Wuthering Heights in the National Film Registry

The Library of Congress has announced the list of 25 films that it has picked up and added to the US National Film Registry this year. Among them, we can find Wuthering Hights 1939. From the National Film Preservation Board press release:

The selections were made as part of a program aimed at preserving the nation’s movie heritage. Under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act of 1992, each year the Librarian of Congress, with advice from the National Film Preservation Board, names 25 films to the National Film Registry to be preserved for all time. The films are chosen because they are “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant. This year’s selections bring to 475 the number of motion pictures in the registry. (...)

Wuthering Heights (1939)
Director William Wyler had great difficulty in convincing Laurence Olivier to leave England to play the part of Heathcliff in this adaptation of Emily Brontë’s work, especially since Olivier’s wife Vivien Leigh was not offered the leading- lady role of Cathy, which went to Merle Oberon. Eventually, Olivier agreed and Leigh, while visiting Olivier during the filming, managed to get a screen test for what became her greatest role: Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind.” Producer Samuel Goldwyn always claimed credit for the film, reportedly once saying: “I made “Wuthering Heights;” Wyler only directed it.” Gregg Toland’s deep-focus cinematography deftly creates the moody, ethereal atmosphere of haunted love in a film universally acclaimed as one of cinema’s great romances.

Categories: Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights