Wuthering Heights (1939) [Extra Quality]
Wuthering Heights (1939) is director William Wyler's somber tale of doomed and tragic love, conflicting passions, and revenge. It is considered one of Hollywood's all-time most romantic/drama classics. Filmed with haunting beauty, it is the first film dramatization of Emily Bronte's wildly passionate 1847 best-selling literary masterpiece, from a screenplay written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (concentrating on the first two-thirds or 17 chapters of the 34 chapter book).
Wuthering Heights (1939)
The 1939 film was a critical success, earning eight Academy Award nominations in one of the most hotly-contested years ever - often called "the greatest year in motion picture history." The nominations included: Best Picture, Best Actor (Laurence Olivier with his first career nomination), Best Supporting Actress (Geraldine Fitzgerald with her sole career nomination), Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Screenplay, Best Interior Decoration, and Best Original Score. It rightly deserved its sole Academy Award for Gregg Toland's expressionistic, moody B/W cinematography. [Note: This was Toland's only career Oscar, although his acclaimed, deep-focus film technique was also nominated in classics such as Les Miserables (1935), Dead End (1937), Intermezzo: A Love Story (1939), The Long Voyage Home (1940), and Citizen Kane (1941).] Also, the film's wonderful musical score by Alfred Newman is unforgettable.
Ronald Colman, Douglas Fairbanks, and English actor Robert Newton were all considered for the role eventually played by British stage actor Laurence Olivier. Each of the leading actors began work on the film under miserable circumstances, including the fact that both had their own lovers in England - Merle Oberon had recently fallen in love with Alexander Korda (a major British film figure), and Olivier was separated from his girlfriend/fiancee Vivien Leigh, also in London. For both its major stars, however, the film turned out to be advantageous - it was contract player Merle Oberon's best work in her entire film career, and it established Laurence Olivier as a dashing, leading international film actor (he was nominated as Best Actor for his role). (And as a footnote, it brought Vivien Leigh to Hollywood where she met David O. Selznick and tested - successfully - for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind (1939).)
The credits play over views of Wuthering Heights, an estate on the edge of the storm-tossed Yorkshire moors. [Although filmed in California's San Fernando Valley, its setting appears to be Bronte's somber, native "wuthering" (stormy) Yorkshire moors.]
Wuthering Heights (1939 film) is recorded in English and originally aired in United States. Each episode of Wuthering Heights (1939 film) is 103 minutes long. Wuthering Heights (1939 film) is distributed by United Artists. 041b061a72