Jane Eyre

Are you always drawn to the loveless and unfriended?

Jane Eyre is directed by Robert Stevenson who co-adapts the screenplay with John Houseman, Aldous Huxley and Henry Koster. Based on the Charlotte Brontë novel of the same name, it stars Orson Welles, Joan Fontaine and Peggy Ann Garner. Music is scored by Bernard Herrmann and George Barnes is the cinematographer.

After a harsh and eye opening childhood, orphan Jane Eyre gains employment at Thornfield Hall as governess to the young ward of Edward Rochester. A Difference in class and life outlook, Jane and Rochester are by definition polar opposites, but a bond exists, a bond that surely can't conquer the mysteries of Rochester the man, and the secret of his estate - can it?

Stevens...

Undoubtedly my favourite Brontë story, and amongst the best adaptations of period drama you could ever wish to see. Joan Fontaine is superb in the title role, a girl forced into a brutal orphanage following the death of her father. After many years of abuse at the hands of the monstrous "Brocklehurst" (Henry Daniell) she finds a post as a governess to the daughter of the reclusive Edward Rochester (Orson Welles) at his remote, gothic Thornfield Hall. After an initially rocky start with her employer, things begin to thaw between them but is any of it as it seems...? Robert Stevenson has created a wonderfully evocative glimpse at Victorian Britain, and with Charlotte Brontë's superb eye not just for the detail of the story, but for a subtle a...