It's the spellbinding on-screen adaptation of a woman's only novel and one of the most iconic literature romances.It's the tormented and tormenting tale of a doomed love inspiring one of the greatest movies of 1939.And it stars one half of the Laurence Olivier - Vivien Leigh couple, but it is NOT "Gone with the Wind".It was certainly in Hollywood cards that the atmospheric black-and-white "Wuthering Heights", as sweet as a strong espresso, would forever be overshadowed by the Technicolor orgy of autumnal bonfires and taffetas dresses from the Best Picture winner of the year. Still, what a year!1939 was Hollywood's finest hour, its majestic culmination over a world about to collapse under the rollercoaster of the Blitzkrieg before the game-changing "day of infamy". But war wasn't yet occupying the big studios' territories and only the winds of tempestuous romances could roar along with the MGM Lion. "Gone With the Wind" but also "The Wizard of Oz" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" formed the glorious triumvirate of 1939, all represented in the American Film Institute's Top 100 list of 2007. Yet 10 years earlier, they were five with "Stagecoach" and William Wyler's classic. If I was to asked which one should have been kept, I would have probably sided with John Ford. This is not to lower the level of cinematic excellence reached in these "Wuthering Heights" but while the film is a masterpiece of Gothic romance thanks to its haunting cinematography and the intensity of Laurence Olivier's performance, love orbits the iconic couple in a way that causes so much histrionic pain and theatrical angerthat the childhood scenes felt more genuine. Or was it a lack of chemistry between the two stars? Seeing Merle Oberon as the flighty and coquette Catherine, I was immediately reminded me of Vivien Leigh who was considered for the role. Olivier hated not to have his beloved wife as a co-star. But Leigh would grace the screen as Scarlett O'Hara and win the Oscar while Oberon wasn't even nominated, as if once again, the Gods and the odds were against the "Emily Brontë" team. I wouldn't dare to imagine Leigh in Oberon's part because I can't imagine another profile facing Gable in "Wind".And "Wind" isn't an encouragement to story revisionism either because the film is virtually flawless and the characters' actions make sense even in their own twisted way. In "Heights", there's something fascinatingly confusing in the way everyone's his or her worst enemy. Obviously Catherine and Heatchliff love each other but Catherine wants Heathcliff to be rich and powerful, and he's got the right stuff but he's too authentic and stubborn to play along. And only when he plays the game and plays it damn too well that the dice are cast already. This is a Gothic romance, not a romantic story, not even a tragedy for it's full of sordidness, sorrow and bitterness, even to the peripheral characters such as Hindley (Hugh Williams) who drowns in alcohol the sorrow of not being half the son his foster brother was then half the man he became, Isabella (Oscar-nominated Geraldine Fitzgerald), the naïve sister-in-law too enamored to see that she's Heatchliff's pawn while her brother Edgar (David Niven) is too much of a chess expert to be fooled, if only he could only see his blandness mirrored in Catherine's eyes. What an irony from a film that features so many exchanges of looks and death glares that a few can really "see" and when they do, it's too late. One of the best moments occurs during a piano audition and from the way the four players of this tragicomedy stare at each other, we realize that we're in a hellish maze of human contradictions. The only constant and decent character is the sweet housekeeper Ellen (Flora Robson). She narrates the story to the estranged visitor who represents our point of view, the film opens in a cold winter night but the reception the visitor got from Heatchliff made the outside feel as warm as Hawaii.I guess that was the outcome of a romance where two lovers toyed with their feelings until they broke them. In the core, this is hot volcano romance yet the film leaves that point platonically ambiguous and depending on theatrical moments. What a missed opportunity, Olivier is like Lord Byron's portrait carved on a granite stone and whose death glare can undress the Devil himself, and Oberon so typically aristocratic but has her Indian-ness suddenly illuminating the screen during that moment when she ran after Heatcliff under the storm, such a cold British romance but so oddly exotic... if it wasn't for that Hays Code, handled with more audacity by Victor Flemming. Just remember that naughty smile on Vivien Leigh's face after the infamous stairs scene, suggesting that Gable was quite the beast that night, not to mention the line that proved that posterity didn't give a damn about correction. "Wuthering Heights" was all in poses and attitudes beautifully executed but rather than elevating a romance, they emphasized the "tense" in "intense". Oddly or fittingly, it reminded me of my discovery of that book, in a "Who's the Boss" episode. Tony and Angela were reading it together and the atmosphere was so heated they had to switch to "The Cat in the Hat". Maybe that's the way Emily Brontë envisioned that passion.Still, what an irony that like Margaret Mitchell, it was the only novel she wrote, but maybe it goes like novels as it goes with loves, there's only one great one, the others are just pale copies or inexistent. The love between Heathcliff and Cathy was so passionate it confined to these "you are what you love" madness and the romance couldn't go with death, couldn't have be ... gone with the wind, quite the contrary... the 'happy ending' might be too naïve although impacting. Was Wyler too classic or was Brontë too ahead-of-her-time? That's a riddle for ages.

When I watched this film there was something very unrealistic about the love story. After reading about the life of Emily Bronte who wrote it, then it all starting making sense- how could a slightly under 30 year old woman during the 1800s, who was probably a virgin, know the reality or obstacles of love... she couldn't and wouldn't. Also how could she permit a male character to be so abusive and mean to many around him as Emily most likely had this experience of men during her own upbringing, so she must have felt a soft place for these types of personalities no matter how abusive they might have been (the main male character in Jane Eyre is also somewhat abusive but softens as the story moves forward). Anything sensible about love in this story would have probably been influenced or transferred by Charlotte her elder sister, who did a lot of the editing for the book to be published and then re-published. Charlotte did not marry until much later in life but perhaps had more experiences with other's issues of love to be a bit more practical in her view than her sister Emily. People who find this story terrific would have to be somewhat emotionally immature or fantasy-like in their ideals of love. This is a melodrama and one far from being factual... When Heathcliff marries another woman and treats her like basically dirt, people seem to only admire his character for being this way because his heart bleeds for Cathy, therefore he is forgiven... Heathcliff's character is a sadistic narcissists. And in the end when Cathy is sick on her deathbed because she chose a life of riches and comforts with a man she did not love or wouldn't due to her lingering inextinguishable passion for Heathcliff, people feel sorry for her as well and forgive her for her shortcomings... Cathy is another narcissistic personality (histrionic) who was basically out for her own advancement and threw out her love for Heathcliff because of it to be able to use another man (not much different than prostitution really). Its a wonder why such a novel would be so popular among the mainstream as most people worship narcissistic personalities and give little regard or empathy to the the other characters who were treated poorly or hurt such as Cathy's husband or Heathcliff's wife because they are viewed as less important. I found the story too fantasy-like, not developed in its definition of 'true love' and the main characters too self-absorbed or selfish to really be liked. I was disappointed with this story and felt it was dark and a love story far from being applicable to real life. I found Jane Erye a much better film with a more realistic approach to romance and love, so I thoroughly enjoyed it. The only really positive thing I can say about this film is that the actors are good and the scenery is nice which captures a bit of old England, and the costumes well represent the time period. However, i would not base any ideas about real love coming from this story as it is just too make belief. All the Bronte sisters who wrote lived for years in a fictional world of their own and I would say this story is an example of that fictional world, so I hope people leave it as fiction.

This is a beautifully filmed movie acted beautifully by two very beautiful leads, Merle Oberon and Lawrence Olivier, and some very fine supporting actors, in particular Flora Robson as Ellen. (Robson would go on the next year to give my favorite interpretation of Elizabeth I in *The Sea Hawk". She was one great actress.) But none of this beauty disguises the fact that it is the story of two very selfish and at times even hateful young people, Cathy and Heathcliff. No matter how beautiful the cinematography - and it is often very beautiful - how romantic the music (by Alfred Newman), and how moving the often poetic dialogue, especially over Cathy's deathbed, it was impossible, at least for me, to forget that important fact.I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It's really well made. But I could only wish the worst for Cathy and her Heathcliff. May they fall over that rock at the end and suffer all the torments they had inflicted on those around them.

One of the reasons why a classic becomes a classic is that it withstands the test of time. William Wyler's version of the Bronte classic has its awkward moments: Merle Oberon overacts fearfully as Cathy, while Olivier is sometimes a little too mannered as Heathcliff. But the film as a whole is a masterpiece of storytelling: Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's script captures the passion at the heart of the novel, and how it eventually destroys Cathy, despite every effort of her husband Edgar (David Niven) to provide a good life for her. The script also emphasizes the fundamental conflict in Cathy's character between the desire to give in to her passions and her desire for social respectability, that prompts her to choose Edgar over Heathcliff. William Wyler's direction is both unobtrusive yet subtle; he creates a series of leitmotifs running throughout the film to emphasize its preoccupation with social divisions - for example, the shots of Heathcliff's dirty hands contrasting with Cathy's milk-white hands as she embraces him, and Edgar's hands encased in pristine white gloves. There is also the use of windows to symbolize imprisonment, as well as the world of social respectability that proves inaccessible to Heathcliff, however much money he acquires. There is also the "castle" - actually a ruined structure on the moors, but for Cathy and Heathcliff it is both a refuge and a place where they can fulfill their fantasies of being a knight in shining armor and a damsel in distress. Throughout their lives, it reminds them of what might have been, had they not been constrained by the social world of respectability symbolized by Edgar and Hindley (a gloriously over-the-top performance by Hugh Williams). With lush deep-focus photography by Wyler's regular collaborator Gregg Toland, emphasizing the spatial relationships between the characters, WUTHERING HEIGHTS is a supreme example of Hollywood film-making at its best; it's by far the most superior of any of the cinematic versions of the Bronte novel.