Wuthering Heights (1970)

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Hopefully that does make sense. The book is a masterpiece but is almost unfilmable, so no matter the quality of the final product any attempt should be given some credit. This Wuthering Heights was a little disappointing, especially compared to the Laurence Olivier and even the 1998(the most faithful adaptation) versions, but it's not best at all, it is better than the 2011 film which was too avant-garde and had the child and adult actors/counterparts looking and acting nothing like one another. There are things that could have been done better. The main problem is that the story does jump around a bit too much though not quite in an incoherent way, I did wish that some scenes were given more depth and that we got to know the supporting characters more. The ending was bungled, dramatically it underwhelms in how clumsy it is and will leave one infuriated rather than moved. And while what was in the script was good, well-written and brooding some of the famous lines are either omitted or don't have the impact, if it were the opposite there may have been more emotional punch and depth.At its best though, this adaptation of Wuthering Heights is great, especially in five areas. The best thing is definitely Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff, handsome and brooding Dalton has never been more savage or tortured, he never overplays the brutish side of this truly difficult character to pull off and he doesn't underplay the more humane side either. Then there's the music, which is unforgettably melancholic, enough to make you cry often, of all the Wuthering Heights adaptation this gets my personal vote as the one with the best and most effective score. Like the 1998 adaptation, the scenery is enough to take the breath away yet there is a wonderful atmosphere about them too and in an evocative way. The photography is very fluid and allows us to enjoy the atmosphere and scenery, doing this without being too flashy, while the costumes are beautifully realised and true to period, never too over-opulent or drab. And then there is the memorable scene with Heathcliff at Cathy's grave and the luring of Heathcliff by Cathy's ghost, which is incredibly haunting. A shame that what followed didn't work anywhere near as well.The cast are fine on the whole, though Dalton dominates and the only one perhaps who stays long in the memory. Anna Calder Marshall is a fiery and sensitive Cathy and shows some intense and tender chemistry with Dalton. That is not to say she doesn't have some poor moments, her screaming of "Heathcliff" were even more grating than Sally Field's "Don-kee" in the 2000 adaptation of David Copperfield. Ian Ogilvy is a gentle and very likable Edgar, if at times a little too on the meek side(not his fault, Edgar is not the strongest of characters in the book either). Julian Glover is appropriately menacing as Hindley, though the Hindley in the 1998 adaptation brought some tragedy and torment to the character which made him somewhat more dimensional. Harry Andrews brings warmth to a kindly character and Judy Cornwell is similarly spot-on as Nellie. The storytelling is uneven, but the atmosphere is very well-done and there are some good scenes like the one mentioned above. The script is a little skimmed-over quality but it's not badly written at all and doesn't disgrace Emily Bronte's prose(much more however could have been done with the famous lines). The direction is far from amateurish too.Overall, far from a bad version but as an adaptation of the book it will be left wanting. It has a lot of good things, some like Dalton, the music and scenery can be classed as great. But a few big areas like the ending, the flow of the story and some parts of skimming-the-surface writing are lacking quite a fair bit. 6.5-7/10 Bethany Cox

Jennel2 and Rinoa3, I am with you. I also don't want to take too much time writing about this, but here goes: Why did the movie jump from one plot point to another with no development or connection? Was it trying to be the "New Wave" Wuthering Heights? Was it just the schedule? The script? Whatever, the jumping around made it fragmented and jarring.I liked Anna Calder-whatever, although she was screechy. She was playful and wild. I'm not sure what I thought about Dalton. He smoldered and pouted very well, but his character didn't seem full to me. It felt like he was playacting. Superficial. Also, as usual, he can't maintain a consistent accent. In the first half, there was one scene, in the stable, where he had a very coarse Yorkshire accent. Other than that, in the first half, he spoke pretty much the same as in the second half, with a refined, upper-class accent. It's lame.I have to agree with whoever said that this novel can't be dramatised well. I think I liked Ralph Fiennes better than Dalton. Might have to watch them both again. And did anybody else think that Heathcliff, in the first half, bore a resemblance to Nigel Terry's Prince John in The Lion in Winter? Well, I did.All the same this movie had undeniably poignant and moving moments. Can't totally knock it. I would have liked to have been there to hear the audience gasp.

I read Wuthering Heights as a teenager. I just loved it so, after being sadly let-down by the Merle Oberon film version - it seemed to make Heathcliff into some sort of romantic hero rather than the totally unpleasant type that he was - I was overjoyed that it was finally being remade.I had great expectations for this film. What a pity I went to see it. It was just a rehash of the first part of the book. If I'd wanted that I'd have sat through the original another time.And an apology to all of you who find Timothy Dalton soooo sexy. He reminds me too much of a ferret to get my pulses racing.Well at least someone did a pretty good mini-series for TV in 1978 but my advice is READ THE BOOK!

Several people have mentioned the music from this film, and for good reason. This was one of a handful of extraordinary scores by the largely forgotten Michel Legrand (THREE MUSKATEER 1974; SUMMER OF '42, BRIAN'S SONG, among others), and is one of my favorite twenty or so film scores ever. This movie, well-photographed as it was, simply reeks of Gothic atmosphere in great part because of this music. Passionate, sensual, beautiful, and tremendously dramatic, it was even released as a record album in 1970 by the short-lived American International Records Label and, unfortunately, has never been made available on CD. It would be worth a purchase on eBay! I also feel that, while Dalton as Heathcliff is by no means in the same acting league as Sir Laurence Olivier, his passion for Calder-Marshall (who is less effective as Cathy than was Merle Oberon) is nonetheless more urgent and less studied than Oliver's was in the '39 version.I enjoy the original film for its moody black and white imagery and its fine romantic score (by Alfred Newman, also not available on CD); but, though it's admittedly a lesser film, by a small margin I prefer this 1970 take which, without Legrand's evocative scoring, would probably have been a bust.