I read the novel Wuthering Heights over and over again in high school. It was one of my absolute favorites. Odd that it took me so long to watch the movie. Now, this is pretty Hollywoodized. The movie only covers the first 19 or so chapters of the book, a ton of characters get dropped, and instead of being set in the late 1700s, the costumes are an odd mish-mash of Victorian and American Civil War that may have been left over from some other MGM costume pic.
But the bones of a great story are still there. Laurence Olivier makes a wonderful Heathcliff -- dark, brooding and bitter. Merle Oberon is exotic and luminous as Catherine. Don't make the mistake of loving these characters, though -- they're two of a kind. Vain, selfish, greedy and wicked, they destroy the lives of everyone around them. Their love couldn't result in anything *but* tragedy.
If you cut the horrible, hokey ending scene, this is a complex, disturbing love story.
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