From the very first pages of Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 book, Jane embodies virtues that might be off-putting if they were not so persuasive, and if her story were not such a marvelous welter of grim suffering and smoldering passion. The adult actors were decent with what they were given, but let’s be honest- this is a sugar-coated version of the story.Jane Eyre may lack fortune and good looks - she is famously “small and plain” as well as “poor and obscure” - but as the heroine of a novel, she has everything. Fairfax and Adele come in the room, and everyone is happy. He tells her what happened and she goes to find Rochester. Sam Poole comes to the mission and Jane serves him soup. Talk about rushed! That’s a given, what with the run-time, but it was still stupid. I only included her for sake of completeness. She asks for time but writes in her diary that she will marry him. He just calls her into his office, asks her to go to India and to marry him. There’s no indication of how much time has passed or how she got the job, or anything. When Jane leaves Thornfield, she works serving soup at his mission- not teaching.
Rochester dotes on her, constantly giving her presents and even tucking her into bed. She’s a happy-go-lucky girl, but clumsy- she gets stuck in a tree, a vase, and trips over her own feet. Nothing about the backstory in France at all. Rochester was divorcing her in this, so I don’t even know why Jane left! But then she thinks they’re getting married again and is all happy, although demented. The wild look is completely gone! She’s apparently still dangerous because she sets fire to Rochester’s bed. She’s also considerably uglier than Jane. The house party is cut down to one ball scene, where Blanche and Rochester dance. They didn’t want to show a female alcoholic? Grace has very little to do in this aside from keeping Jane out of Bertha’s room. But no, he’s her husband and the drunkard. Sam Poole? Who’s that? At first I thought they replaced Grace with a man for some reason. I can remember absolutely nothing remarkable about her character, whatsoever. She tells him off before leaving and says he “ought to be tarred and feathered, you ugly old crocodile!” Yes, really. He fires Jane because she stuck up for a student who drew a caricature of him. He never loses his complete power as the master here. Jane doesn’t meet him until she gets to the orphanage. They didn’t have him lose his eye or hand, but I think most of the adaptations have done that. I thought they were going to cut his blindness at the end completely! But, no, they didn’t go that far. This Rochester is always quite cheery and polite with Jane. There’s never anything with her uncle Eyre or the Rivers being her cousins. She never advertises so I don’t know how she gets the job at Thornfield, but she says she has a small inheritance from her uncle. It was kind of weird, but at least they were honest! Her Jane is very outspoken and not at all reserved. They openly acknowledged that she was pretty. Unlike other adaptations to cast pretty actresses, they didn’t even try to pretend she was plain. I’ll give them credit though- they made no secret of it. Yes, instead of a “Plain Jane,” we got a Blonde Bombshell. Also, aside from Colin Clive, the majority of the cast is American and most of them don’t do that great of a job hiding their accents. I’m no movie buff, but I think I read somewhere that this was because it was the Great Depression and they didn’t want to depress people more. The characters are happier and the darker stuff from the book is either cut or just watered down.
It’s not a screwball comedy like the 1940 Pride and Prejudice by any means, but it’s definitely much lighter in tone than the book. Other transitions are done with Jane writing in her diary. Aside from the main characters, those smaller parts that are kept are blink and you’ll miss it. There’s no Helen Burns or illness outbreak. Jane’s years at Lowood (an orphanage in this version) are condensed to her arrival and then the page from the book describing those years! (Yes, they just filmed the book page). First off, it’s only an hour long, so a lot was cut and rushed. So, I’ve finally seen it- the first talkie Jane Eyre, from 1934.
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