Jane Eyre (1944)
#2 in my 2007 movie challenge was the 1944 film Jane Eyre. I consulted Time Out, so I wasn’t expecting much, and wasn’t disappointed. I wanted to watch in advance of the Masterpiece Theater Jane Eyre, part I of which is airing in the US this Sunday, 21 January 2007. The 1944 film is worthwhile, but uneven. A very young Elizabeth Taylor is Jane’s childhood friend Helen. Jane’s Aunt Reeves is played with cruel glee by Agnes Moorehead, better known as Endora from the TV show, Bewitched. The adult Jane is played by Joan Fontaine, too pretty and moist eyed for me to accept as pale, plain, indomitable Jane. Orson Welles seems to have a good time as Rochester, and was more convincing to me in that role. I didn’t care for the movie’s combination of text and voiceover. The last part of the book, with St. John Rivers, was deleted from the film version, and made for a more conventional, and less interesting, story than the book.
