Robert Stevenson's

Jane Eyre

from the novel by Charlotte Brontë

Starring

Joan Fontaine as Jane Eyre. Ms. Fontaine had starred in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca with Laurence Olivier. Daphne du Maurier's famous novel was clearly inspired by Jane Eyre.

Orson Welles as Edward Rochester. Welles directed and coauthored Citizen Kane. He had also directed the original radio play from which this film's screenplay was derived. He was not successful in edging aside director Robert Stevenson.

Agnes Moorehead as Mrs. Reed, Jane's aunt. Ms. Moorehead appears in several of Welles's films, including Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. She appeared with Bogart and Bacall in Dead Reckoning, as the villain. She named a cat for each of her characters and she apparently kept a lot of them.

Sara Allgood as Bessie, Mrs. Reed's servant and Jane's friend. Ms. Allgood played the mother in John Ford's How Green was My Valley, from Richard Llewellen's novel, and was also Vivien Leigh's mother in Lady Hamilton.

Henry Daniell as Mr. Brocklehurst, headmaster of the Lowood School. One of the most odious villains ever captured on celluloid, the deliciously despicable Brocklehurst was one of many villains Daniell created. He portrayed Sherlock Holmes's nemesis Professor Moriarity at least three times. Errol Flynn kills him in The Sea Hawk. He was the hero in The Body Snatcher with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.

Peggy Ann Garner as the young Jane. Ms. Garner is terrific as Jane, and won an academy award for her role in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Elizabeth Taylor as Helen, Jane's only friend at Lowood. In the novel she actually has other friends and some of the teachers are kind to her.

Hillary Brooke as Blanche Ingram, a beautiful but vain young woman who is courted by Rochester. She had a recurring role as Costello's girlfriend on The Abbot and Costello Show.

Margaret O'Brien as Adele, Rochester's ward and possibly his daughter. Jane is hired to be her governess.

John Sutton as Dr. Rivers, Jane's friend. This character does not appear in the novel.

Screenplay by John Houseman (who wrote the original radio play for Orson Welles), Aldous Huxley (author of Brave New World), Henry Koster (who later directed No Highway in the Sky from Neville Shute's novel No Highway, and The Robe), and the director Robert Stevenson.

Music by Bernard Herrmann, based on his score for a radio play version of Wuthering Heights.

Directed by Robert Stevenson.

The film begins with a précis of the novel's opening, though these words do not begin the book:
"My name is Jane Eyre... I was born in 1820, a harsh time of change in England. Money and position seemed all that mattered. Charity was a cold and disagreeable word. Religion 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."

The novel's first five chapters, which tell of her abusive treatment at the hands of her aunt (Agnes Moorhead) and cousins, are telescoped into a brief scene which introduces Mr. Brocklehurst (Henry Daniell). He is a clergyman in the novel, but the production code required such an odious character to be a lay person.

Much of the detail of Lowood School is simply deleted, but the loyalty of Jane's friend Helen (Elizabeth Taylor, uncredited, in her film debut) is emphasized. Robert Stevenson was one of the best directors of children, and the children's performances in this film are especially accomplished. Stevenson went on to work for Disney, and directed Mary Poppins. The character of Dr. Rivers is an amalgam of several characters in the novel. After she grows up, Jane accepts a position as a governess for the mysterious and somewhat cold Edward Rochester rather than stay on at Lowood as a teacher.

She and Rochester are attracted to one another, but mysterious and potentially dangerous happenings at Thornfield Manor, frighten and bewilder her. She becomes fond of her charge, the beautiful little Adele. Rochester courts a beautiful but penniless society lady (Hillary Brooke), and does many things to test Jane's devotion. He is cold and arrogant, but also seems to lack the self esteem required to accept that a truly good person like Jane could actually desire him. She is frequently wounded by his behavior, and leaves Thornfield when she discovers his terrible secret.

An interlude where Jane wanders and is taken in by the family of a strict clergyman is omitted from the film. She rejects this man's proposal of marriage and returns to her aunt's house. She finds her aunt dying and impoverished—a scene which occurs earlier in the novel, before she left Thornfield. She contemplates writing a letter to Mr. Brocklehurst to ask for the teaching job she once turned down, but then senses that Rochester still needs her—she actually has an auditory hallucination of his voice calling her—so she returns to Thornfield.