(For those following at home, Lisa is attempting to clean out her DVR by watching and reviewing 38 films by this Friday.  Will she make it?  Keep following the site to find out!)

Check out the film poster above and ask yourself, “Was the 1939 version of Wuthering Heights a love story or a horror movie?”

Because, seriously, the poster above looks like it belongs to a horror movie, doesn’t it?  You’ve got beautiful Merle Oberson looking concerned.  And then looming behind her, you’ve got a wild-eyed Laurence Olivier, staring at her with a possessive stare.  The sky above is overcast and there’s a hint of the desolate landscape in the background.  Right under Olivier and Oberon, there’s another picture of two men holding back another man while a woman stares on in shock.  It looks perfectly horrific, does it not?

Well, Wuthering Heights is not a horror movie, though it certainly opens like one, with a traveling stranger named Lockwood (Miles Mander) seeking shelter in a menacing mansion and then later witnessing a ghostly woman walking across the moors.  The master of the estate is the rude and brusque Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier) who, after presenting himself as being cold and unconcerned with Lockwood, gets quite emotional when he sees the woman on the moors.  After the woman calls to him, Heathcliff runs out into the storm to be with her.  It’s only after this that Lockwood learns the story Heathcliff and Cathy Earnshaw (Merle Oberon).

The film flashes back to 40 years earlier.  Heathcliff is found on the streets by Mr. Earnshaw (Cecil Kellaway) and is brought home to live on his estate, Wuthering Heights, along with his children, Cathy and Hindley (Hugh Williams).  Cathy and Heathcliff grow close and, at they grew up, they eventually become lovers.  However, the arrogant Hindley resents Heathcliff and, after Mr. Earnshaw dies, he does everything that he can to split Cathy and Heathcliff apart.

One night, while Cathy and Heathcliff are out walking together, they come across a party being given by the wealthy Linton family.  While Cathy is immediately attracted to the Lintons and their wealth, Heathcliff resents them.  When Edgar Linton (David Niven sans mustache) starts to court Cathy, Heathcliff runs away and disappears for two years.

When Heathcliff returns, he is now wealthy and, on the surface at least, he has given up his wild ways.  However, he discovers that Edgar and Cathy are now married.  Heathcliff buys Wuthering Heights from the now alcoholic Hindley and soon, he has married Edgar’s innocent sister, Isabella (Geraldine Fitzgerald).  Heathcliff and Cathy claim to no longer love one another but, of course, we all know better…

Wuthering Heights is definitely a love story.  In fact, it could be argued that it is the love story.  Every gothic romance novel ever written owes a debt to Emily Bronte’s original novel.  In some ways, the 1939 film is a rather loose adaptation of that novel.  For one thing, Cathy and Heathcliff are childless in the film whereas their children played a major role in the second half of the novel.  As well, Isabella’s fate is different in the film (and that’s fine with me because Isabella was always my favorite character).  But, even if it does make changes to the plot, the film stay true to the novel’s soul.

It’s a great film, full of atmosphere, romance, and melancholy.  Director William Wyler, who was one of the best directors of Hollywood’s golden age, keeps the story moving at a compelling pace and Oberon and Olivier are about as perfect a Heathcliff and Cathy as you could hope for.  (For lovers of old movies, it’s also interesting to see David Niven playing such an earnest and ultimately clueless character.  Poor Edgar!)

Wuthering Heights was one of the many great films to be released in 1939.  It was nominated for best picture but it lost to Gone With The Wind.  Interestingly enough, Gone With The Wind starred Olivier’s lover (and soon-to-be wife) Vivien Leigh.  Originally, Leigh was offered the role of Isabella in Wuthering Heights but, desiring to play Cathy, she turned it down.  When Olivier came to the States to play Heathcliff, he left Leigh behind in London but she would soon join him in Hollywood after she was cast as Scarlett O’Hara.