The Critics' Corner - Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights was awarded an Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Gregg Toland).
Wuthering Heights also received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Director (William Wyler), Actor (Laurence Olivier), Supporting Actress (Geraldine Fitzgerald), Screenplay (Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur), Art Direction (James Basevi), Original Score (Alfred Newman).
Other awards Wuthering Heights received included the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Picture.
Despite its critical success, Wuthering Heights was not a hit with audiences. It wasn't until its 1950 re-release that producer Sam Goldwyn finally made a profit from the film.
The Critics' Corner: WUTHERING HEIGHTS
"Brilliant and bold." - Archer Winston, New York Post, 1939
"A thing of beauty that will remain forever." - Kate Cameron, New York Daily News, 1939
"It has been brought to the screen with great courage and skill. It is at once a fine film and a masterly translation of a literary classic." - Howard Barnes, New York Herald Tribune, 1939
"William Wyler has directed it magnificently, surcharging even his lighter moments with an atmosphere of suspense and foreboding, keeping his horror-shadowed narrative moving at a steadily accelerating pace, building absorbingly to its tragic climax. It is, unquestionably, one of the most distinguished pictures of the year." - Frank Nugent, New York Times, 1939
"The best that Mr. Goldwyn has ever made. It has dramatic grip and emotional power to catch and hold any intelligence that looks to the screen for something besides laughter. The picture isn't without minor, if negligible, faults. The musical score is particularly unfortunate, syrupy and banal." - James Shelley Hamilton, National Board of Review Magazine, 1939
"The Goldwyn production approximates the quality of the fierce, tempestuous story with a force one might never have expected." - John Mosher, The New Yorker, 1939
"More of an artistic success for the carriage trade." - Variety, 1939
"A lot of reverence has gone into the picture, which should have been as coarse as a sewer." - Graham Greene, London Spectator, 1939
Compiled by Rob Nixon
