Wuthering Heights (1939)
Directed by William Wyler

Film Review

Of the many adaptations of Emily Brontë's classic novel that have graced cinema and television screens over the past century, this lavish 1930s version is unquestionably one of the finest.  Its producer, the great Samuel Goldwyn, considered it his favourite film - which is some accolade, worth more than a dozen Oscars - and it famously launched the Hollywood career of the great English actor Laurence Olivier.  With its atmospheric sets and brooding cinematography, the film crisply evokes the darkness and cruel perversity of Brontë's novel, the eerie lighting accentuating the destructive and mysterious nature of the passions that ruin the lives of the protagonists and propel them to their self-willed doom.

What is perhaps most surprising about this version of Wuthering Heights is how good it is, given that its production was fraught with difficulties and near-disasters.  Goldwyn was at first lukewarm about the project and only agreed to buy the rights when he learned that Warner Brothers had expressed an interest in buying a script treatment commissioned by rival producer Walter Wanger.   The story had little appeal to Goldwyn, who found its subject dull and depressing.  He tried to persuade William Wyler, whom he hired to direct the film, to lighten it somewhat.  Alternative titles were even suggested by Goldwyn's sales department, one being Dark Laughter.  Fortunately, Wyler resisted such artistic sacrilege, and whilst the screenplay telescoped Brontë's novel considerably, it remained pretty faithful to it in mood and content.  

Another bone of contention was the casting of the lead parts.   From the outset, Goldwyn wanted Merle Oberon to play Cathy, and he was easily persuaded (by screenwriter Ben Hecht) that Laurence Olivier would be the perfect Heathcliff.  At the time, Olivier was better known as a stage actor and had yet to make his breakthrough in cinema.  He agreed to take the part if his fiancée Vivien Leigh could play Cathy, something which Goldwyn would never agree to.  Having seen Robert Newton, Wyler was convinced he would be ideal as the brooding Heathcliff, but Goldwyn dismissed the idea, considering the actor too ugly to play a leading character in one of his films.  Olivier was persuaded to play Heathcliff, and this happily coincided with Vivien Leigh being offered the role of Scarlett O'Hara in David O. Selznick's production of Gone with the Wind.   The third actor in this eventful drama was David Niven.  He was very reluctant to play the part of the terminally bland Edgar Linton, but had no choice but to accept the role as he was under contract to Sam Goldwyn.

They say that opposites attract.  This certainly did not apply in the case of Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon.  Bringing together the highly regarded stage actor (with the ego to match) and an aspiring but somewhat talentless film starlet turned out to be only marginally less clever than dropping a dozen lighted matches into a crate of dynamite.   To say that Olivier and Oberon did not get on would be an understatement.  They loathed each other.  Wyler's harsh - some might say sadistic - treatment of both actors hardly helped matters, but it did at least improve the quality of their performances.   When he first saw Olivier performing, Goldwyn was horrified - he saw enough uncured ham for him to open a chain of delicatessens the length and breadth of America.  Under Wyler's uncompromising tutelage, Olivier moderated his acting style and gave an acceptable performance; the actor would later pay homage to Wyler for the help he gave him in making the transition from stage to film.

Goldwyn's initial qualms that the film might be too grim for it to appeal to an American cinema audience were borne out by the negative feedback that came from a sneak preview.  The producer was by now adamant that it had to have a happy ending and so he commissioned a simple but effective coda in which the two lovers appear to be united.  As the lead actors had by this stage returned to England, doubles were hired for this brief sequence.  Through a happy combination of circumstances - Wyler's artistic judgement complemented by Goldwyn's commercial nous - the end result was a success: a compelling film drama that captures with a searing emotional intensity the pathos of a thwarted love that transforms itself into the deadliest poison.

Film Synopsis

Home to the Earnshaw family, Wuthering Heights sits proud and inviolable as a fortress on the wind-blasted Yorkshire Moors, oblivious to the tragedies that lie ahead.  After a visit to Liverpool, Mr Earnshaw surprises his two young children, Cathy and Hindley, by returning with a scruffy orphan boy named Heathcliff.   Hindley resents his father's decision to adopt the urchin, but Cathy and Heathcliff become the best of friends.  On Earnshaw's death a few years later, Hindley delights in maltreating Heathcliff as his servant, not knowing that his victim is carrying on a secret love affair with his sister.   Although she is passionately in love with Heathcliff, Cathy decides to marry Edgar Linton, one of her wealthy neighbours, lured by the life of ease and luxury that her lover can never give her.   Hurt by this rejection, Heathcliff leaves to make his fortune in America.  When he returns, several years later, he sees that Cathy's love for him has endured, but it is too late for a happy reconciliation.  Soured by bitterness, Heathcliff is only interested in revenge and inflicting cruelty on the one he loved, and still loves...