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.

I give this "version" of Jane Eyre 5 stars because I think every Eyre-lover should see it, for a laugh and a lark. The story has absolutely nothing to do with the book, and it doesn't stand alone as an individual piece either. It's just wretched and sloppy. And I don't blame the production values for that.

Virginia Bruce looks like she really doesn't want to be there, and she can't lose that depression-era slouch...She saunters around Thornfield, flops her away down the road, and just looks dour and unpleasant. Her loosey-goosey posture was really distracting.

Poor old Bertha locked upstairs, clearly off she's off her rocker, but she didn't seem demented enough to be hid away.

The only really good thing about this picture was when Jane tells Brocklhurst off for interrupting her class at Lowood. I half expected her to start slashing away at him with the pointer. Given that the rest of the script had nothing to do with the book, it would have been a nice touch. I mean, why not? Everyone wants Brocklehurst to get his come-uppence. And this Jane is just the girl to do it!

See this one, then see Cusack/Jayston, then see Welles/Fontaine, then see Stephens/Wilson. In that order, for me, the most recent is the most satisfying...except for a few missed marks.

According to the Internet Movie Database there are 22 versions of the famous Charlotte Bronte novel Jane Eyre done, counting both silent screen and small screen adaptions all the way to the present time. I never realized how popular a property Jane Eyre was for dramatization. I doubt very much if anyone would ever consider this 1934 version starring Virginia Bruce and Colin Clive as the best of them.

Still in reviewing this movie you have to take into account that this was done for Monogram Pictures on a shoestring budget. Bruce and Clive were borrowed from MGM and Universal respectively and neither was exactly a box office name. The running time is only 63 minutes so like every other work of literature there will always be stuff left out unless it's a TV mini-series and you have several hours to play with.

One criticism I will agree with. Jane Eyre in fact is a plain Jane and the glamorous blond Virginia Bruce just isn't right for the part. Joan Fontaine was far closer to Charlotte Bronte's idea of Jane Eyre in her version with Orson Welles on a much bigger budget with MGM.

It's definitely a subpar version of the novel, but be a bit more charitable to this Jane Eyre considering the circumstances of its creation.

For the most part this is a fairly weak Monogram (read budget with a capital B) adaptation of the Bronte classic. Colin Clive is woefully miscast as Edward Rochester, a character so complex and filled with such passionate brooding that it takes the likes of an Orson Welles or a George C.Scott to really pull it off. Instead Clive plays the master of Thornfield like he is just some normal single dad on the make who just happens to have his unbalanced first wife locked up in the attic.Maybe director Cabanne thought that this interpretation would make the character seem more suspicious to the audiences of 1934. Unfortunately this reviewer writing in 2002 finds Clive's Rochester about as suspicious as a stained glass window. In a Lutheran church.Virginia Bruce is adequate as the title character but unfortunately her best lines are undermined by unnecessary stock music pulled from Monogram's Oliver Twist (released the previous year). However horror fans especially those who feel at home with the jump-out-of-your-skin style of Sam Raimi of Evil Dead fame should see this film for the well-timed SHREIKS emanating from that attic. Claire DuBrey's banshee routine is enough to make your heart jump out of your mouth and do the macarena on top of the TV. So see this Eyre for the Screamer not for Ward Cleaver.