Wuthering Heights (1939 film)
Encyclopedia
Wuthering Heights is a 1939 American black-and-white film directed by William Wyler
William Wyler
William Wyler was a leading American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter.Notable works included Ben-Hur , The Best Years of Our Lives , and Mrs. Miniver , all of which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, and also won Best Picture...

 and produced by Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn was an American film producer, and founding contributor executive of several motion picture studios.-Biography:...

. It is based on the novel, Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...

by Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother...

. The film depicts only sixteen of the novel's thirty-four chapters, eliminating the second generation of characters. The novel was adapted for the screen by Charles MacArthur
Charles MacArthur
Charles Gordon MacArthur was an American playwright and screenwriter.-Biography:Charles MacArthur was the second youngest of seven children born to stern evangelist William Telfer MacArthur and Georgiana Welsted MacArthur. He early developed a passion for reading...

, Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...

 and John Huston
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...

. The film won the 1939 New York Film Critics Award for Best Film. It earned nominations for eight Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

, including for Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...

 and Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

. The 1939 Academy Award for Best Cinematography
Academy Award for Best Cinematography
The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...

, black-and-white category, was awarded to Gregg Toland
Gregg Toland
Gregg Toland, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer noted for his innovative use of lighting and techniques such as deep focus, an example of which can be found in his work on Orson Welles' Citizen Kane.-Career:...

 for his work.

In 2007, Wuthering Heights was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...

 by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

 as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Plot

A traveler named Lockwood (Miles Mander
Miles Mander
Miles Mander , born Lionel Henry Mander , was a well-known and versatile English character actor of the early Hollywood cinema, also a film director and producer, and a playwright and novelist.-Early life:Miles Mander was the second son of Theodore Mander, builder of Wightwick Manor, of the prominent...

) is caught in the snow and stays at the estate of Wuthering Heights, where the housekeeper, Ellen Dean (Flora Robson
Flora Robson
Dame Flora McKenzie Robson DBE was an English actress, renowned as a character actress, who played roles ranging from queens to villainesses.-Early life:...

), sits down to tell him the story in flashback. She tells him of Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...

) and Catherine (Merle Oberon
Merle Oberon
Merle Oberon was an Indian-born British actress best known for her screen performances in The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Cowboy and the Lady . She began her film career in British films as Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII . She travelled to the United States to make films for Samuel...

) and the troubled relationship they would have: she is born into wealth, and he is a poor stable boy with no expectations for acceptance in regular society.

Omissions from the novel

The film omitted any mention of Cathy's daughter and Heathcliff's son, both of whom play a major role in the last portion of the book. In the film, neither Heathcliff nor Cathy has any children.

Cast

  • Laurence Olivier
    Laurence Olivier
    Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...

     as Heathcliff
    Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)
    Heathcliff is a fictional character in the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Owing to the novel's enduring fame and popularity, he is often regarded as an archetype of the tortured Romantic hero whose all-consuming passions destroy both himself and those around him.Legend has stereotyped...

  • Merle Oberon
    Merle Oberon
    Merle Oberon was an Indian-born British actress best known for her screen performances in The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Cowboy and the Lady . She began her film career in British films as Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII . She travelled to the United States to make films for Samuel...

     as Catherine Earnshaw Linton
    Catherine Earnshaw
    Catherine Earnshaw, known as Catherine Linton after her marriage, is the main female protagonist of Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights....

  • David Niven
    David Niven
    James David Graham Niven , known as David Niven, was a British actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Lytton, a.k.a. "the Phantom", in The Pink Panther...

     as Edgar Linton
  • Flora Robson
    Flora Robson
    Dame Flora McKenzie Robson DBE was an English actress, renowned as a character actress, who played roles ranging from queens to villainesses.-Early life:...

     as Ellen Dean
  • Donald Crisp
    Donald Crisp
    Donald Crisp was an English film actor. He was also an early motion picture producer, director and screenwriter...

     as Dr. Kenneth
  • Geraldine Fitzgerald
    Geraldine Fitzgerald
    Geraldine Fitzgerald, Lady Lindsay-Hogg was an Irish-American actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame.-Early life:...

     as Isabella Linton
  • Leo G. Carroll
    Leo G. Carroll
    Leo Gratten Carroll was an English-born actor. He was best known for his roles in several Hitchcock films and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Topper.-Early life:...

     as Joseph
  • Hugh Williams
    Hugh Williams
    Hugh Williams was an English actor and dramatist of Welsh descent.-Personal life:...

     as Hindley Earnshaw
  • Miles Mander
    Miles Mander
    Miles Mander , born Lionel Henry Mander , was a well-known and versatile English character actor of the early Hollywood cinema, also a film director and producer, and a playwright and novelist.-Early life:Miles Mander was the second son of Theodore Mander, builder of Wightwick Manor, of the prominent...

     as Lockwood
  • Cecil Kellaway
    Cecil Kellaway
    Cecil Lauriston Kellaway was a South African-born character actor.Cecil Kellaway spent many years as an actor, author, and director in the Australian film industry until he tried his luck in Hollywood in the 1930s. Finding he could get only gangster bit parts, he got discouraged and returned to...

     as Earnshaw
  • Cecil Humphreys
    Cecil Humphreys
    -Selected filmography:* The Elusive Pimpernel * The Tavern Knight * Greatheart * The Four Just Men * Dick Turpin's Ride to York * The Glorious Adventure * Irish Luck...

     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

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
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...

 wanted to play the lead role alongside 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
Geraldine Fitzgerald
Geraldine Fitzgerald, Lady Lindsay-Hogg was an Irish-American actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame.-Early life:...

 was cast. Leigh was cast in Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind (film)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...

that same year, which won her an Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

; Merle Oberon did not receive a nomination for her performance.

There were clashes on the set between 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
Alexander Korda
Sir Alexander Korda was a Hungarian-born British producer and film director. He was a leading figure in the British film industry, the founder of London Films and the owner of British Lion Films, a film distributing company.-Life and career:The elder brother of filmmakers Zoltán Korda and Vincent...

. Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier also apparently detested each other. Witnesses recall Oberon scolding Olivier for accidentally spitting on her during a particularly romantic balcony scene. Oberon shouted back to Wyler, "Tell him to stop spitting at me!" Olivier retorted by shouting, "What's a little spit for Chrissake, between actors? You bloody little idiot, how dare you speak to me...?" Oberon ran crying from the set after the outburst, and Wyler insisted Olivier apologize to her, which upset Olivier greatly.

Olivier also found himself becoming increasingly annoyed with William Wyler's exhausting style of film-making. After countless takes of one scene, he is said to have exclaimed, "For God's sake, I did it sitting down. I did it with a smile. I did it with a smirk. I did it scratching my ear. I did it with my back to the camera. How do you want me to do it?" Wyler's retort was, "I want it better." Olivier in later years was more kind in his opinion about Wyler. In both his autobiography and his book On Acting, he credits William Wyler with teaching him how to act in films, as opposed to on the stage, and for giving him a new respect for films. Olivier had tended to "ham it up", as if he were playing to the second balcony, but Wyler showed him how to act more subtly.

In the final sequence of Wuthering Heights, the spirits of Heathcliff and Cathy are seen walking together hand-in-hand, obviously in love. This scene is not found in the book and, according to literary critic John Sutherland, was likely the stark opposite of what Brontë intended the reader to understand. He contends that a contemporary reader would not have seen Cathy's ghost's actions as a gesture of undying love for Heathcliff but one of towering, protective rage; Cathy haunted Heathcliff to death only to prevent him from cheating her daughter out of her inheritance. Director Wyler hated the idea of the after-life scene and didn't want to do it but producer Samuel Goldwyn vetoed him, and the scene was added after primary filming was complete. As Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon had already moved on to other projects, doubles had to be used. Goldwyn subsequently claimed, "I made Wuthering Heights, Wyler only directed it."
Goldwyn claimed that Wuthering Heights was his favorite of all his productions. Sutherland writes that this change to the ending has influenced how students view the novel and especially Cathy, who comes across as more passive and accepting of abuse than Brontë may have envisioned.

David Niven remembers the filming of Merle Oberon
Merle Oberon
Merle Oberon was an Indian-born British actress best known for her screen performances in The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Cowboy and the Lady . She began her film career in British films as Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII . She travelled to the United States to make films for Samuel...

's deathbed scenes (recorded in his bestselling book The Moon's a Balloon) as less than romantic. He had been given a substance to help it appear as if he were crying, which instead had the effect of making "green goo" come out of his nose.

Won

  • 1939: NYFCC Award for Best Picture of the Year
    New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Picture
    The New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Picture is an award given by the New York Film Critics Circle, honoring the finest achievements in filmmaking.-1930s:-1940s:-1950s:-1960s:-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:...

  • 1939: Academy Award for Best Cinematography
    Academy Award for Best Cinematography
    The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...

     (in a black-and-white film; Gone with the Wind
    Gone with the Wind (film)
    Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...

    won in the same year for its color cinematography)

Nominated

  • 1939: Academy Award for Best Actor
    Academy Award for Best Actor
    Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

     (Laurence Olivier)
  • 1939: Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Geraldine Fitzgerald)
  • 1939: Academy Award for Best Art Direction
    Academy Award for Best Art Direction
    The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999...

     (James Basevi
    James Basevi
    James Basevi was a British born art director and special effects expert....

    )
  • 1939: Academy Award for Best Director
  • 1939: Academy Award for Best Original Score
    Academy Award for Best Original Score
    The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...

  • 1939: Academy Award for Best Picture
    Academy Award for Best Picture
    The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...

  • 1939: Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
    Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
    The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...


Other Honors

American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...

 recognition
  • AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies
    AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies
    The first of the AFI 100 Years… series of cinematic milestones, AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies is a list of the 100 best American movies, as determined by the American Film Institute from a poll of more than 1,500 artists and leaders in the film industry who chose from a list of 400 nominated movies...

     #73
  • AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions
    AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions
    Part of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years…100 Passions is a list of the top 100 greatest love stories in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute on June 11, 2002, in a CBS television special hosted by American film and TV actress Candice Bergen.-The...

     #15

Miscellany

  • The Mitchell Camera Corporation
    Mitchell Camera
    Mitchell Camera Corporation was founded in 1919 by Henry Boger and George Alfred Mitchell. Their first camera was designed and patented by John E. Leonard in 1917, from 1920 on known as the Mitchell Standard...

     selected cinematographer Gregg Toland and Wuthering Heights to be the first to use their new Mitchell BNC camera. This camera model would become the studio standard.

  • Ronald Colman
    Ronald Colman
    Ronald Charles Colman was an English actor.-Early years:He was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, the second son and fourth child of Charles Colman and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His siblings included Eric, Edith, and Marjorie. He was educated at boarding school in Littlehampton, where he...

    , Douglas Fairbanks
    Douglas Fairbanks
    Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....

     and Robert Newton
    Robert Newton
    Robert Newton was an English stage and film actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the most popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys...

    were considered for the role of Heathcliff.

  • The novel takes place in the late 18th and early 19th century. However, the film places the action in the mid 19th century, around the time of the novel's publication. Sarah Berry writes that Samuel Goldwyn deliberately chose to do this because he thought "Civil War" fashions were more attractive than Regency fashions. Other writers have claimed that Goldwyn was short on funds and had to recycle costumes from a Civil War drama.

  • The film is rated  G  in New Zealand.

External links

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