CREDITS: Director: William Wyler; Producer: Samuel Goldwyn; Screenwriters: Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur; Based on the novel by Emily Bronte; Cinematographer: Gregg Toland; Editor: Daniel Mandell; Art Director: James Basevi; Set Decorator. Julie Heron; Costumes. Omar Kiam; Musical Direclor: Alfred Newman; Special Character Makeup: Blagoe Stephanoff; Running Time: 104 minutes.

Producer Samuel Goldwyn felt the black-and-white film was the favorite of all his productions. It is still considered the definitive version - and one of the greatest romantic films ever made. Bronte's novel tells about the eternal, smoldering love between two soul-mates: adopted gypsy boy Heathcliff and manor-born Cathy, who loves both the stable-boy and her worldly neighbor Edgar. There were numerous other versions of the film, including: a silent version in 1920, director Luis Bunuel's Spanish-language version Abismos de Pasion (Depths of Passion) (1953), Robert Fuest's American International and UK version Wuthering Heights (1970) with Timothy Dalton and Anna Calder-Marshall in the lead roles, French director Jacques Rivette's Hurlevent (1985), Peter Kosminsky's faithfully-told Wuthering Heights (1992) with Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes, and a made-for-TV feature Wuthering Heights (1998) as part of the Masterpiece Theatre series.

THE FILM

When, back on the London stage, Olivier received Samuel Goldwyn's offer to play Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, he consulted his acting colleague Ralph Richardson, who replied cryptically: "Yes, dear boy. Bit of fame. Good."

Goldwyn's earlier plan was to team Olivier romantically with his Divorce of Lady X costar Merle Oberon as Cathy--and the actor's offscreen inamorata Vivien Leigh in the secondary part of Isabella. Olivier knew Vivien would have made a perfect Cathy, while doubting Merle's emotional qualifications for the role. Leigh refused to accept a supporting part in Wuthering Heights, reportedly scoffing at William Wyler's protestation that she’d never get as good a first role in America!

A number of other versions of Bronte's book have reached the screen -- a 1920 silent British adaptation with Milton Rosmer and Colette Brettel; Luis Bunuel's 1953 Mexican translation, Abismos de Pasion, with Jorge Mistral and Irasema Dilian; a 1970 British remake, realistically filmed in Yorkshire with Tirnothy Dalton and Anna Calder-Marshall; a French adaptation in 1985, and a Japanese one three years later. (At this writing, a new British remake is in production for 1992 release.) But the only lasting classic has proved to be Goldwyn's haunting, California-made, 1939 production, sensitively directed by the demanding William Wyler and artfully photographed in black-and-white by Gregg Toland. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur confined their simplified adaptation of Bronte's complex plot to only the novel's initial half, while retaining much of its original dialogue.

COMMENTS OLIVIER:

"If any film actor is having trouble with his career, can't master the medium and, anyway, wonders whether it's worth it, let him pray to meet a man like William Wyler. Wyler was a marvelous sneerer, debunker; and he brought me down. I knew nothing of film acting or that I had to learn its technique; it took a long time and several unhandsome degrees of the torture of his sarcasm before I realized it. "

CRITICS CIRCLE

It is Goldwyn at his best and, better still, Emily Bronte at hers. Out of her strange tale of a tortured romance, Mr. Goidwyn 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, far more compact dramatically than Miss Bronte had made it. And it has been brilliantly played. Laurence Olivier's Heathcliff is the man. He has Heathcliff’s broad lowering brow, his scowl, the churlishness, the wild tenderness, the bearing, speech and manner of the demon-possessed.

Merle Oberon has matched the brilliance of his characterization with hers. William Wyler has directed it magnificently. It is, unquestionably, one of the most distinguished pictures of the year.” -- Frank Nugent in The New York Times.