Testamony of Jane Eyre 1956
I am still trying to piece together this BBC version, not having access to their archives. But one of my readers wrote in with this brief comparison with the recent production. If anyone remembers the 1956 version as well, please write in and let me know your recollections! The following is a comment left on the archive for this post. (Comments sent to the archive do not always reach me. Also, as a reminder, please make some sort of reference to which post you are commenting on if it is older than a week or so because I cannot locate your comment in order to reply in some cases!).
Daphne Slater was Jane Eyre likewise Stanley Baker was Rochester the 1956 production covered the whole of the book, it wasn't dumbed down or made more sexually explicit.The meeting in the garden with the cigar smoke was sexy enough I am frankly amazed that the 2006 production has received so much praise and not one mention seems to have been made about the far superior 1956 version.
This post contains the bulk of my information on this adaptation, which seems to be clinging onto its fanbase despite not being available for half a century!
3 comments:
I wonder if writing to the BBC to see if a copy of this version is still around or archived would be worthwhile? Or have you tried that already?
If I am not mistaken, the BBC had a very rough outline of their collections of dramas posted online years ago. One of my readers happened to make note of which versions of Jane Eyre were still extant. I believe this one survives in full but that there are no plans to release it. I cannot be sure because one of the two 'lost' BBC series of Jane Eyre is missing two episodes and it is either this one or the one from the 1960s- I think it's the one from the 60s.
Well, I did some google searches, and came up with a couple things- A pic of Stanley and a pic of Daphne
And an owner of another blog said that he saw clips of this series on a BBC retrospective show years ago. That they were fuzzy, but he thought that Stanley was very Rochester-ish. He also thinks Rochester has no sense of humor or charm... I'm trying to change his mind on that though. :)
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