Joe Ruttenberg? I have never been happier. Never have I given myself so completely. For the first time I have broken out from the cage which encloses me, and opened a shutter to the outside world...I am so happy for this picture. It is as if I were flying. I feel no chains. I can fly higher and higher because the bars of my cage are broken."

Working with Victor Fleming was a dream come true for Bergman, who described him as "marvelous." "Although I'd known many fine directors in Sweden," she said, "this man added another dimension to what I'd known before. As soon as he came close to me I could tell by his eyes what he wanted me to do, and this has happened with very few directors in my career; I could tell if he was satisfied, in doubt, or delighted. He got performances out of me which very often I didn't think I was capable of." Even though Fleming's methods could sometimes be unorthodox, Bergman still praised him. "The scene when he wanted a frightened distraught hysterical girl, faced by the terrifying Mr. Hyde – I just couldn't do it. So eventually he took me by the shoulder with one hand, spun me around, and struck me backwards and forwards across the face – hard – it hurt. I could feel the tears of what? – surprise, shame – running down my cheeks. I was shattered by his action. I stood there weeping while he strode back to the camera and shouted, 'Action!' Even the camera crew were struck dumb, as I wept my way through the scene. But he got the performance he wanted."

Some on-set gossips had let it slip that they believed that Bergman was having an affair with co-star Spencer Tracy, but it wasn't true. It was Victor Fleming she had fallen in love with. "By the time the film was over I was deeply in love with Victor Fleming," she said. "But he wasn't in love with me. I was just part of another picture he'd directed."

Lana Turner was not so enamored with Victor Fleming and his literal hands-on methods. While doing the scene in which Dr. Jekyll tells her character Beatrix that they can never be married, she was having trouble finding enough emotion to cry. After a couple of takes in which she could not produce the required tears, Fleming repeated what he had done with Bergman. "'Cut!' Fleming yelled," said Turner in her 1982 autobiography Lana. "Then he rushed over to me, grabbed my arm, and twisted it sharply behind my back, where he held it for so long I feared he would break it. 'Stop it!' I screamed. 'You're hurting me!' And tears rolled down my face. Out of either pain or sheer fury, I not only started crying but went on crying so hard and so long that my nose was red and my eyes were swollen. Makeup didn't do any good. They could only shoot Spencer for the rest of the day, while I gave him my lines off-camera. I heard later that Spencer had wanted to take a poke at Fleming for being so rough with me." Turner never made another film with him.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde opened in August 1941 and was a solid hit. The MGM brass were happy. Even though audiences liked it, Spencer Tracy took an unprecedented beating from the critics who generally felt he was miscast in the role. It didn't help that his performance was compared to Fredric March's Academy Award-winning role in the 1932 version. The gracious March publicly lent his support to Tracy. "I thought Spence did a fine job," he said, "as he always does. His Jekyll and Hyde weren't anything like mine, but why should they be? After all, we're two different actors, aren't we? I'm sure Spence would never look at a performance and try to copy it."

Ingrid Bergman's performance as the terrorized Ivy, however, was highly praised. Playing Ivy did exactly what she had hoped it would do: it opened up her career to a wide variety of roles and set her on course for a long and distinguished career as an actress.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde went on to be nominated for three Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Musical Score.

by Andrea Passafiume