Wuthering Heights

Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is a literary masterpiece and a personal favourite. When it comes to adapting Wuthering Heights, it is a very difficult book to adapt like a lot of Charles Dickens and George Eliot, all of the adaptations of the it are watchable(most very good) but there are areas in almost all of them where they fall short. This 1967 Wuthering Heights is not an exception. It is for me one of the weaker adaptations of the book(the 2011 film being the weakest but it's far from bad), some scenes are choppily edited, the adaptation can feel rather stagy in spots sometimes due to the direction(at times a theatrical and for the stage feel) and occasionally the dialogue delivery, and there could have been far more of Heathcliff's motivations and how and why he came to be how he was, something that is made very clear in the book but not so apparent here. There are a lot of good things and the series does more than serviceably on its own terms. The costumes, scenery and exteriors(wasn't so crazy about some of the hair-styles, especially for Heathcliff who looked too wild) are so evocative that you really feel the cold and how cheerless everything is, and in a way that is done better than most of the adaptations. They are very dark and atmospheric, the black and white actually adds to the creepiness, and look very true to period. Also remarkably true to how Bronte describes the moors, fields, trees, food and climate, going far as to using the actual locations themselves, if there was a time machine and we went back here it would most likely be like this. The sounds of the wailing winds on the moors add to the authenticity and have a very haunting quality.

The dialogue has the feeling of Bronte's prose and delivered with passion, though interestingly sometimes in a somewhat Shakespearean-like way. The story does have omissions from the book but it is rich in atmosphere, is at least cohesive and there is a sense of passion and torment(even with Heathcliff not being developed as well as the Timothy Dalton version did) that make up for the spots of staginess. The ending is very poignant, and the image of Cathy's spectre is still terrifying by today's standards. The adaptation does a noble job with letting us empathise with the characters, very hard to do regarding adapting Wuthering Heights and it doesn't always translate as well. True the relationships between the characters are far better fleshed out in the book but there is definitely chemistry and there is at least the basic gist as to how the characters behave to each other. The acting is good, with the supporting characters(especially Hareton, Hindley and Ellen) acted in a way that is recognisable as to their novelistic counterparts. While Angela Scoular is an enchanting, feisty and pitches Cathy's spitefulness and such believably, and Ian McShane is a Heathcliff that is loathsome yet tormented played with gusto and deep feeling(even if some of his delivery is reminiscent of acting on stage, not that it is completely distracting though, just an observation). To conclude, one of the weaker versions of the book but still more than decent. 6.5/10 Bethany Cox

There have been many takes on Wuthering Heights, but the 1967 adaptation brings a distinct flavor-less polished, more intimate, and brimming with restrained intensity. Rather than rely on sweeping theatrics, this version leans into a quieter melancholy, letting the emotional erosion of its characters echo through the moors like distant thunder.

Shot with a stark, almost stage-like simplicity, the film feels stripped down but not underwhelming. That rawness becomes its strength. With limited embellishment, the haunting core of Emily Brontë's story comes into sharper focus-one of obsession, longing, and the slow decay of hearts that cannot move on.

The performances are tightly wound, simmering instead of shouting. It's less about the violence of love and more about its stillness-the ache of it, the silence that follows where words should be. The actors deliver not with melodrama, but with presence, allowing subtle gestures and weighted glances to speak volumes.

The film's atmosphere, while modest in scope, manages to capture the emotional landscape of the novel. You can almost feel the damp chill in the air, the emptiness of windswept hills, and the hollowness left behind when love turns inward and begins to rot.

Wuthering Heights (1967) may not be the loudest or most lavish adaptation, but it lingers. It whispers, not roars-and in doing so, becomes a ghost of itself. A haunting, tragic echo.

As one so enamored with Period Piece films, I deeply regret to say that this rendering of the classic Wuthering Heights was almost unwatchable. This is as uninspired a screenplay that was ever ill-conceived in what must have been a lapse of the Screenwriter's sanity There is not a single character that you can truly have empathy for. You want to at least like the patriarch, Mr. Earnshaw, but he too is so gruff, and uncivilized that his genuine affection for the rejected Heathcliff seems almost out of place....Gratuitously violent, pitifully acted, and unskillfully cast and directed, I don't dislike anyone enough to ask them to watch this production!

Pretty faithful to the book except the actors as children were much too old as well as when they're adolescents. McShane is too short at 5 9' and the actor playing Edgar is taller and has a bigger frame. It's hard to picture Heathcliff being stronger and more threatening in the key thrown in the fire scene- which they changed. Cathy doesn't throw the key in the hottest part of the fire she just tosses it across the room. Also cut is the scene where Cathy chases after Heathcliffthe the night he runs off and she ends up very sick. Her first near death experience isn't depicted. Also Heathcliff runs off before Hareton is even born therefore he never catches him when he falls from Hindley's grasp at the top of the stairs. Scoular is one of the best Cathys I've seen. She's pretty enough and delivers her dialogue in a natural way which is hard to do with the way they talk in the book. She delivered her lines fast., how ppl naturally talk, not slow and melodramatic. I liked Anna Calder Marshall as Cathy but they didn't make her powerful or bratty enough. Timothy Dalton was the best Heathcliff in my opinion. I would say this version is worth watching. Too bad it's not in color.

Ian Mcshane is a wonderful Heathcliff. The story is complete. Including the 2nd half of the book featuring the next generation of both families.

Heathcliff is not a nice person in this production. Just like he is not in the book. Vindictive and cruel. But as we all know he stated out in life behind the eight ball and mocked by everyone, including Kathy. McShane (Heathcliff) is dark and handsome, with a great speaking voice.

None of the characters are one dimensional in this version. Emily Bronte did not create characters simplistic and easy to categorize in this her only novel, She was herself the oddest of the Bronte siblings, practically a female Heathcliff.

This version is complex and deep and not a romance romp. I loved every minute of it. I first saw it years ago and had trouble finding it later. All the other versions disappointed me.

Although Timothy Dalton's Heathcliff in another version (1970) is the best Heathcliff (he is also the best Rochester in Jane Eyre, 1983, eleven half hour episodes, which is by far my favorite Jane Eyre).

Finally, on Amazon there is a $90 set with 10 older BBC TV series, three by the Brontes, one each by the three sisters, and five by Jane Austen. All of them are older versions, and all of them are among my favorite versions. The Ian McShane Wuthering (Emily Bronte), the Tim Dalton Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte), and the fantastic Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne Bronte). Wildfell is my favorite novel by a Bronte, by the way.

Black and white 182 minutes.