This is adaptation of the oft-filmed Bronte classic, benefits enormously from Welles' presence as the brooding, tortured Rochester. Welles' theatricals might seem a bit overwrought to a modern viewer, but the performance still stands up as a powerful study in conflicting emotions and inner turmoil. Joan Fontaine, as in Rebecca and Suspicion, is once again on hand as a pallid innocent caught up in tense Gothic drama and responding with a self-sacrificing femininity that hints at co-dependency and masochism. The dark, shadowy noir look of the production suits its Gothic origins and the stylistic emphasis on tight, cramped compositions creates an appropriately claustrophobic atmosphere surrounding the doomed lovers. Margaret O'Brien, the so-charismatic-she-was-almost-spooky child acting prodigy of the age, is well cast as Jane Eyre's sympathetic charge, and her relationship with Jane makes the rough early period of the story watchable, as Rochester fumes and slams his way around.
