The Novel

Author: Emily Brontë (1818-48)

First published: 1847

The Film

Year released: 1939

Director: William Wyler (1902-81)

Screenplay by: Charles MacArthur, Ben Hecht

Starring: Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Flora Robson, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Hugh Williams

Context

Emily Brontë’s only novel, Wuthering Heights, was first published in 1847, under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. (Like her sisters, Anne and Charlotte, who respectively published Agnes Grey and Jane Eyre that same year, Emily wrote under a male pseudonym.) Few contemporary critics knew what to make of Wuthering Heights upon its initial publication. While some found its moorland setting and gothic fiction elements entertaining, more were bothered by its disorganized and wandering plot, disturbing characters, and bizarre ending. When Emily Brontë— about whom personal information is scarce—died at age thirty in 1848, Charlotte edited the novel so that a second posthumous edition, published in 1850, made the Yorkshire accents more intelligible. The book would eventually earn widespread acclaim, and since the 1930s, at least, it is often considered one of the great works of English literature. This reversal of its fortunes was established in a reappraisal by English critic Lord David Cecil in Early Victorian Novelists: Essays in Revaluation (1935). But even before Cecil’s book, perceptive twentieth-century readers like Virginia Woolf had come to similar conclusions. Woolf, who had made a pilgrimage in 1904 to Haworth, England, home of the Brontës, wrote in the 1920s of Charlotte Brontë: “She looked out upon a world cleft into gigantic disorder and felt within her the power to unite it in a book. That gigantic ambition is to be felt throughout the novel—a struggle, half thwarted but of superb conviction...”

Wuthering Heights was first adapted for film in a 1920 British production. American producer Walter Wanger then planned an adaptation before abandoning the project. Famed Hollywood mogul Samuel Goldwyn eventually acquired the screen rights to the novel, including a script written by Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht, in the mid-1930s despite his reported dislike for the gloominess of the story. By the 1930s Goldwyn was an independent producer known for his difficult personality, but he managed many successes by focusing on high-quality, often literary-inspired projects. He appointed director William Wyler, whom he had under contract, to head Wuthering Heights, with Merle Oberon starring as Cathy and Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff, the doomed lovers.

Wyler had begun his career directing silent films, moving on to successes such as The Good Fairy (1935), These Three (1936) and Jezebel (1938). He would eventually become one of the most acclaimed directors in Hollywood, winning Academy Awards for best director for Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), and Ben Hur (1959) and being nominated eight other times. He was known for his exacting standards, but also for helping novices in their breakout roles—for example, Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday (1953) and Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl (1968). Wuthering Heights, however, was a notoriously difficult production. Wyler demanded dozens of shoots for many scenes, exasperating the actors. Olivier in particular was often contemptuous and also clashed with Oberon. Wyler and Goldwyn were often in direct conflict, with the producer even threatening to replace the director over a disagreement on the film’s ending.

Film Analysis

Wuthering Heights details the lifelong torturous love affair between Catherine “Cathy” Earnshaw and Heathcliff, an orphaned boy found on the streets of Liverpool and taken in by her father at a young age. Throughout their lives, Cathy is divided between wanting to be wild and free, like Heathcliff, or like the more refined Edgar Linton. When Cathy eventually agrees to marry Edgar, Heathcliff vows revenge against all who have wronged him, and when he becomes a man of means as an adult, he enacts his revenge on everyone, including the next generation of Earnshaws and Lintons. After Cathy’s early death, Heathcliff treats his own son, Cathy’s daughter, and the son of Cathy’s brother in ways that make him appear to both the characters in the novel and to many readers as something close to a monster. He takes all the cruelty that was unjustly inflicted upon him and turns it back on the world in equal measure.

Wyler’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights differs from the novel in many aspects, but primarily in its omission of this second generation’s story, instead focusing on the story of Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier) and Cathy (Merle Oberon). Wyler also softens the temperaments of both main characters, maintaining to a degree their selfish and vengeful streaks, but making them far more palatable for the screen. Also notable is that the story’s time period shifts from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the novel to the mid-nineteenth century in the film. This change was reportedly because Wyler preferred the clothing styles of the later period.

The film opens with a traveler named Lockwood (Miles Mander) lost on the moors in a snowstorm. He finds a house, Wuthering Heights, and enters, only to be shocked by the cold reception he receives from the master of the house, Heathcliff, his wife, Isabella (Geraldine Fitzgerald), and the servants. The only one who treats him with any kindness is the housekeeper, Ellen Dean (Flora Robson). That night Lockwood awakes from a fitful sleep and thinks he sees the ghost of a woman outside. After Heathcliff comes to the room and is told what happened, he rips open the shutters and calls out “Cathy!” then rushes off into the still raging snowstorm. Ellen then tells Lockwood the bulk of the story in a long flashback. In this way the film follows the general structure of the novel, although in the book Lockwood hears the tale over a long period while recovering from an illness.

Ellen’s narrative describes how Heathcliff (played as a child by Rex Downing) was brought home by Cathy’s father, Mr. Earnshaw (Cecil Kellaway), and is treated as a member of the family by everyone except Cathy’s brother, Hindley (played by Douglas Scott as a child and Hugh Williams as an adult), who sees him as nothing more than a “gypsy beggar.” After Hindley hits Heathcliff with a rock, Heathcliff swears revenge on him. Meanwhile, Heathcliff and Cathy become close friends, especially after playing on the rocks of Peniston Crag, which they pretend is a castle where they live as king and queen. The crag becomes their special place, where they continue to meet secretly into young adulthood.

After the death of Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley becomes the master of Wuthering Heights and forces Heathcliff into the role of stable boy. Although mistreated by Hindley, who grows up to be a gambler and a drinker, Heathcliff stays at Wuthering Heights to be near Cathy. She urges him to run away, make a fortune, and come back for her. One day an injured Cathy is taken in by the wealthy neighbors, the Lintons, but they scorn Heathcliff, who vows revenge. Cathy again tells him to run away and come back for her with better prospects. He leaves as Cathy recuperates at the Linton home.

After several weeks living at the Lintons’, Cathy returns to Wuthering Heights entranced by wealth and beauty. She discovers that Heathcliff did not run away for long but returned because he missed her so badly. When Heathcliff sees Cathy with Edgar Linton (David Niven), who is now in love with her, he is appalled by her haughtiness with him. However, Cathy also lashes out at Edgar when he criticizes Heathcliff in front of her. She meets Heathcliff on Peniston Crag, where they again declare their love for each other and she talks of his running away to make a fortune. A classic love triangle is established, in which Cathy is drawn to both Heathcliff and Edgar, who represent different sides of her own personality and desires. These opposing natures are highlighted by the cinematography and sets, which contrast the wild moors (in fact shot in California) and the comfortable domestic life of the Lintons.

Cathy later invites Edgar to Wuthering Heights, leading to a violent argument between her and Heathcliff. After Edgar asks Cathy to marry him, she discusses the proposal with Ellen, who knows Heathcliff is eavesdropping. Heathcliff hears Cathy say that it would degrade her to marry him and leaves without hearing her conclude that, regardless, they are soulmates. Heathcliff runs away, and after Cathy searches for him fruitlessly, she is found near death by Edgar. With Heathcliff gone, Cathy agrees to marry Edgar, though not without some inner turmoil. At this point the camera briefly returns to present-day Ellen, setting up a time jump in the main narrative.

The flashback resumes with Cathy and Edgar seemingly happily married. As in the book, Heathcliff then returns, now a wealthy and refined gentleman. Though many details from the source material are rearranged or omitted, two key elements of Heathcliff’s revenge plan are retained. He reveals that he has bought Hindley’s gambling debts and is now master of Wuthering Heights, allowing him to turn the tables by taunting Hindley. Heathcliff also marries Edgar’s sister, Isabella, and then neglects her, purely to torment both Edgar and Cathy.

When Cathy becomes gravely ill, Heathcliff rushes to her bedside, where they argue about the tortures inflicted upon each other but eventually admit their mutual love. Heathcliff carries Cathy to the window to see Peniston Crag once more, and she dies in his arms. When Edgar and Dr. Kenneth (Donald Crisp) enter the room, Heathcliff curses Cathy that she might not rest until he dies, too. The powerful scene showcases many of the film’s strengths, including the acting skills of Oberon and Olivier, Wyler’s nuanced direction, and the crisp black-and-white cinematography of Gregg Toland. It also highlights the major changes made in adaptation; while in the novel Cathy’s death comes about halfway through and sets the stage for Heathcliff’s ongoing revenge against a new generation, the film makes it the major climax and the final scene of the flashback.

The present-day narrative concludes with Ellen and Lockwood joined by Dr. Kenneth, who says that he found Heathcliff’s body out in the snowstorm after believing he saw Heathcliff walking with a woman. Ellen suggests that Heathcliff was with Cathy’s spirit, and the film ends with their ghosts walking in the snow toward Peniston Crag. The shot of the ghosts, filmed with doubles after Olivier and Oberon had gone on to other projects, was added over the objections of Wyler, at the behest of producer Goldwyn, who wanted a more upbeat ending.

Significance

The 1939 film version of Wuthering Heights is a highly regarded adaptation of a classic, and still popular, novel. Although the book has been adapted for film and television numerous times, no other version has garnered the esteem that the 1939 film has achieved in the decades since its initial release.

Wyler’s film was widely acclaimed as one of the best pictures of 1939—a year considered to be one of the greatest in the history of Hollywood, producing such classics as Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Despite such stiff competition, Wuthering Heights was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best picture, best director, best leading actor (Olivier), best supporting actress (Fitzgerald), and best screenplay. It ultimately won just a single Oscar, with Gregg Toland winning for best black-and-white cinematography. The movie also won the 1939 New York Film Critics Circle Award for best film. Contemporary critics generally considered the adaptation to match or even surpass the novel in artistic quality. Fred S. Nugent, writing for The New York Times, declared, “Goldwyn and his troupe have fashioned a strong and somber film, poetically written as the novel not always was, sinister and wild as it was meant to be.” Similarly, a reviewer for Variety wrote that “Goldwyn’s film version retains all of the grim drama of the book,” and praised the central performances, but also suggested that “it’s rather dull material for general audiences.”

Although neither Wyler nor Goldwyn won major awards for Wuthering Heights, it remains regarded as one of the best films of their illustrious careers. Goldwyn even reportedly considered it his favorite production. The film is also credited with establishing Olivier, already a renowned stage actor, as a true film star. In 1998, Wuthering Heights was included on the American Film Institute’s list of the hundred best films of all time, and in 2007 the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the US National Film Registry.

Further Reading

Bibliography