I saw this film many years before I read the book, I know which I prefer - OK, maybe with rose-tinted spectacles on. The book by Emily Bronte is an undeniable classic as is this film version but imho this is a much better use of one hundred and five minutes of life. And though they keep trying, this will remain the best condensation of the story, Wuthering Lites c/o the original Fantasy Factory.
Waif brought into well off Yorkshire home, grows up to fall in violent love with the masters daughter and violent hate with the son, and eventually owns the estate but not the woman. Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon are perfect as the manic birds of a feather Heathcliff and Cathy with David Niven as the elegant sidelined husband. Everyone is portrayed as faulty or unlikeable in some way, romance is seen as hopeless childishness leading at best to passionate petulance, at worst to death; love is as strange as people. It's relentlessly beautiful stuff, gloriously photographed by Gregg Toland with a glowing atmosphere and a most assured production than has not been possible to achieve again. The spirit of nonsensical romance has been lost in this more cynical age. Favourite bits: Miles Mander's melodramatics at the beginning resulting in Flora Robson's picture-long flashback; the windswept pair on the rocks; the pair gatecrashing the dance; Oberon's unravelling to Niven and the tear-jerking finale. Director William Wyler had a long and illustrious career, but to my mind he never bettered this effort.
Watch it and weep; not only at the film's content but for a cinematic era long dead and never coming back.
Wuthering Heights
1939
Action / Drama / Romance
Wuthering Heights
1939
Action / Drama / Romance
jealousy sibling relationship based on novel or book love of one's life central and south america rags to riches
Plot summary
The Earnshaws are Yorkshire farmers during the early 19th Century. One day, Mr. Earnshaw returns from a trip to the city, bringing with him a ragged little boy called Heathcliff. Earnshaw's son, Hindley, resents the child, but Heathcliff becomes companion and soulmate to Hindley's sister, Catherine. After her parents die, Cathy and Heathcliff grow up wild and free on the moors and despite the continued enmity between Hindley and Heathcliff they're happy -- until Cathy meets Edgar Linton, the son of a wealthy neighbor.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
March 22, 2021 at 07:01 PM
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Shoot that poison arrow in my heart
No Wonder They Read This in High School
Remember those annoyingly popular couples in high school whose drama-filled romance was more than you could stomach as they alternated between syrupy stargazing and enraged jealousy? Well, the lead characters in this movie are a little bit more mature than your obnoxious 10th grade friends but they share the same illusions about what love is.
Not that I'm an expert on love but like pornography I know what it isn't when I don't see it. This reminds me of the awful tabloid stories about that dirtball Chris Brown beating the hell out of his delusional girlfriend Rihanna and both of them imagining that theirs is some great love story for the ages when in reality they're just a couple of self-absorbed nimrods.
On the other hand, I did like this movie because I can certainly relate to eagerness for revenge, impure love, and self-absorption.
Very moving film
I have not read the Emily Bronte novel on which this film is based so obviously I cannot comment on the effectiveness of it as an adaptation (I understand that almost the entire second half of the book was excised). However, I thoroughly enjoyed the film. Oberon and especially Olivier, one of my favorites, are very convincing and moving as the doomed lovers Cathy and Heathcliff (according to my friend, Heathcliff is written as being much more likeable in the film than in the book). The supporting cast was also very good. Wuthering Heights just deals very poignantly with the effect that birth and status have on people's lives. Yet another winner from Wyler. My score 9/10.