Jane Eyre (1944)
Jane Eyre (1944), directed by Robert Stevenson.
People seem to think of this as an Orson Welles picture: it has that accentuated dark look and an intense Bernard Herrmann score, just like Citizen Kane (1941). Welles did do some of the producing and I don't doubt some directing, whether anyone asked him to or not.
The story has been filmed many times. I Walked with a Zombie (1943) from that same time is called "Jane Eyre on a voodoo island". For a steamier version see Firelight (1997). Wide Sargasso Sea (1993) is a race-conscious prequel in the West Indies.
Charlotte Brontë's story contains a lot of her autobiography. She survived girl school hell where two of her younger sisters died of TB, as a girl does in the book. She worked as a governess for a while, a difficult in-between position: you are expected to be genteel but are still a servant. Be cautious around the man of the house.
We have:
The true-grit heroine, unafraid to speak the truth.
The sound stage foggy moors, simultaneous scary and exciting.
The governess's charge, a little girl who might as well be her daughter.
The brooding, domineering master of the house, bearing a secret sorrow that keeps him in constant pain and regret...
...which our heroine just might be able to assuage, if only he would love her in return...
...but how can that happen when she is a poor servant, competing with richly gowned society women at the ball?
This is all catnip for romance audiences and the director lays it on pretty thickly.
Watching Mr Rochester and his society fiancée: have you noticed that during the Code period, a man and woman could enjoy lingering glances at the bedroom door when saying goodnight? Audience mind reading was allowed as long as the words weren't spoken: "Door's open. You coming in? That would be bold and very wrong. Let's stand here and imagine it for a while".
Cast notes:
Joan Fontaine (Rebecca (1940), Suspicion (1941)) has a magical appeal. The scene lights up when she is onscreen, something I noticed watching The Constant Nymph (1943) recently; the film is nothing special, but you can't take your eyes off her. I don't know how she does it: she somehow plays to the camera without letting us see it.
Orson Welles gets some grief for his acting. He said something like: I know people think I'm a big old ham-bone, but it is an older theatrical style.
Henry Daniell often played comically wicked characters, but as the school superintendent he is just pure humorless evil.
Peggy Ann Garner, age 11, is superb as young Jane, possibly the best performance in the film. At times she looks like Emma Watson, if young Hermione Granger had been neglected and starved. I remember her only as the lead in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945); she was hungry there, too.
Elizabeth Taylor, also age 11, uncredited in her third film. Here she is the doomed classmate at the girls school.
Score by Bernard Herrmann, photographed by George Barnes (Rebecca (1940), Suspicion (1941), Spellbound (1945), Samson and Delilah (1949)).
Available on Blu-ray from Twilight Time. The source seems rather worn.
Two commentary tracks: in the first, Nick Redman, Julie Kirgo and Herrmann biographer Steven Smith split their time between the story, the production and the composer. The second has Welles biographer Joseph McBride with inserted reminiscences by Margaret O'Brien who played Adèle at age 7.
