La porta proibita

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre is certainly one popular item for adaption to the big screen and small. I count 22 versions on the Internet Movie Database, but this one starring Joan Fontaine as plain Jane Eyre and Orson Welles as the brooding Rochester is probably the best known.

I had previously reviewed a 1934 version that starred Virginia Bruce and Colin Clive had done for Monogram. And as befit that studio the budget for the project was pretty anemic. And no one could possibly have believed the glamorous Ms. Bruce could be a plain Jane.

Also Joan Fontaine fresh off her Oscar for Suspicion was a far better actress. Fontaine has played glamor roles, but she dialed down the surface beauty to give a finely etched performance as the shy young thing brought up in cruelty by her aunt Agnes Moorehead and schoolmaster Henry Daniell in the institutional school she is sent.

Fontaine is great, but she is also building on the performance of Peggy Ann Garner as the young Jane Eyre who has enough resiliency to overcome a really horrible childhood. In many ways the Garner/Fontaine character of Jane Eyre echo how Joan's sister Olivia DeHavilland as Catherine Sloper was brought up in The Heiress. The miracle is that Jane Eyre doesn't become as twisted as Catherine Sloper.

Orson Welles with his stage training and magnificent voice and pieces of subtlety in his manner scores well as Mr. Rochester who carries a secret tragedy within him. He engages Fontaine to be governess for his 'ward' Margaret O'Brien and love cannot take its course because of some really big barriers. What they are you have to see Jane Eyre for.

I'm sure that 20th Century Fox must have had Suspicion in mind when casting Joan Fontaine. In both films she goes off to live in a big estate a bit apprehensive about what she's getting into. And in both films she has reason to be apprehensive.

One young actress who received no billing, but got real notice was eleven year old Elizabeth Taylor. She plays Peggy Ann Garner's friend in Henry Daniell's school and her death scene must have not left a dry eye in any theater Jane Eyre was playing.

This version of Jane Eyre sets a very high standard for those before or since to follow.