Dear Reader 02: The Silence and the Sound

In this episode I tackle silent films and radio adaptations of Jane Eyre.

For the first part I take on the difficult task of examining two different silent films...that I have not seen! I know, I know! The 1910 version starring Irma Taylor (Jane) and Frank Hall Crane (Rochester) has been lost to time and Woman and Wife (aka The Lifted Cross) from 1918 starring Alice Brady (Jane) and Eliot Dexter (Rochester) survives in an incomplete state at the BFI National Film and Television Archive. I do my best to piece together what they are about and look at reviews at the time to give my best analysis on how well they accomplish adapting the source material.

In the second half of the episode, I look at the Lux Radio Theatre production of Jane Eyre from June 14, 1948 starring Ingrid Bergman as Jane and Robert Montgomery as Rochester. Listen to the radio play here.

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5 responses to “Dear Reader 02: The Silence and the Sound

  1. Another fine episode! I recently re-watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) and the parallels between Daphne du Maurier’s story are quite striking. I’d be interested to know if you’ve ever read Rebecca.

    After doing a bit of digging I noticed there are a couple of filmed versions of the Bronte sisters’ lives:

    A 1979 film directed by André Téchiné and written by Téchiné with the collaboration of Pascal Bonitzer and Jean Gruault:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYpH-f6998Y

    A 2016 production titled “To Walk Invisible”:

  2. This may be our only chance to mention the semaphore version of Wuthering Heights!

    When you mentioned the film was from 1910, I had the suspicion that it would only be “Scenes From Jane Eyre.” Still, the silent movies I’ve seen from a decade later use the title cards for more than just dialogue, some introduce characters by name when they first appear, and some go further to make side comments on the characters they introduce. I’m sorry I don’t get to hear what you would have made of these movies.

  3. I’m outraged! What does all that Patreon money go towards, if not to send inquisitive podcasters on globe-trotting research trips?!

    Seriously though, I’ve enjoyed the first two episodes, and look forward to the next.

  4. I didn’t think it was possible to do a movie review show where you haven’t actually, you know, SEEN THE MOVIES, but you proved me wrong Stella.

    While it makes sense that Jane Eyre was turned into a movie or two in the early days of cinema because of its popularity, it does seem strange that such dialogue-heavy source material would work at all as a silent film. Frankenstein? Sure. Jane Eyre? Uh, maybe.

    I have been trying to get the others in the network to pay for one of my jaunts for a while now, but no luck. Get in line, Moose.

    Enjoying the show!

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  5. Stella, you know every cinephile listening 1) bugged their eyes out when you said you’d never seen so much as a single silent film, and 2) went looking for some Internet fragment of the movies discussed, in case they had resources you hadn’t considered (alas).

    I love this show and am sort of jealous of it.

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