Jane Eyre (1944 film)
Encyclopedia
Jane Eyre is a classic film adaptation of Charlotte Brontë
's 1847 novel of the same name
, made by 20th Century Fox
. It was directed by Robert Stevenson
and produced by William Goetz
, Kenneth Macgowan
, and Orson Welles
(uncredited). The screenplay was by John Houseman
, Aldous Huxley
, Henry Koster
, and Robert Stevenson, from the novel by Charlotte Brontë. The music score was by Bernard Herrmann
and the cinematography by George Barnes
.
The film stars Orson Welles, Joan Fontaine
, Margaret O'Brien
, Peggy Ann Garner
, Sara Allgood
, Henry Daniell
, Agnes Moorehead
, John Sutton, with Betta St. John
and Elizabeth Taylor
making early, uncredited appearances.
Tagline: A Love Story Every Woman would Die a Thousand Deaths to Live!
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood, whose novels are English literature standards...
's 1847 novel of the same name
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published in London, England, in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. with the title Jane Eyre. An Autobiography under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was released the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York...
, made by 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
. It was directed by Robert Stevenson
Robert Stevenson (director)
Robert Stevenson was an English film writer and director. He was educated at Cambridge University where he became the president of both the Liberal Club and the Cambridge Union Society....
and produced by William Goetz
William Goetz
William Goetz was an American Hollywood film producer and studio executive. William Goetz died of cancer in 1969 at his home in Los Angeles and was buried in Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California....
, Kenneth Macgowan
Kenneth Macgowan
Kenneth Macgowan was an American film producer. He won an Academy Award for Best Color Short Film for La Cucaracha , the first live-action short film made in the three-color Technicolor process....
, and Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
(uncredited). The screenplay was by John Houseman
John Houseman
John Houseman was a Romanian-born British-American actor and film producer who became known for his highly publicized collaboration with director Orson Welles from their days in the Federal Theatre Project through to the production of Citizen Kane...
, Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...
, Henry Koster
Henry Koster
Henry Koster was born Hermann Kosterlitz in Berlin, Germany. He became a film director and later moved to Hollywood. Koster's father, a salesman, left home when Henry was a young man...
, and Robert Stevenson, from the novel by Charlotte Brontë. The music score was by Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...
and the cinematography by George Barnes
George Barnes (cinematographer)
George S. Barnes, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer from the era of silent films to the early 1950s. Over the course of his career, he was nominated for an Academy Award eight times, including his work on The Devil Dancer with Gilda Gray and Clive Brook...
.
The film stars Orson Welles, Joan Fontaine
Joan Fontaine
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland , known professionally as Joan Fontaine, is a British American actress. She and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland are two of the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s....
, Margaret O'Brien
Margaret O'Brien
Margaret O'Brien is an American film and stage actress. Although her film career as a leading character was brief, she was one of the most popular child actors in cinema history...
, Peggy Ann Garner
Peggy Ann Garner
Peggy Ann Garner was an American actress.A successful child actor, Garner played her first film role in 1938 and won the Academy Juvenile Award for her work in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn...
, Sara Allgood
Sara Allgood
-Biography:Allgood was born in Dublin, Ireland. Her sister was actress Maire O'Neill.Allgood began her acting career at the Abbey Theatre and was in the opening of the Irish National Theatre Society, appearing in many of their plays all over Britain...
, Henry Daniell
Henry Daniell
Henry Daniell was an English actor, best known for his villainous movie roles, but who had a long and prestigious career on stage as well as in films....
, Agnes Moorehead
Agnes Moorehead
Agnes Robertson Moorehead was an American actress. Although she began with the Mercury Theatre, appeared in more than seventy films beginning with Citizen Kane and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than thirty years, Moorehead is most widely known to modern audiences...
, John Sutton, with Betta St. John
Betta St. John
Betta St. John is an American actress, singer and dancer.Born as Betty Jean Striegler, St. John made her film debut at the age of ten in Destry Rides Again and as an orphan in Jane Eyre . She was discovered by Rodgers and Hammerstein and played a small role in the Broadway musical, Carousel in 1945...
and Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
making early, uncredited appearances.
Production notes
- The film's screenplay was based on a radio adaptation of the novel by Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre on the Air, which John Houseman collaborated on.
- The film was acclaimed for its recreation of the Yorkshire Moors. It was actually filmed entirely in Hollywood on a heavily disguised sound stageSound stageIn common usage, a sound stage is a soundproof, hangar-like structure, building, or room, used for the production of theatrical filmmaking and television production, usually located on a secure movie studio property.-Overview:...
. The long shadows and heavy fog, which added the air of a Gothic novel lacking in so many remakeRemakeA remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...
s, were rumored to have been the brainchild of Orson Welles. He was offered a producer's credit as thanks for his contribution but declined the offer, believing that a person who is not a director shouldn't be "just" a producer.
- This was the 7th film version of the novel.
- It was during his scoring of the film that Bernard HerrmannBernard HerrmannBernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...
started working on his opera Wuthering HeightsWuthering Heights (Herrmann)Wuthering Heights is the sole opera written by Bernard Herrmann. He worked on it from 1943 to 1951. It is cast in a prologue, 4 acts, and an epilogue that repeats the music of the prologue...
, based on the novel of the same nameWuthering HeightsWuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...
by Charlotte Brontë's sister EmilyEmily BrontëEmily Jane Brontë 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother...
. He quoted some themes from the Jane Eyre film score (and other of his earlier scores) in the opera.
Tagline: A Love Story Every Woman would Die a Thousand Deaths to Live!
Cast
- Joan FontaineJoan FontaineJoan de Beauvoir de Havilland , known professionally as Joan Fontaine, is a British American actress. She and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland are two of the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s....
- Jane EyreJane Eyre (character)Jane Eyre is the heroine of Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel of the same name.-Appearance:Jane Eyre is described as plain, with an elfin look. She sees herself as "poor, obscure, plain and little". Mr. Rochester once compliments Jane's "hazel eyes and hazel hair", but she tells the reader about Mr... - Orson WellesOrson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
- Edward Rochester - Peggy Ann GarnerPeggy Ann GarnerPeggy Ann Garner was an American actress.A successful child actor, Garner played her first film role in 1938 and won the Academy Juvenile Award for her work in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn...
- Jane Eyre as a child - Elizabeth TaylorElizabeth TaylorDame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
- Helen Burns (uncredited) - Edith BarrettEdith BarrettEdith Barrett was an American film actress.-Biography:Edith Barrett was a granddaughter of 19th-century American actor Lawrence Barrett. She entered the entertainment industry at age 16 in a staging of Walter Hampden's production of Cyrano de Bergerac. At 19 in 1926 she appeared with Hampden in...
- Mrs. Alice Fairfax - Agnes MooreheadAgnes MooreheadAgnes Robertson Moorehead was an American actress. Although she began with the Mercury Theatre, appeared in more than seventy films beginning with Citizen Kane and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than thirty years, Moorehead is most widely known to modern audiences...
- Mrs. Reed - Margaret O'BrienMargaret O'BrienMargaret O'Brien is an American film and stage actress. Although her film career as a leading character was brief, she was one of the most popular child actors in cinema history...
- Adele - Sara AllgoodSara Allgood-Biography:Allgood was born in Dublin, Ireland. Her sister was actress Maire O'Neill.Allgood began her acting career at the Abbey Theatre and was in the opening of the Irish National Theatre Society, appearing in many of their plays all over Britain...
- Bessie - Henry DaniellHenry DaniellHenry Daniell was an English actor, best known for his villainous movie roles, but who had a long and prestigious career on stage as well as in films....
- Henry Brocklehurst - Hillary BrookeHillary BrookeHillary Brooke was an American film actress best known for her work in Abbott and Costello and Sherlock Holmes films...
- Blanche Ingram
Quotes
The film begins with a voice over from Jane Eyre (an original contribution by the screenwriters):- My name is Jane Eyre... I was born in 1820, a harsh time of change in EnglandIndustrial RevolutionThe Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
. Money and position seemed all that mattered. CharityCharity (virtue)In Christian theology charity, or love , means an unlimited loving-kindness toward all others.The term should not be confused with the more restricted modern use of the word charity to mean benevolent giving.- Caritas: altruistic love :...
was a cold and disagreeable word. ReligionReligionReligion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
too often wore a mask of bigotry and cruelty. There was no 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.
External links
- The presence of Orson Welles in Robert Stevenson's Jane Eyre (1944)
- Jane Eyre (1944) review
- An Enthusiast's Guide to Jane Eyre Adaptations
- Rotten Tomatoes reviews
- Radio adaptation of Jane Eyre June 14, 1948 on Lux Radio Theatre; 42 minutes, with Ingrid BergmanIngrid BergmanIngrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute...
and Robert MontgomeryRobert Montgomery (actor)Robert Montgomery was an American actor and director.- Early life :Montgomery was born Henry Montgomery, Jr. in Beacon, New York, then known as "Fishkill Landing", the son of Mary Weed and Henry Montgomery, Sr. His early childhood was one of privilege, since his father was president of the New...
(MP3MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
)