Blu-ray Review Wuthering Heights (1970) Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

[Matt Hough]

Matt Hough

Wuthering Heights (1970) Blu-ray Review

Emily Bronte’s Gothic romance returns to the screen in Robert Fuest’s 1970 version of Wuthering Heights, an expensive color production that sadly lacks the atmosphere and intimately chilling, dysfunctional interpersonal relationships that characterize the novel and the celebrated 1939 adaptation of the book.

[review]

 

[Dick]

If you shut your eyes and listen to the isolated music track, you will likely find yourself utterly transported; it's an absolutely gorgeous score from Michel Legrand (SUMMER OF '42, THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1974), ICE STATION ZEBRA), arguably his best, full of lush orchestrations -- the string arrangements are incomparable -- and brooding, beautiful melancholy. It is one of my favorite of my two thousand or so film scores, and one I go to sleep by regularly.

Eyes open, the film onscreen is, as has been pointed out in Matt's excellent and detail review, cannot match the atmosphere of the 1939 version, but it's no loser, either. This was an interesting choice of titles for American-International to produce during that period, seeing as how their contemporaneous releases were generally horror, biker and teen fare. Probably this was earmarked to be a special, prestigious holiday release to give AIP a bit more austerity. I'd have preferred that it had been photographed in black and white, but a lot of the color work here is quite atmospheric. I am not a fan of Calder-Marshall's performance and not especially taken with Dalton's, although neither is an embarrassment.

I have looked forward to a Blu-ray release of this for years, and am happy TT stepped up to the plate.

 

[commander richardson]

a CD was released recently of the score and like the movie it is good..

 

[Bryan^H]

Great review Matt.
I liked it bit more than you, but to be fair this is the only film adaptation of it I have seen.

It has been years since I read the novel, but I think this film captures the tone of it very well.
The audio, and video quality I agree are fantastic (what a lovely musical score) and I really had a good time watching this recently.