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Storyline
In Victorian England, literary siblings Emily and Charlotte Bront vie for the affection of the Reverend Arthur Nichols. Along with their sister Anne, Emily and Charlotte also try to help their tormented brother Branwell, a gifted artist whose life is being destroyed by alcohol. Written by
Daniel Bubbeo
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It tells ALL about those Brontë sisters!...They didn't dare call it love- they tried to call it Devotion
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Trivia
Filmed between November 11, 1942 and mid-February 1943, the movie premiered on April 5, 1946 at the Strand Theater in Manhattan. While it is partly possible that the release had been delayed while
Olivia de Havilland, after completing
Government Girl on loan to RKO, successfully sued Warner Bros. to terminate her contract without providing the studio an extra six months to make up for her time on suspension, it is far more likely that its release was delayed because it was a costume drama and unlikely to do well at the height of WW2. Warner Bros would not have realistically shelved an expensive film like this, purely to spite an actress who was in litigation with the studio.
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Goofs
When Emily enters her brother's sickroom and doesn't completely shut its door, a hand and arm very obviously reaches out from outside the room and shuts it.
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Quotes
Charlotte Bronte:
I know nothing. I understand nothing. And yet, I have dared to write 200,000 words about life!
[
tosses manuscript on floor]
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Although not historically accurate, this is a very enjoyable romantic view of the Bronte sisters and their devotion to each other and to their drug addicted brother. I am surprised that it has not been shown as often as the overwrought versions of Jane Eyre and Wuthering heights which were made around that time.
The performances are excellent, even more so because they are quietly underplayed for the times. The attention to detail is good, except for the scene where Charlotte returned to find Emily on her deathbed but left the front door wide open! Growing up on the Yorkshire moors about 10 miles away from Haworth, I know that no one would ever leave the door open on a cold stormy night. I kept wanting to shout in Yorkshire dialect "Put t'wood in't hoile!" (Shut the door, in English)
The Bronte sisters have been the subject of vastly more scholarly print than their combined output, but this film skims over the heartbreak and hardship they endured. One has to see the bleakness of the Haworth parsonage and the moors to begin to grasp what it must have been like for them. Death was a constant companion, taking all of them away in their early adulthood. Death from drink, tubercolosis and in Charlotte's case, childbirth, were the norm for those who survived infancy. Their lives were bleak, but their imagination was rich.
Picky picky details aside, this films deserves to be shown more often.