“Heathcliff, make the world stop right here. Make everything stop and stand still and never move again. Make the moors never change and you and I never change,” exclaims Catherine in William Wyler’s 1939 adaptation of Emily Bronte’s gothic romance “Wuthering Heights.” It’s quite a supreme moment in cinema. Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier clinging to each other on a ledge on Penistone Crags with the wind howling. It’s a desolate landscape of rocks and heather. It’s an evocative composition of free-spirited souls who have found love amongst the isolation and the unforgiving environment that surrounds them. Love amid the ruins. It’s chaste, ardent and erotic. “No matter what I ever do or say, Heathcliff, this is me now; standing on this hill with you. This is me forever.”
“Wuthering Heights” is one of the first books I ever read. I read it in Spanish, my first language – “Cumbres Borroscosas” – and I remember being disappointed when I first saw this adaptation for it omits the second half of the novel which covers the offspring of Heathcliff and Catherine and the repercussions through time of the original love affair. With repeated viewings I have grown to admire it more and more. It captures the brooding and turbulent atmosphere – and tone of the writing. The themes from the gothic novel are all there – the mental and physical cruelty of their all-consuming emotions that walks a fine line between love and abuse. Is this really a tale of romance or is it one of madness and mistreatment? Ideas about religion, morality, class and the role of a woman in society are also addressed – making it timeless. The screenplay was done by acclaimed writers/playwrights Charles MacArthur & Ben Hecht (“Twentieth Century” and “The Front Page”) with participation of the famed John Huston. “On the barren Yorkshire moor in England, a hundred years ago, stood a house as bleak and desolate as the wastes around it,” says the opening card. “Only a stranger lost in a storm would have dared to knock at the door of Wuthering Heights.” Lockwood is received in a gruff manner by Heathcliff and begrudgingly is invited to stay for the night – in the upstairs master bedroom. A shutter flaps on his window and as he closes it he hears a woman’s voice calling “”Heathcliff, let me in! I’m out on the moors. It’s Cathy!” Lockwood awakens Heathcliff who runs out of the house like a madman searching for the voice. The housekeeper Ellen tells Lockwood about the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw and the story of the doomed lovers. The whole movie is a flashback and seen from the point of view of Ellen.
The production was directed by William Wyler – who is the only director of three Best Picture winners (Mrs. Miniver [1942], The Best Years of Our Lives [1946], and Ben-Hur [1959], for which he also won Best Director). He was a master of mise-en-scene – and so knowledgeable about composition and camera movement – making everything seem so fluid and cinematic. The camera in Wuthering Heights moves in a dreamlike manner – furtively taking on the proceedings – harking back to the fact that what’s unfolding are the recollections of the housekeeper as well as reminding us of the ghostlike presence of Catherine that still haunts the estate. Wyler had a productive collaboration with Gregg Toland who as I have mentioned before was a pioneer in the usage of deep focus technique – showing a foreground, a midground and a background. This is put to great use in this film creating spatial relationships between the characters and their relationships to the two different households that are opposing forces: Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Range. Toland won the Oscar for best cinematographer for his work here. Wuthering Heights’ set design is appropriately dark, claustrophobic with narrow windows and crevices reflecting a stormy world lit in low-key lighting full of shadows, while Thrushcross Range is spatious, calmer, grand and bright.
Under his guidance, many actors went on to win Academy Awards for their performances including Audrey Hepburn in “Roman Holiday,” the recently deceased Olivia de Havilland in “The Heiress,” and Barbara Streisand in “Funny Girl.” Laurence Olivier received his first Oscar nomination for his ruminating Heathcliff – which happens to be my favorite performance by him. Supposedly there were on set clashes with his co-star Merle Oberon. Vivien Leigh wanted to play the role of Catherine but was offered the secondary role of Isabella Linton instead. Leigh went on to star in “Gone with the Wind” that same year and win the Oscar for Best Actress – so things worked out for her. Wyler was also very demanding of Olivier – asking at times for 72 takes of one scene. He wanted to remove the theatricality of Olivier’s acting and make it appear more natural on screen. Olivier went on to thank Wyler in his autobiography for the lessons he taught him.
“Wuthering Heights” was made in 1939, which is considered by many to be one of the greatest years for cinema. Apart from “Gone with the Wind,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Stagecoach,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “Ninotchka” and “Of Mice and Men” and others were released.
Cathy: “I don’t think I belong in Heaven, Ellen. I dreamt once that I was there. I dreamt I went to Heaven, and that Heaven didn’t seem to be my home. And I broke my heart with weeping to come back to Earth. And the angels were so angry they flung me out into the middle of the heap, on top of Wuthering Heights.”
Love,
Roger
Available to stream on Amazon Prime and to rent on Apple TV, iTunes, FandangoNOW, Microsoft and DIRECTV.
Screenplay by Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht
Based on the novel by Emily Brontë
Directed by William Wyler
Starring Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, David Niven and Geraldine Fitzgerald
104 minutes
Bringing “Wuthering Heights” from Page to Screen
“According to an August 1936 Hollywood Reporter news item, producer Walter Wanger, who owned the film rights to Wuthering Heights previous to Samuel Goldwyn, planned to film the story with Anatole Litvak directing and Charles Boyer and Sylvia Sidney starring. An October 1937 Hollywood Reporter article noted that after two years on his production schedule, Wanger decided to abandon ‘Wuthering Heights’ and put the rights, along with Charles MacArthur’s and Ben Hecht’s script and some backgrounds already planned or constructed by art director Alexander Toluboff, up for sale. The article also noted that before Wanger decided to sell ‘Wuthering Heights,’ he had signed Harold Young to direct the picture. M-G-M put in its bid for the rights, but it was Goldwyn who eventually acquired the property. According to a biography of director William Wyler, Goldwyn initially refused to buy the story, stating that he thought it was “too gloomy” and that he did not like stories “with people dying in the end.” Wyler’s biography also notes that while Goldwyn was considering the property, Bette Davis tried to convince producer Jack Warner to buy the script for her. According to Hollywood Reporter, soon after buying the rights to the script, Goldwyn began negotiations for English actor James Mason to star. A June 1938 Philadelphia Inquirer news item noted that Tyrone Power was sought for the lead. An October 1938 Hollywood Reporter news item indicates that Goldwyn had signed Joseph Calleia for “an important role,” but he did not appear in the released film. Contemporary news items note that Bront societies worldwide wrote Goldwyn and urged him to remain as faithful in detail as possible to the original novel, and protested the use of any one of a number of replacement titles for the story that were rumored to have been considered. Titles reportedly considered by the Goldwyn sales office were ‘Gypsy Love,’ ‘Fun on the Farm’ and ‘He Died for Her.’ Although the script remained faithful in many respects to the novel, it covered only the events pertaining to the first generation of characters in the novel.” (tcm.com)
About Actor Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier was born in Dorking, Surrey, England. The son of an Anglican minister, Olivier attended All Saints Choir School, where at age nine he made his theatrical debut as Brutus in an abridgement of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Five years later he played the female lead in “The Taming of the Shrew” at Oxford’s St. Edward’s School, repeating this performance at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. These early stage appearances did not go unnoticed by the theatrical notables of the era, who encouraged Olivier to consider acting as a profession. At first he dismissed the notion, hoping to follow the example of his older brother by managing an Indian rubber plantation; but his father, who had heretofore been ambivalent on the subject of acting, all but demanded that young Laurence embark upon a stage career. Olivier enrolled at the Central School of Dramatic Art in 1924, then began his professional career with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre Company (1926–28). In 1929 he made his first significant West End appearance, playing the title role in a staging of P.C. Wren’s “Beau Geste.” Also that year he made his Broadway debut in “Murder on the Second Floor.” Having acted in British films from 1930, he was briefly signed by Hollywood’s RKO Radio Pictures in 1931, but he failed to make much of an impression at this early date. What could have been his first Hollywood break in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s “Queen Christina” (1933) was scuttled when star Greta Garbo vetoed Olivier as her leading man in favour of her former lover John Gilbert…He scored a significant triumph as star of an unabridged 1937 staging of “Hamlet.” He returned to Hollywood to play the tormented Heathcliff in Samuel Goldwyn’s production of “Wuthering Heights” (1939). This time around, movie audiences took notice, and Olivier’s subsequent international stardom was a fait accompli. Exhibiting the same tenacity and dedication that distinguished his theatrical work, Olivier accumulated enough flight hours on his own to qualify for the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm in World War II. Demobilized in 1944, he launched a new facet of his career by teaming with longtime friend Ralph Richardson to revitalize the fabled Old Vic Theatre. This assignment not only provided him the opportunity to appear in an extensive repertory of choice Shakespearean roles but also allowed him to direct, something he had been doing on a sporadic basis since the 1930s.
In 1944 he also returned to film as star and director of Shakespeare’s “Henry V” (1944), an outstanding blend of old-fashioned theatricality and “pure” cinema that earned him a special Academy Award. He went on to star in three additional Shakespearean film adaptations, two of which he also directed: “Hamlet” (1948), which won him Academy Awards for both best picture and best actor; “Richard III” (1955), and “Othello” (1965), a “filmed theatre” version of his earlier stage triumph, directed by Stuart Burge. Olivier’s other movie directorial credits included “The Prince and the Showgirl” (1957), with Marilyn Monroe; the 1967 television movie version of “Uncle Vanya; and Three Sisters” (1970). Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, Olivier appeared in more than 30 films; most were forgettable, but memorable exceptions included “Sleuth” (1972, Oscar nomination for best actor), “Marathon Man” (1976, Oscar nomination for best supporting actor), the television films “Love Among the Ruins” (1975) and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (1976), and the British miniseries “Brideshead Revisited” (1981). It was also during this period that Olivier was suddenly and inexplicably stricken with a severe case of stage fright. Even after overcoming this debility, he insisted upon “shielding” himself from the audience by retreating further into character roles, donning elaborate makeups, and adopting thick foreign accents as a form of self-protection. In his last two decades he was tormented by illness, including near-fatal bouts with thrombosis and prostate cancer. His frailties added a poignant note to his much-praised performance in the title role of “King Lear” (1983; made for television), his last major Shakespearean role. Olivier published two highly-regarded volumes of memoirs, “Confessions of an Actor” (1984) and “On Acting” (1986). He was married three times, to actresses Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright. Knighted in 1947, he became the first actor to receive a peerage in 1970, allowing him to sit in the House of Lords. Despite these honours, he retained his essential modesty; whenever asked if he should be addressed as Sir Laurence or Lord Olivier, the actor invariably replied, “Call me Larry.” Upon his death, he became only the second actor since Edmund Kean to be interred in Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey. (britannica.com)
About Author Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë was born in Thornton, England, on July 30, 1818. She and her five siblings grew up in Haworth, where their father, the Rev. Patrick Brontë, was the church curate. Their mother died in 1821, and in 1824, Emily and three of her sisters were sent to the Clergy Daughters’ School in Lancashire. When her two oldest sisters died of tuberculosis, Emily returned to Haworth with her sister Charlotte. After leaving school, Emily continued her studies with her two surviving sisters, Charlotte and Anne, and their brother, Branwell. With access to their father’s library, the Brontë siblings read and wrote extensively, producing a family magazine that featured their stories and poems. In 1837, Emily became a teacher at the Law Hill School, but she left the position after several months. After teaching for a brief period at the Pension Héger in Brussels, she returned permanently to Haworth in 1842. In 1846, Emily, Charlotte, and Anne self-published a collection of poetry under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. While “The Poems of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell” (Aylott and Jones, 1846) reached a very limited audience, the three sisters each went on to publish novels soon after. In 1847, Emily published her sole work of fiction, “Wuthering Heights” (Thomas Cautley Newby), which is widely regarded as one of the great novels of the English language. Emily Brontë died of tuberculosis on December 19, 1848. “The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë” (Hodder and Stoughton), a posthumous collection of over 200 poems, was published in 1923. (poets.org)
About Director William Wyler
“Born to Jewish parents in Germany in 1902, Wyler became interested in American culture at an early age. His cousin, Carl Laemmle, was the head of Universal Pictures, and in 1920 brought Wyler to America. Before long he was living in Hollywood and working on films. Within five years he was an assistant director, concentrating much of his energy on short Westerns. By the early 1930s, Wyler had begun to direct features, and with “Counselor-at-Law” (1933) he received his first taste of success. He followed it two years later with two films, a comedy written by Preston Sturges called “The Good Fairy,” and The Gay Deception” (1935). By 1936, Wyler had teamed up with Samuel Goldwin to make the film, “These Three.” The following year they made “Dodsworth,” a film that dealt with a decaying marriage, and in 1937 “Dead End,” about life in the slums. Working with Bette Davis throughout the early 1940s, Wyler created such classic films as “The Letter” (1940) and “The Little Foxes” (1941). During the mid-1940s, Wyler was in the Army, where he made a number of documentaries. Before leaving for the service he had had his most popular film, “Mrs. Miniver,” and upon returning he made what is considered his best, “The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946). Both about wartime, “Mrs. Miniver” dealt with the lives of the British during the war, while “The Best Years of Our Lives” hit home with a serious look at the lives of three veterans returning home from the war. For Wyler, the 1950s were a time of great achievement. With “Roman Holiday” (1953), he not only directed a significant and popular film, he first presented Audrey Hepburn to an American audience. With major releases such as “The Desperate Hours” (1955) and “The Big Country” (1958), he set the scene for his unprecedented success with a re-make of “Ben-Hur” (1959). It won eleven Oscars and remains a classic today. Throughout the 1960s Wyler continued to make films including “The Collector” (1965) and “Funny Girl” (1968) starring Barbara Streisand in her film debut. Already in his late sixties, Wyler directed “The Liberation of L.B. Jones” (1970) about racism in a southern town. Soon after, he retired, and in 1981 he passed away. Acknowledged by the Academy Awards and filmmakers everywhere for his lifetime commitment to the highest quality filmmaking, William Wyler stands out as a major source in the history of American dramatic cinema.” (pbs.org)