Appropriate to its being one of the first and most-popular gothic romances of all time, Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" has seen no fewer than eighteen screen adaptations, none of them better than this 1944 production with Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles.
Ms. Bronte (1816-1855) was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, and under the care of a widowed father grew up with a brother and two sisters--both of the sisters, Emily ("Wuthering Heights") and Anne ("Agnes Grey"), becoming authors as well. Raised with little companionship beyond her own family and marrying only shortly before her death at a prematurely young age, Charlotte developed a vivid imagination that served her well, writing "Jane Eyre," her most famous novel, in 1847. That the book should continue to enthrall readers over a hundred and fifty years later may seem remarkable, until one realizes how enduring the story and characters are. Human nature never changes through time, and audiences today can still recognize and identify with a good mystery, a sympathetic protagonist, a compelling conflict, and universal themes.
The movie's writers--John Houseman, Aldous Huxley, Henry Koster, and director Robert Stevenson--manage to condense the sprawling novel into a ninety-seven-minute screenplay that hits most of the novel's high points without resorting to much condescension. Unlike the novel, they begin it this way: "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." This narration strikes a fitting balance in introducing us to the movie's main character, launching the major arguments, and developing a despairing tone.
"Jane Eyre" follows the general pattern set forth by earlier English novels--"Moll Flanders," "Tom Jones," "Joseph Andrews"--yet it forsakes the comedies of manners fostered by her most-immediate female rival, Jane Austen. The Brontes wrote of the darker sides of life, while ever lingering on important social issues. It may not be coincidental that "Jane Eyre" bears resemblance to the later works of her contemporary, Charles Dickens, in showing the plight of the lower classes, in Bronte's case a situation aggravated by Jane's being a woman. In those days, under the conditions described, if a woman were not born wealthy, society expected her to marry well. If she had no such prospects, there was teaching, caring for the underprivileged, entering the poor house, or living on the streets.
In Bronte's story, Jane (Joan Fontaine) is an orphan, spending a part of her youth with an unfeeling aunt, Mrs. Reed (Agnes Moorehead), and then a part of her young adulthood in the Lowood Institution, a charitable school where she is a pupil and where later the head of the school offers her a job as a teacher. However, at the age of eighteen she leaves to become the governess to a child, Adele Varens (Margaret O'Brien), the ward of Edward Rochester (Orson Welles), a proud, tortured, imperious man ("I never was correct nor ever shall be"), who lives in a secluded country estate, Thornfield Manor, the size of a small castle.
Naturally, Jane falls in love with the enigmatic Edward, and, just as naturally, strife ensues as the girl cannot bring herself to admit her feelings for him. It was not, after all, the right or proper thing for a young governess to do or even think about. She had her position to consider; there were strict societal rules to follow. If this premise brings to mind Daphne Du Maurier's "Rebecca" (1938), you must remember that Hitchcock had brought Du Maurier's story to the screen with Ms. Fontaine as star just a few years before this film, and "Rebecca" had won an Oscar for Best Picture. Never mind that Hollywood had already made Ms. Bronte's book into a movie six previous times; a good story was a good story, especially when the same star and a similar plot line and characters were still fresh in the public's minds.
"Are you always drawn to the loveless?" asks Edward. "When it's deserved," replies Jane.
Anyway, not only does Jane find herself in a moral dilemma regarding her love for her employer, she discovers that not everything is as it should be in Mr. Rochester's life. There is that little matter of the dark secret kept locked and hidden away in Thornfield's highest tower. And there's the secretive behavior of the housekeeper. And the odd cackling laugh, pitiable sobs, and outright screams in the night. Bronte knew how to keep an audience's attention, and Hollywood was quick to capitalize on the plot's more obvious grotesqueries, as well as the desolation of its landscape.
Ms. Bronte (1816-1855) was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, and under the care of a widowed father grew up with a brother and two sisters--both of the sisters, Emily ("Wuthering Heights") and Anne ("Agnes Grey"), becoming authors as well. Raised with little companionship beyond her own family and marrying only shortly before her death at a prematurely young age, Charlotte developed a vivid imagination that served her well, writing "Jane Eyre," her most famous novel, in 1847. That the book should continue to enthrall readers over a hundred and fifty years later may seem remarkable, until one realizes how enduring the story and characters are. Human nature never changes through time, and audiences today can still recognize and identify with a good mystery, a sympathetic protagonist, a compelling conflict, and universal themes.
The movie's writers--John Houseman, Aldous Huxley, Henry Koster, and director Robert Stevenson--manage to condense the sprawling novel into a ninety-seven-minute screenplay that hits most of the novel's high points without resorting to much condescension. Unlike the novel, they begin it this way: "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." This narration strikes a fitting balance in introducing us to the movie's main character, launching the major arguments, and developing a despairing tone.
"Jane Eyre" follows the general pattern set forth by earlier English novels--"Moll Flanders," "Tom Jones," "Joseph Andrews"--yet it forsakes the comedies of manners fostered by her most-immediate female rival, Jane Austen. The Brontes wrote of the darker sides of life, while ever lingering on important social issues. It may not be coincidental that "Jane Eyre" bears resemblance to the later works of her contemporary, Charles Dickens, in showing the plight of the lower classes, in Bronte's case a situation aggravated by Jane's being a woman. In those days, under the conditions described, if a woman were not born wealthy, society expected her to marry well. If she had no such prospects, there was teaching, caring for the underprivileged, entering the poor house, or living on the streets.
In Bronte's story, Jane (Joan Fontaine) is an orphan, spending a part of her youth with an unfeeling aunt, Mrs. Reed (Agnes Moorehead), and then a part of her young adulthood in the Lowood Institution, a charitable school where she is a pupil and where later the head of the school offers her a job as a teacher. However, at the age of eighteen she leaves to become the governess to a child, Adele Varens (Margaret O'Brien), the ward of Edward Rochester (Orson Welles), a proud, tortured, imperious man ("I never was correct nor ever shall be"), who lives in a secluded country estate, Thornfield Manor, the size of a small castle.
Naturally, Jane falls in love with the enigmatic Edward, and, just as naturally, strife ensues as the girl cannot bring herself to admit her feelings for him. It was not, after all, the right or proper thing for a young governess to do or even think about. She had her position to consider; there were strict societal rules to follow. If this premise brings to mind Daphne Du Maurier's "Rebecca" (1938), you must remember that Hitchcock had brought Du Maurier's story to the screen with Ms. Fontaine as star just a few years before this film, and "Rebecca" had won an Oscar for Best Picture. Never mind that Hollywood had already made Ms. Bronte's book into a movie six previous times; a good story was a good story, especially when the same star and a similar plot line and characters were still fresh in the public's minds.
"Are you always drawn to the loveless?" asks Edward. "When it's deserved," replies Jane.
Anyway, not only does Jane find herself in a moral dilemma regarding her love for her employer, she discovers that not everything is as it should be in Mr. Rochester's life. There is that little matter of the dark secret kept locked and hidden away in Thornfield's highest tower. And there's the secretive behavior of the housekeeper. And the odd cackling laugh, pitiable sobs, and outright screams in the night. Bronte knew how to keep an audience's attention, and Hollywood was quick to capitalize on the plot's more obvious grotesqueries, as well as the desolation of its landscape.
Appropriate to its being one of the first and most-popular gothic romances of all time, Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" has seen no fewer than eighteen screen adaptations, none of them better than this 1944 production with Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles.
Ms. Bronte (1816-1855) was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, and under the care of a widowed father grew up with a brother and two sisters--both of the sisters, Emily ("Wuthering Heights") and Anne ("Agnes Grey"), becoming authors as well. Raised with little companionship beyond her own family and marrying only shortly before her death at a prematurely young age, Charlotte developed a vivid imagination that served her well, writing "Jane Eyre," her most famous novel, in 1847. That the book should continue to enthrall readers over a hundred and fifty years later may seem remarkable, until one realizes how enduring the story and characters are. Human nature never changes through time, and audiences today can still recognize and identify with a good mystery, a sympathetic protagonist, a compelling conflict, and universal themes.
The movie's writers--John Houseman, Aldous Huxley, Henry Koster, and director Robert Stevenson--manage to condense the sprawling novel into a ninety-seven-minute screenplay that hits most of the novel's high points without resorting to much condescension. Unlike the novel, they begin it this way: "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." This narration strikes a fitting balance in introducing us to the movie's main character, launching the major arguments, and developing a despairing tone.
"Jane Eyre" follows the general pattern set forth by earlier English novels--"Moll Flanders," "Tom Jones," "Joseph Andrews"--yet it forsakes the comedies of manners fostered by her most-immediate female rival, Jane Austen. The Brontes wrote of the darker sides of life, while ever lingering on important social issues. It may not be coincidental that "Jane Eyre" bears resemblance to the later works of her contemporary, Charles Dickens, in showing the plight of the lower classes, in Bronte's case a situation aggravated by Jane's being a woman. In those days, under the conditions described, if a woman were not born wealthy, society expected her to marry well. If she had no such prospects, there was teaching, caring for the underprivileged, entering the poor house, or living on the streets.
In Bronte's story, Jane (Joan Fontaine) is an orphan, spending a part of her youth with an unfeeling aunt, Mrs. Reed (Agnes Moorehead), and then a part of her young adulthood in the Lowood Institution, a charitable school where she is a pupil and where later the head of the school offers her a job as a teacher. However, at the age of eighteen she leaves to become the governess to a child, Adele Varens (Margaret O'Brien), the ward of Edward Rochester (Orson Welles), a proud, tortured, imperious man ("I never was correct nor ever shall be"), who lives in a secluded country estate, Thornfield Manor, the size of a small castle.
Naturally, Jane falls in love with the enigmatic Edward, and, just as naturally, strife ensues as the girl cannot bring herself to admit her feelings for him. It was not, after all, the right or proper thing for a young governess to do or even think about. She had her position to consider; there were strict societal rules to follow. If this premise brings to mind Daphne Du Maurier's "Rebecca" (1938), you must remember that Hitchcock had brought Du Maurier's story to the screen with Ms. Fontaine as star just a few years before this film, and "Rebecca" had won an Oscar for Best Picture. Never mind that Hollywood had already made Ms. Bronte's book into a movie six previous times; a good story was a good story, especially when the same star and a similar plot line and characters were still fresh in the public's minds.
"Are you always drawn to the loveless?" asks Edward. "When it's deserved," replies Jane.
Anyway, not only does Jane find herself in a moral dilemma regarding her love for her employer, she discovers that not everything is as it should be in Mr. Rochester's life. There is that little matter of the dark secret kept locked and hidden away in Thornfield's highest tower. And there's the secretive behavior of the housekeeper. And the odd cackling laugh, pitiable sobs, and outright screams in the night. Bronte knew how to keep an audience's attention, and Hollywood was quick to capitalize on the plot's more obvious grotesqueries, as well as the desolation of its landscape.
Ms. Bronte (1816-1855) was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, and under the care of a widowed father grew up with a brother and two sisters--both of the sisters, Emily ("Wuthering Heights") and Anne ("Agnes Grey"), becoming authors as well. Raised with little companionship beyond her own family and marrying only shortly before her death at a prematurely young age, Charlotte developed a vivid imagination that served her well, writing "Jane Eyre," her most famous novel, in 1847. That the book should continue to enthrall readers over a hundred and fifty years later may seem remarkable, until one realizes how enduring the story and characters are. Human nature never changes through time, and audiences today can still recognize and identify with a good mystery, a sympathetic protagonist, a compelling conflict, and universal themes.
The movie's writers--John Houseman, Aldous Huxley, Henry Koster, and director Robert Stevenson--manage to condense the sprawling novel into a ninety-seven-minute screenplay that hits most of the novel's high points without resorting to much condescension. Unlike the novel, they begin it this way: "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." This narration strikes a fitting balance in introducing us to the movie's main character, launching the major arguments, and developing a despairing tone.
"Jane Eyre" follows the general pattern set forth by earlier English novels--"Moll Flanders," "Tom Jones," "Joseph Andrews"--yet it forsakes the comedies of manners fostered by her most-immediate female rival, Jane Austen. The Brontes wrote of the darker sides of life, while ever lingering on important social issues. It may not be coincidental that "Jane Eyre" bears resemblance to the later works of her contemporary, Charles Dickens, in showing the plight of the lower classes, in Bronte's case a situation aggravated by Jane's being a woman. In those days, under the conditions described, if a woman were not born wealthy, society expected her to marry well. If she had no such prospects, there was teaching, caring for the underprivileged, entering the poor house, or living on the streets.
In Bronte's story, Jane (Joan Fontaine) is an orphan, spending a part of her youth with an unfeeling aunt, Mrs. Reed (Agnes Moorehead), and then a part of her young adulthood in the Lowood Institution, a charitable school where she is a pupil and where later the head of the school offers her a job as a teacher. However, at the age of eighteen she leaves to become the governess to a child, Adele Varens (Margaret O'Brien), the ward of Edward Rochester (Orson Welles), a proud, tortured, imperious man ("I never was correct nor ever shall be"), who lives in a secluded country estate, Thornfield Manor, the size of a small castle.
Naturally, Jane falls in love with the enigmatic Edward, and, just as naturally, strife ensues as the girl cannot bring herself to admit her feelings for him. It was not, after all, the right or proper thing for a young governess to do or even think about. She had her position to consider; there were strict societal rules to follow. If this premise brings to mind Daphne Du Maurier's "Rebecca" (1938), you must remember that Hitchcock had brought Du Maurier's story to the screen with Ms. Fontaine as star just a few years before this film, and "Rebecca" had won an Oscar for Best Picture. Never mind that Hollywood had already made Ms. Bronte's book into a movie six previous times; a good story was a good story, especially when the same star and a similar plot line and characters were still fresh in the public's minds.
"Are you always drawn to the loveless?" asks Edward. "When it's deserved," replies Jane.
Anyway, not only does Jane find herself in a moral dilemma regarding her love for her employer, she discovers that not everything is as it should be in Mr. Rochester's life. There is that little matter of the dark secret kept locked and hidden away in Thornfield's highest tower. And there's the secretive behavior of the housekeeper. And the odd cackling laugh, pitiable sobs, and outright screams in the night. Bronte knew how to keep an audience's attention, and Hollywood was quick to capitalize on the plot's more obvious grotesqueries, as well as the desolation of its landscape.
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