What a waste of my time!!!

Best movie ever!

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

It's the spellbinding on-screen adaptation of a woman's only novel and one of the most iconic literature romances.It's the tormented and tormenting tale of a doomed love inspiring one of the greatest movies of 1939.And it stars one half of the Laurence Olivier - Vivien Leigh couple, but it is NOT "Gone with the Wind".It was certainly in Hollywood cards that the atmospheric black-and-white "Wuthering Heights", as sweet as a strong espresso, would forever be overshadowed by the Technicolor orgy of autumnal bonfires and taffetas dresses from the Best Picture winner of the year. Still, what a year!1939 was Hollywood's finest hour, its majestic culmination over a world about to collapse under the rollercoaster of the Blitzkrieg before the game-changing "day of infamy". But war wasn't yet occupying the big studios' territories and only the winds of tempestuous romances could roar along with the MGM Lion. "Gone With the Wind" but also "The Wizard of Oz" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" formed the glorious triumvirate of 1939, all represented in the American Film Institute's Top 100 list of 2007. Yet 10 years earlier, they were five with "Stagecoach" and William Wyler's classic. If I was to asked which one should have been kept, I would have probably sided with John Ford. This is not to lower the level of cinematic excellence reached in these "Wuthering Heights" but while the film is a masterpiece of Gothic romance thanks to its haunting cinematography and the intensity of Laurence Olivier's performance, love orbits the iconic couple in a way that causes so much histrionic pain and theatrical angerthat the childhood scenes felt more genuine. Or was it a lack of chemistry between the two stars? Seeing Merle Oberon as the flighty and coquette Catherine, I was immediately reminded me of Vivien Leigh who was considered for the role. Olivier hated not to have his beloved wife as a co-star. But Leigh would grace the screen as Scarlett O'Hara and win the Oscar while Oberon wasn't even nominated, as if once again, the Gods and the odds were against the "Emily Brontë" team. I wouldn't dare to imagine Leigh in Oberon's part because I can't imagine another profile facing Gable in "Wind".And "Wind" isn't an encouragement to story revisionism either because the film is virtually flawless and the characters' actions make sense even in their own twisted way. In "Heights", there's something fascinatingly confusing in the way everyone's his or her worst enemy. Obviously Catherine and Heatchliff love each other but Catherine wants Heathcliff to be rich and powerful, and he's got the right stuff but he's too authentic and stubborn to play along. And only when he plays the game and plays it damn too well that the dice are cast already. This is a Gothic romance, not a romantic story, not even a tragedy for it's full of sordidness, sorrow and bitterness, even to the peripheral characters such as Hindley (Hugh Williams) who drowns in alcohol the sorrow of not being half the son his foster brother was then half the man he became, Isabella (Oscar-nominated Geraldine Fitzgerald), the naïve sister-in-law too enamored to see that she's Heatchliff's pawn while her brother Edgar (David Niven) is too much of a chess expert to be fooled, if only he could only see his blandness mirrored in Catherine's eyes. What an irony from a film that features so many exchanges of looks and death glares that a few can really "see" and when they do, it's too late. One of the best moments occurs during a piano audition and from the way the four players of this tragicomedy stare at each other, we realize that we're in a hellish maze of human contradictions. The only constant and decent character is the sweet housekeeper Ellen (Flora Robson). She narrates the story to the estranged visitor who represents our point of view, the film opens in a cold winter night but the reception the visitor got from Heatchliff made the outside feel as warm as Hawaii.I guess that was the outcome of a romance where two lovers toyed with their feelings until they broke them. In the core, this is hot volcano romance yet the film leaves that point platonically ambiguous and depending on theatrical moments. What a missed opportunity, Olivier is like Lord Byron's portrait carved on a granite stone and whose death glare can undress the Devil himself, and Oberon so typically aristocratic but has her Indian-ness suddenly illuminating the screen during that moment when she ran after Heatcliff under the storm, such a cold British romance but so oddly exotic... if it wasn't for that Hays Code, handled with more audacity by Victor Flemming. Just remember that naughty smile on Vivien Leigh's face after the infamous stairs scene, suggesting that Gable was quite the beast that night, not to mention the line that proved that posterity didn't give a damn about correction. "Wuthering Heights" was all in poses and attitudes beautifully executed but rather than elevating a romance, they emphasized the "tense" in "intense". Oddly or fittingly, it reminded me of my discovery of that book, in a "Who's the Boss" episode. Tony and Angela were reading it together and the atmosphere was so heated they had to switch to "The Cat in the Hat". Maybe that's the way Emily Brontë envisioned that passion.Still, what an irony that like Margaret Mitchell, it was the only novel she wrote, but maybe it goes like novels as it goes with loves, there's only one great one, the others are just pale copies or inexistent. The love between Heathcliff and Cathy was so passionate it confined to these "you are what you love" madness and the romance couldn't go with death, couldn't have be ... gone with the wind, quite the contrary... the 'happy ending' might be too naïve although impacting. Was Wyler too classic or was Brontë too ahead-of-her-time? That's a riddle for ages.

3/2/18. There are at least 8 renditions of "Wuthering Heights" on film, including one that is coming out this year. The National Film Registry picked this one for its archives. Can't say that this was the best rendition (as I have not seen all the others), but it's the oldest and probably the original one with which all others have been compared to. And, if the history of cinematic remakes is any indication of the lack of improvement over time, then this your best bet for enjoying this classic on film. You really get the chance to see Olivier at his most handsome as the tormented Heathcliff who is madly in love with the fickle Cathy who cannot bring herself to truly love Healthcliff because of his lowly station in life. If done right, tragic love on film will stay with you for a long time.

"Wuthering Heights" is considered to be one of the best movies of all times. Technically speaking this movie is great and it definitely deserves Best Black-and-White Cinematography Oscar and all nominations for actors. Merle Oberon is fascinating. Still, I barely forced myself to the end. Not because it's boring, but because story is atrocious. I suppose this should be romantic drama about tragic love, but for me, tragic love is when two people who are meant for each other can not be together because of unhappy circumstances or other people's bad intentions, not because they are complete idiots. This is morbid and sleazy story about group of sick and sadomasochistic people, with accent on two repulsive, selfish persons who, by their selfishness, stupidity and immaturity, destroy lives not only for themselves, but to everyone else around them, and pretty much intentionally. And after all crap they put us through I should feel sad for them?! Last scene should be romantic happy-sad- end?! Ew! If this movie really is faithful to the book, I can not describe how happy I am that I never read it. Two hours spent on this movie do not hurt too much, but I could not forgive myself the time spent on the book.6/10 (4/10 for story and 8/10 for everything else)

Dark, beautiful version of Emily Bronte's master work. Unquestionably Merle Oberon's selfish, conflicted Cathy is her best work and she's matched every step of the way by Olivier, perhaps at the peak of his attractiveness, who also gives one of his best performances as the tormented Heathcliff. All the actors acquit themselves with distinction but what makes this stand out is both the assured touch of Wyler and the stellar photography which is so effective it almost becomes a character in the piece. A story of doomed love and revenge it can hardly be described a happy film but it is an emotionally involving one. Every few years there is a new version trying to improve on this, they can't. Catch it if you can.