Wuthering Heights - ah, is this a romance? drama? tragedy? all of the above? What a GREAT movie - I really enjoyed it. Another 1939 classic, Wuthering Heights lost the Academy Award to Gone with the Wind, and I think, rightly so - but that being said, it was a fantastic movie. This was my first Laurence Olivier experience and OOH LA LA, what a man. Very handsome. Merle Oberon played Kathy and I didn't care for her much - she was alright, neither here nor there. You know who I really liked in it? The servant - Isabella, played by Geraldine Fitzgerald. She and Olivier were both nominated for Oscars but did not win. Wuthering Heights was directed by William Wyler.
This story revolves around the relationship of Heathcliff (Olivier) and Kathy (Oberon). When Kathy and her brother are kids, their Father brings home an boy from town - he acts as one of their servants but he and Kathy become really close friends. When their Father dies, Kathy's brother treats Heathcliff very poorly, and as Heathcliff and Kathy fall in love, they know they are forbidden to be together. Though Kathy loves Heathcliff, I think she was really tempted by the rich life of her neighbors and often used it against Heathcliff, knowing he could not give her that. One day, she meets her neighbor Edgar and as time passes he falls in love with her, proposing marriage. Kathy is forever torn - Heathcliff is her real love but Edgar could give her money and a lavish lifestlye. Eventually she chooses Edgar, and even after Heathcliff leaves for America and returns with money and status, even purchasing Wuthering Heights, she cannot be with him. Heathcliff marries Edgar's sister, not out of love, but out of a desire to be close to Kathy - he leads a miserable life. When Kathy becomes ill, he asks her to haunt him, to drive him mad - just not to leave him alone - and when she dies, she does haunt him until the day he joins her.
The only problem I had with this movie was that Heathcliff and Kathy were kind of unlikable - Kathy was in love with Heathcliff but kept choosing Edgar - what?! She wasn't in love with Edgar so really it just made her superficial. Heathcliff was passionate and brooding but not altogether a nice man - so in the end, I loved the movie but definitely want to learn more about the characters to see what I was missing.
Emily Bronte wrote this and she and sister(s?) were all about dark, brooding, spooky men living out on the moors. Her sister wrote Jane Eyre. Do you know Olivier was married to Vivian Leigh at this time? He wanted her to play Cathy but she was a little busy with GWTW. So their movies were up for Oscars VS each other. This is the only movie were I thought he was really attractive. He was also Darcy in the '30's version of Pride and Prejudice with Greer Garson, good actress.
ReplyDeleteOH I can definitely see him being Mr. Darcy. So he wasn't good looking in his other movies? How sad - he's very handsome in this one! I did know that he was married to Vivien Leigh, they must have been quite the interesting couple - I read that he took care of her when her bipolar disorder got really bad and before their divorce.
ReplyDeleteInteresting review - I read this book but I've never seen the movie. I had a lot of trouble with the book because, as you said, I also found Cathy and Heathcliff to be wholly unlikeable. I also had a REALLY difficult time keeping track of the characters in the book because so many names overlapped. Catherine Earnshaw, Catherine Linton, Linton Heathcliffe, Hareton, Hindley...I just got so lost. Was it that way in the movie? Maybe it helped to have faces...I'm sure it did.
ReplyDeleteI didn't have any trouble with the characters actually - it was really easy being able to associate names with faces. I would say I didn't even know everyone's names, but I knew who they were!
ReplyDeleteAnother movie that I didn't care for either. I don't care for unrequited love and I especially don't like a theme where people deny their true love forever. How can that be?? Talk about dooming yourself to a life of misery. And, who wants to watch a whole movie of it?
ReplyDeleteSO,,now you HAVE to watch Jane Eyre!! And I mean NOW!! That is a movie of heartbreak and love and I really want to read your review of it.