g6lambert

I was 9 or 10 when I first watched this version. I was OK with the first episodes and in fact the sight of the mad lady creeping around Thornfield in the dead of night was at first quite fascinating. I remember the eerie music and only seeing her feet or the candlestick she was holding. But it was when she enters Jane's bedroom and one sees her for the first time and she tears up the wedding veil that really scared me and I felt quite frightened when I went to bed for a few nights even when my mother and father were decorating right outside my bedroom door! I managed to persevere though and I watched it again when it was repeated a few months later.

I wonder how this 1956 serial would come over today?

I first saw this film at the cinema in the 1960's. This was the time I first began to take an interest in vintage Hollywood and has served as a standard by which I have judged other films since. First, one must mention the brilliant and haunting score by Franz Waxman. In many scenes in the film it heightens the drama marvellously. I have watched the film periodically over the years - this afternoon on British TV being the latest - and it loses none of its appeal. In fact I think I enjoy it more than ever each time.

Many criticise Gregory Peck's performance but after so many years I could not imagine anybody else playing it. A supremely beautiful performance by Ann Todd and an almost perfect one by Alida Valli - why did Hollywood not use these actresses more? Reliable performances from the supporting players as well - the scene at the end between Charles Laughton and Ethel Barrymore is absolutely chilling - CINEMA PERFECTION.

The atmosphere of immediate post-war London is captured perfectly despite being a "studio bound" production. The depictions of British life at the time - the rigid class system, the prison scenes, the still bomb damaged Old Bailey and life in the country - are wholly believable.

Yes, one of my personal favourites. A great and under-rated film!

Pleasant enough early musical from 1930. Catchy but unfamiliar songs and well staged musical numbers. As is usual with these revues, many of the studio's contract players appear, mostly playing themselves. However, their two top stars, Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, have a number of their own. There is a storyline of sorts but this is only at the beginning, and, from about a third of the way through, the film is "All Dancing, All Singing and All Pretty Dreadful Jokes!!". There is no cast list but stars like Warner Baxter and Will Rogers are easily recognisable. Best part of the film is the closing number in which most stars and most of the film's songs are seen and heard again. Best performance is by Marjorie White - although she has about the only acting part in it. No Technicolour sequences but I believe the film was originally shot in some wide screen process. If you like early musicals, this one is, for the most part, fair. But see it if you can as it has it's moments.

Correction. A cast list does appear just before the start of the musical numbers. I obviously missed this during the first viewing!