Wuthering Heights (1939)
#5 in my movie challenge for 2006 was Wuthering Heights, the adaptation from 1939 starring Lawrence Olivier and Merle Oberon. Olivier is a better fit for Heathcliff than for Darcy, I think. Needfully streamlining Emily Bronte’s character-rich novel, the film does an admirable job of showing the complicated push/pull between the main characters of Cathy and Heathcliff. It also underlines what interesting and complex characters the two leads are, and allows them to be unlikeable. This is a much darker film than the 1940 Pride and Prejudice, and the differences between the films mirror the contrast between Austen’s and Bronte’s novels. There is much more passion and emotion, and there are far fewer manners, in Wuthering Heights.