Jane Eyre

... that's not at all faithful to that tale. Virginia Bruce stars in the title role, a young woman raised in an orphanage who hires on as a governess of the niece of the cranky Mr. Rochester (Colin Clive). As Jane tries to find her way within the household, she starts to fall in love with her boss while also wondering about the strange screams coming from the room into which she's forbidden to look.

Some sources have called this the best movie ever made by a Poverty Row studio. There are plenty that I liked more than this, but I'm not really the audience for this type of story. The acting is decent, and the costumes and sets are nicer than in most Monogram efforts, but it still seems clunky, sometimes amateurish, and with very uninspired direction. Running at just over an hour, it's not a major investment in time.

A cheerful Rochester? A beautiful Jane Eyre? A slapstick Adelle? Oy, what's the point of adapting a classic novel if you're gonna change every character!

I suppose the film has a certain appeal anyway; it's pleasantly ancient and strange, and it's nice to see Colin "Dr. Frankenstein" Clive in another role. But, to true devotees of the original novel, this is a real butcher job.

Creaky stagy and truly muffled and, well, ancient, this 1934 Monogram talkie has 1929 production values which clearly irritate some viewers. One must be kind to these 61 minute double feature barrel bottom scrapers and emotionally account for the time and place they were made. Monogram was formed in 1931 as a result of the talkie boom, and by 1934 were trying to upgrade their image. They were probably still using the same 1928 equipment the first bought second hand in 1931 from some creaky talkie outfit the folded in 1930. Remember this was a time when there was 30,000 single screen cinemas in the USA alone so anything and everything had a chance of showing in maybe six or seven thousand cinemas. Monogram charged a flat rental fee for their films and since they knew how many cinemas would play a particular sort of film they knew show much profit was in it before it was even made. Some very entertaining films from this period include their 61 minute version of OLIVER TWIST, their 66 minute operetta musical KING KELLY OF THE USA complete with an animated sequence!...and their super block buster again around 65 minutes GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. The only reason they would have attempted JANE EYRE is because: a: it was out of copyright and they could make it 'for free' b: Oliver Twist made some money and the sets and costumes were still at the studio c: Monogram Pictures were double feature fillers usually and they needed to make another, and one with a veneer of 'quality'. d: they were trying anything to see if they could make it. Monogram fans would see the same stairs and rooms and furniture for the next 25 years in almost every other Charlie Chan Mr Wong and Bowrey Boys Monogram Picture...even as late as 1958 in The House On Haunted Hill and in 1965 in the Elvis comedy in a ghost town TICKLE ME. True!

Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre" is one of the great novels in the English language, and almost any reasonably faithful movie adaptation can be worth watching. At the same time, the depth of the characters and the complexity of their relationships make it very difficult for a movie to do complete justice to the story, and even the best film adaptations are usually better as movies in their own right than as adaptations. This scaled-down, low budget Monogram version can hardly be compared with the original, but in itself it is pretty much an average B-movie of the era.

Virginia Bruce plays the lead role, and her portrayal of Jane is sympathetic, if rather different from the Jane of the novel. Given the overall production, Colin Clive was a reasonable choice to play Rochester, since he adds a nervous energy to his roles that fits with Rochester's secret concerns, although for much of the time his Rochester is little distinguishable from Henry Frankenstein. Some of the secondary characters are also portrayed a bit differently from the novel, fitting in with the somewhat simplified nature of the adaptation.

Viewed in its own right instead of being compared with the novel, the script sets up a few decent scenes, although at other times some of the running time is wasted on relatively inconsequential material. As other reviewers have pointed out, this version does not work as an attempt to convey some of the depth of the novel and its memorable characters. Instead, it tells a rather simpler story using the same main characters, and in that respect it's about average for its genre.

This version of the classic story should move like the wind at 62 minutes, instead its slow and talky and not very good. I'm not certain how much is the result of too much time having passed since this film was made, 70 odd years ago and counting, but this is a movie to a avoid simply because time has not been kind to it. The film feels more like a filmed stage play than a movie as there is never any sense place beyond what we would see if it were on a stage. The performances are okay but there are times one wonders if they were aware of that film acting for sound had advanced from the overdone to a more naturalistic style. I don't think it would be fair to comment on the additions and subtractions from the book, especially in light of the fact that they use chapter headings from the book to advance the plot that gallop from one to ten and onward. Not something to watch unless you love the story or hate yourself enough to watch a film thats almost too painful to get through.