The dark, malignant side of Charlotte Brontë, which flashes fiercely through the pages of her “Jane Eyre,” sets the tone for the moody film version of this great novel, which came to the Music Hall yesterday. No depths of consuming passion are plumbed very diligently in this film. No haunting pathos pervades it. The producers had little time for that. With Orson Welles playing Rochester, the anguished hero of the book, they mainly gave way to the aspects of morbid horror to be revealed. They tossed Mr. Welles most of the story and let him play it in his hot, fuliginous style. As a consequence, the heroine of the classic, little Jane, played by Joan Fontaine, is strangely obscured behind the dark cloud of Rochester’s personality.

Jane Eyre (1944)

THE SCREEN; ‘Jane Eyre,’ a Somber Version of the Bronte Novel, With Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles, Opens at the Music Hall