Wuthering Heights (1939 film)

''Wuthering Heights'' is a 1939 American romantic period drama film directed by William Wyler, produced by Samuel Goldwyn, starring Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier and David Niven, and based on the 1847 novel ''Wuthering Heights'' by Emily Brontë. The film depicts only 16 of the novel's 34 chapters, eliminating the second generation of characters. The novel was adapted for the screen by Charles MacArthur, Ben Hecht, and John Huston. The supporting cast features Flora Robson and Geraldine Fitzgerald.

It was primarily filmed in Thousand Oaks, California, with scenes shot in Wildwood Regional Park and at the current site of California Lutheran University.

The film won the 1939 New York Film Critics Award for Best Film. It earned nominations for eight Academy Awards, including for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. The 1940 Academy Award for Best Cinematography, black-and-white category, was awarded to Gregg Toland for his work. Nominated for original score (but losing to '' The Wizard of Oz'') was the prolific film composer Alfred Newman, whose poignant "Cathy's Theme" does so much "to maintain its life as a masterpiece of romantic filmmaking."

In 2007, ''Wuthering Heights'' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Plot

A traveler named Lockwood is caught in the snow and stays at the estate of Wuthering Heights, despite the cold behavior of his host Heathcliff. Late that night, after being shown into an upstairs room that was once a bridal chamber, Lockwood is awakened by a cold draft and finds the window shutter flapping back and forth. Just as he is about to close it, he feels an icy hand clutching his and sees a woman outside calling, "Heathcliff, let me in! I'm lost in the moors. It's Cathy!" Lockwood calls Heathcliff and tells him what he saw, whereupon the enraged Heathcliff throws him out of the room. Once Lockwood is gone, Heathcliff frantically calls out to Cathy and runs down the stairs and into the snowstorm. Ellen, the housekeeper, tells the amazed Lockwood that he has seen the ghost of Cathy Earnshaw, Heathcliff's only great love, who died years ago. When Lockwood says that he doesn't believe in ghosts, Ellen tells him that he might if she told him the story of Cathy, and he asks her to do so, intrigued.

As a boy, Heathcliff is found on the streets by Mr. Earnshaw, who brings him home to live with his two children, Cathy and Hindley. At first reluctant, Cathy eventually welcomes Heathcliff, and they become very close, but Hindley treats him as an outcast, especially after Mr. Earnshaw dies. About ten years later, the now-grown Heathcliff and Cathy have fallen in love and are meeting secretly at Penniston Crag on the moors. Hindley has become dissolute and tyrannical towards Cathy and the servants and forces Heathcliff to be a stable boy out of hatred for him.

One night as Cathy and Heathcliff are out together, they hear music and realize that their neighbors, the Linton family, are having a party. The pair sneak inside the Lintons' estate by climbing over their garden wall, but the dogs are alerted and attack them. One of the dogs bites Cathy, and she suffers a severe leg injury. Heathcliff is forced to leave Cathy in their care. Enraged that the Lintons' glamor and wealth would so entrance Cathy, he blames the family for her injury and curses them all.

Cathy fully recuperates while staying for months with the Lintons, then returns home. Edgar Linton has fallen in love with Cathy and soon proposes; after Edgar takes her back to Wuthering Heights, she tells Ellen what has happened. Ellen reminds her about Heathcliff, but Cathy flippantly remarks that it would degrade her to marry him. Heathcliff overhears and leaves before he can hear Cathy realize aloud that she belongs with him, not Edgar, despite their class difference. When she discovers Heathcliff has overheard, she runs after him into the moors during a raging storm. Edgar finds her cold and ill. He summons the local doctor, Kenneth, who nurses her back to health. Soon after her recovery, Cathy and Edgar marry.

Heathcliff then apparently disappears forever but returns two years later, now wealthy and elegant. He has refined his appearance and manners to impress and spite Cathy, and secretly buys Wuthering Heights from Hindley, whose gambling and heavy drinking have brought him to financial ruin. Cathy remains with Edgar despite Heathcliff’s return and denies her love for him; to further spite Cathy, Heathcliff begins courting Edgar's naïve sister, Isabella. Despite Cathy's strong objections to both Isabella and Heathcliff, the two eventually marry. A brokenhearted Cathy soon falls gravely ill. Heathcliff rushes to her side against the wishes of a now disillusioned and bitter Isabella. Cathy finally tells Heathcliff that she loves only him, and they reconcile, forgiving each other. At her request, Heathcliff carries Cathy to the window, so she can see the moors for the last time before dying in Heathcliff's arms. Heathcliff asks Cathy to haunt him until the day he dies.

As Ellen finishes her story, Dr. Kenneth arrives and tells Ellen and Lockwood that he saw Heathcliff on the moors with a woman, only to find Heathcliff’s corpse alone in the snow. Ellen realizes that he saw the ghosts of Heathcliff and Cathy, who now haunt Penniston Crag together.

Novel sections omitted in film

The film significantly shortened the plot of the novel. Originally, the book was divided into two volumes, the first involving Cathy and Heathcliff, and the second later in time involving Heathcliff's interactions with Cathy's daughter, also called Catherine; Heathcliff's son by Isabella, Linton; and Hindley's son Hareton. In the film the second volume, and thus the children and their stories, is omitted.

Because the film cuts that large amount, some of the characters are shifted or omitted. For example, the present-time beginning and ending of the film provide a frame for the flashback in both the film and book; but in the film, Isabella is still the supposed mistress of the household, whereas in the novel time has proceeded to the point where the younger Catherine is the primary female resident. In general, Heathcliff's apparent contact with Cathy's spirit and his subsequent death is preserved as the ending of the film, although it takes place sooner in time, and in a somewhat different way.

Cast

* Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff
* Merle Oberon as Catherine Earnshaw Linton
* David Niven as Edgar Linton
* Flora Robson as Ellen Dean
* Geraldine Fitzgerald as Isabella Linton
* Hugh Williams as Hindley Earnshaw
* Donald Crisp as Dr. Kenneth
* Leo G. Carroll as Joseph
* Miles Mander as Mr. Lockwood - the stranger
* Cecil Kellaway as Earnshaw, Cathy's father
* Cecil Humphreys as Judge Linton
* Sarita Wooton as Cathy – as a Child (as Sarita Wooten)
* Rex Downing as Heathcliff – as a Child
* Douglas Scott as Hindley – as a Child
* Vernon Downing as Giles

Production

The project was initially intended as a vehicle for Merle Oberon, who was under contract with Goldwyn at the time. However, when Laurence Olivier was cast as Heathcliff, Vivien Leigh wanted to play the lead role with her then-lover and future husband. Studio executives felt the role could not go to an actress who was largely unknown in America, but they did offer Leigh the part of Isabella Linton. She declined, and Geraldine Fitzgerald was cast. Leigh was cast in ''Gone with the Wind'' the same year, for which she won an Academy Award for Best Actress; Merle Oberon did not receive a nomination for her performance.

There were clashes on the set between the actors and the director. Both of the leading players began work on the film miserable at having to leave their loved ones back in the United Kingdom; Olivier missed his fiancée Vivien Leigh, and Oberon had recently fallen in love with film producer Alexander Korda

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