WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1958)

Like a true classic movie fan, I started the new year by watching something old, though in this case, not a traditional theatrical movie, but a recording of a live TV film of Wuthering Heights, first broadcast in 1958. I wouldn't normally review something like this but I found this version, despite its murky look and primitive production values, to be superior to the classic 1939 version with Lawrence Olivier and Merle Oberon. Both films tell the same story from the first half of the Emily Bronte novel. Young Catherine Earnshaw and her brother Hindley live at Wuthering Heights on the wild and windy moors. When their father returns from a trip to London with the young orphan boy Heathcliff, Hindley immediately takes a disliking to him, but Heathcliff and Cathy hit it off quite nicely. Years later, the two seem to be in a romantic but non-sexual relationship when Cathy is injured on the moors and stays with the Linton family until she recovers. She and Edgar Linton become involved, and when the jealous Heathcliff, who is constantly abused by Hindley, overhears Cathy talk about marrying Edgar, he leaves without hearing her say that it's Heathcliff she really loves ("I am Heathcliff!" she exclaims). Years later, Cathy is married to Edgar when Heathcliff returns, having made a small fortune, to exact revenge against both Hindley and Cathy.

The 1939 movie comes off as rather tame and bloodless, even though the novel concerns itself with tempestuous feelings of love and vengeance. Here, the young Richard Burton (in his early 30s) makes a perfect Heathcliff—even though he overacts a bit, as was par for the course for TV drama back then, he comes off as rough and passionate, more so than Olivier did in 1939. The same goes for Rosemary Harris who makes a far better Cathy than Oberon did. They are paired perfectly, even though Harris was a last-minute substitute for the original actress—Harris had only four days to learn her lines. Denholm Elliot is fine as Edgar, and the young actors are quite good—Cathy is Patty Duke, who a year later would achieve fame on Broadway and the movies as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker; young Heathcliff is Michel Ray who would leave acting in the mid-60s. John Colicos is the villainous Hindley and Cathleen Nesbit is the family maid Ellen. This was originally broadcast mostly live on May 9, 1958—there are times when costume changes between scenes happen far more quickly than could really have happened, and a voice at the end does note that "some portions" were prerecorded.  This episode of the DuPont Show of the Month program, like most live television of the era, was considered lost but a kinescope copy was found recently and was aired on Turner Classic Movies. I hope they air it again as it really does deserve to be seen. [TCM]