Jane Eyre (1944)

Director:

Robert Stevenson

Writers:

Charlotte Brontë (novel) and
John Houseman (screenplay)

Release Date:

7 April 1944 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

A Love Story Every Woman Would Die a Thousand Deaths to Live!

Plot:

After a harsh childhood, orphan Jane Eyre is hired by Edward Rochester, the brooding lord of a mysterious manor house to care for his young daughter.

Plot Keywords:

Secret | Governess | Orphan | Ward | Servant

Cast

Orson Welles	...	Edward Rochester
Joan Fontaine	...	Jane Eyre
Margaret O'Brien	...	Adele Varens
Peggy Ann Garner	...	Jane Eyre (younger)
John Sutton	...	Dr. Rivers
Sara Allgood	...	Bessie
Henry Daniell	...	Henry Brocklehurst
Agnes Moorehead	...	Mrs. Reed
Aubrey Mather	...	Colonel Dent
Edith Barrett	...	Mrs. Fairfax
Barbara Everest	...	Lady Ingram
Hillary Brooke	...	Blanche Ingram

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Australia:G (cable rating) | Australia:PG (video rating) | Finland:S | Sweden:15 | UK:PG (video rating)

Filming Locations:

20th Century Fox Studios - 10201 Pico Blvd., Century City, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Director Robert Stevenson's wife, Anna Lee, was an early choice for the role played by Hillary Brooke.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When the carriage takes Jane away from the George Inn towards Thornfield, it leaves only a single set of tracks - although it's going back up the same road it just came down.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Jane Eyre: [narrating] My name is Jane Eyre... I was born in 1820, a harsh time of change in England. Money and position seemed all that mattered. Charity was a cold and disagreeable word. Religion too often wore a mask of bigotry and cruelty. There was no proper place for the poor or the unfortunate. I had no father or mother, brother or sister. As a child I lived with my aunt, Mrs. Reed of Gateshead Hall. I do not remember that she ever spoke one kind word to me.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Silence Becomes You (2005)

The closest thing to a sequel to 'Citizen Kane'

Well, either Orson had a lot to do with this movie's production directly, or he had at least one early acolyte in director Robert Stevenson. A handful of Mercury Theatre/Kane actors holdover here, as well as a score by the great Bernard Herrman.

It's hard to describe which is the most jaw-dropping surprise in this movie: the Kane-esque gothic expressionism of the cinematography, or the stunning acting performances. Welles plays probably the most romantic leading role of his career as the brooding Rochester, while Fontaine postively glows in an understated turn as the title character. Of particular note are two child actors: Peggy Ann Garner, as the young Jane, who has a brief but dazzling turn to open the picture, and who was better known shortly thereafter for her lead in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn; and the never-yet-equaled Margaret O'Brien, the oscar-winner who played 'Tootie' in 'Meet Me in St. Louis' as Rochester's ward and Jane's charge. Oh, and nearly incidentally, one of Elizabeth Taylor's first performances, as Jane's doomed friend Helen.

One can only speculate how the history of film would've been different had Welles somehow started a trend in Hollywood story-telling like that of this rendition of 'Jane Eyre'. He certainly had enough classics pitched in his early and still hopeful days in Hollywood, and this film, whether or not he deserve direct credit for it, is one of the strongest -- and, despite the pacing, most concise -- retellings of a literary classic in film history. Without too much hyperbole, it's as if Charlotte Brontë were on the level of Shakespeare and Fontaine and Welles forgotten archetypes of deep myth. It's not a stretch to say that this film version is far more accessible to the modern sensibility than the book itself is, without losing the period feel and contemporary feeling of the original text.

8/10, a forgotten classic.