elvircorhodzic
The film is based on a pretty strange story. The scenario includes the first part of the story. WUTHERING HEIGHTS is a very serious drama imbued with painful romance and class topics. The atmosphere is extremely dark. I think that is an ambitious stage design pretty successful. About playing the most talked about and probably have "experiences" with sets contributed to the gloomy atmosphere. The film has love, but it is somehow wildly passionate and overlaps with contempt and hatred.Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff was not up to the role. However, his resistance and attitude are the direct perpetrators of his excellent performance. It was dark and ferocious character, described as a demon and ghoul. Olivier's performance is quite convincing. Heathcliff truly loves and exerts wild emotion. I personally was an impressive transition from gentle passion in violent. Hatred in the absence of love is manifested to all.Merle Oberon as Catherine Earnshaw Linton is a restless girl who must choose between wild love and class. She is able to give his heart, but also to break someone else's. It is perhaps a little selfish. She lived with the knowledge that her love depraved, and as such it lacks.Lintons are good characters and victims of tragic destiny. Niven and Fitzgerald are competent in their performances. Flora Robson as Ellen Dean is flawless in a supporting role. The film is an ambitious and ultimately good. The director's in dark atmosphere added elements of psychological horror, foreboding and tension. The tragic climax was inevitable. The plot is a bit slow and very depressed. Definitely gloomy experience.
richard-1787
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.
dougdoepke
Talk about a brooding outdoors, those moody moors may represent a sense of liberation for the lovers, but they're not exactly inviting. Besides, it rains all the time, so best to be in the house even if mansions represent the confining space of class and class privilege. That's the trouble. Cathy is 'to the manor born', as they say. Thus she's really torn between the wild outdoors and the comforts of ballrooms and servants. Then there's the enigmatic Heathcliffe, a dark wild-souled type guy, perfectly at home in those bleak rolling hills. He was a street ragamuffin before Cathy's elderly father adopted him into the manor as a stable boy. But he and a young Cathy manage to bond despite the class difference, a bond that eventually blossoms into true love. But that true love only breaks to the surface in the wild outdoors where a common humanity replaces artificial social distinctions. If only Cathy could find the will to break free of the leisure class.What a great visual experience, the b&w expertly coordinated with the settings. When the two lovers approach the rocky crag, there's almost a feeling of an outdoor altar calling to them amidst the brooding hills. It's such a perfect visual contrast to the high-key ballrooms and parlors of the Lintons. The Lintons, however, are not to be despised despite their airs and privileges. In fact, they are very real victims of Cathy's suppressed feelings and Heathcliffe's cold calculations. As it turns out, there is no spectral salvation for them. As a result, the love being portrayed here is a kind of mad love, one that brings tragedy to all concerned. Thus, there's a reason those moors brood in dark fashion, while the movie itself remains the best of the many makes and remakes.
tapio_hietamaki
This is a somewhat stronger adaptation than Ralph Fiennes' 1992 Wuthering Heights, mostly because Laurence Olivier is such a great Heathcliff (though a bit too handsome for the role). This 1939 version is very melodramatic and larger-than-life, which Wuthering Heights is supposed to be.The film has aged quite a bit in its overacted emotions and childish characterization, but all that has a certain charm. Only the scenes when they are children, playing at the cliffs, are unbearable. Merle Oberon is alright as the spoiled Catherine Earnshaw, David Niven as Linton is mostly just boring, but Hugh Williams' Hindley shines with his comical depression and resentment.The film is quite true to the story, but cuts the second half of the novel in its entirety, never introducing the second generation at all. This seems like a good decision for the film, but the end lacks a punch because of it.
AD
