Wuthering Heights is a powerful story of love and hate that still remains popular 167 years after Emily Bronte first published it. While it has spawned countless retellings in film and television, I chose this 1970 version starring Timothy Dalton and Anna Calder-Marshall because of its significance to my mom. She saw it at a young age, and it remains one of the surest ways to make her burst into tears. The haunting Golden Globe-nominated score by Michel Legrand is alone enough to affect her, and she can only see it once a year at most.
There are three kinds of guys when it comes to tearjerker chick flicks: those who refuse to see them at all, those who sit through them grudgingly and remain stoic while the girl drains most of her ocular fluids, and those who may not be hit the same but comfort and understand their friend’s emotional anguish. Every guy should try to be the last type, even when the film doesn’t capture his attention like a good action film. I say this from personal experience, having had to console my mother over the gloriously sad and bittersweet ending of Wuthering Heights.
Even if it’s not particularly exciting, the film certainly deserves a watch, from the excellent period sets and costumes to the sweeping views of the misty countryside. The acting is first-rate and vastly superior to the 1939 version. I did like Laurence Olivier’s smoldering performance in that classic, which stands in contrast to Dalton’s more impetuous, almost animalistic depiction of Heathcliff, but Anna Calder-Marshall as Cathy is extraordinarily better than Merle Oberon’s almost laughable acting. Judy Cornwell as Nelly and Julian Glover as Hindley also give noteworthy performances. Overall, the film feels like a hybrid between Masterpiece Theatre, the old classics of Hollywood’s golden era, and some more recent Gothic romances.
It may have made multiple changes to the book (Hindley doesn’t kill Heathcliff, and the whole second half is left out of the film), but the 1970 Wuthering Heights remains the best version I’ve seen. Yes, it’s an unrepentant tearjerker in which pretty much everyone acts foolishly, but it is also an admirable adaptation with deep and troubled relationships and an ending at once crushing and heartening.
Best line: (Heathcliff, after being told that vengeance is for God) “Why should God have all the satisfaction?”
Artistry: 8 Characters/Actors: 8 Entertainment: 6 Visual Effects: N/A Originality: 8 Watchability: 4 Other (crying effect): +4 TOTAL: 38 out of 60Next: #235 – The River Wild
© 2014 S. G. Liput
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