Jane Eyre (1943 Robert Stevenson)

Stevenson and ace cameraman George Barnes give Bronte the full on expressionistic treatment with wonderful shadows and clever lighting around every corner. The novel's been adapted by Aldous Huxley, John Houseman and Stevenson, who directed many Hitchcock half hours and latterly worked for Disney.

Jane's childhood is portrayed grimly through Peggy Ann Garner, her adoptive aunt Agnes Moorehead and brute Henry Daniell, kindly maid Sara Allgood and childhood friend Elizabeth Taylor. John Sutton is the doctor. Then grown up as Joan Fontaine ('so grave and quiet in the mouth of hell'), Orson Welles makes a towering and brutish Rochester, with Edith Barrett as the housekeeper and Margaret O'Brien a prospective fiancee.

Bernard Herrmann's music is unlike anyone else's, and sensational, hallmarking this as a superior literary adaptation, made for Fox.

Scene where Jane tends to wounded man while door rattles behind her is a perfect horror movie moment.

These scenes impressed me the last time (23 March 2010):