Wuthering Heights - 1939

Wuthering Heights Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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Wuthering Heights (1939) is director William Wyler's somber tale of doomed and tragic love, conflicting passions, and revenge. It is considered one of Hollywood's all-time most romantic/drama classics. Filmed with haunting beauty, it is the first film dramatization of Emily Bronte's wildly passionate 1847 best-selling literary masterpiece, from a screenplay written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (concentrating on the first two-thirds or 17 chapters of the 34 chapter book).

Producer Samuel Goldwyn felt the black-and-white film was the favorite of all his productions. It is still considered the definitive version - and one of the greatest romantic films ever made. Bronte's novel tells about the eternal, smoldering love between two soul-mates: adopted gypsy boy Heathcliff and manor-born Cathy, who loves both the stable-boy and her worldly neighbor Edgar. There were numerous other versions of the film, including: a silent version in 1920, director Luis Bunuel's Spanish-language version Abismos de Pasion (Depths of Passion) (1953), Robert Fuest's American International and UK version Wuthering Heights (1970) with Timothy Dalton and Anna Calder-Marshall in the lead roles, French director Jacques Rivette's Hurlevent (1985), Peter Kosminsky's faithfully-told Wuthering Heights (1992) with Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes, and a made-for-TV feature Wuthering Heights (1998) as part of the Masterpiece Theatre series.

Rebecca - 1940

Rebecca, Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine on Belgian Poster Art, 1940 Giclee Print
9 in. x 12 in.
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Mounted


Rebecca (1940) is the classic Hitchcock gothic thriller and a compelling mystery (and haunting ghost story) about a tortured romance. An expensively-produced film by David O. Selznick (following his recent success with Gone With The Wind (1939)), it was Hitchcock's first American/Hollywood film, although it retained distinctly British characteristics from his earlier murder mysteries. The somber film's screenplay (by Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison) was based on a literal translation of Daphne du Maurier's 1938 gothic novel of the same name, in the tradition of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. One of the film's posters asks the intriguing question: "What was the secret of Manderley?"

The film creates a brooding atmosphere surrounding the tragic courtship, marriage and relationship of a naive, plain and innocent young woman (Joan Fontaine) to a brooding and overburdened widower - an aristocratic, moody patriarch (Laurence Olivier) who lives in an estate named Manderley. The pathetic, bewildered and shy bride experiences fear, pain and guilt when psychologically dominated by the 'presence' (and memories) of the deceased first wife (named Rebecca but never seen on screen), and when she is tormented by Rebecca's blindly adoring, sinister and loyal housekeeper's (Judith Anderson) recollections of the dead woman.

Only by film's end, with the flaming destruction of the estate, do the real character and secrets of Rebecca's death become clear. Many well-known actresses tested for the part of the young woman - Loretta Young, Margaret Sullavan, Anne Baxter and Vivien Leigh (her role in Gone With the Wind (1939) made her participation impossible), and Ronald Colman was also considered for the male lead role.