Wuthering Heights (1970)

A brooding young man called Heathcliff (Timothy Dalton) has grown up with the daughter  named Cathy (Anna Calder Marshall) of the man (Harry Andrews) who brought him into the household as an orphan. Although the boy and girl fall passionately in love, the boy is bitterly resented by the man's son (Julian Glover) for usurping his place in his father's household. Based on the classic novel by Emily Bronte and directed by Robert Fuest (DR. PHIBES RISES AGAIN). Bronte's novel has been adapted many times for film and television (there's even an opera composed by Bernard Herrmann), the most famous one being the 1939 film version. This one is misguided on several levels. Like the 1939 film, it only uses the first half of the novel. But it changes Bronte's scenario and not for the better. For example, there's an incest element not in the novel when it is suggested that Heathcliff and Cathy may be brother and sister (same father, different mothers). In addition, the maid (Judy Cornwell) has an unrequited love for the young Earnshaw (Julian Glover) which isn't Bronte and instead of dying by pining away for Cathy, Heathcliff is murdered. The leads are also problematic. Dalton is a bloodless actor (I disliked his James Bond) and Marshall is a rather generic actress and neither seem able to suggest an unbridled passion for each other. The only passion comes from Michel Legrand's sweeping underscore. I did like the bleak and gritty look of the film as opposed to the freshly scrubbed look of the 1939 movie. With Ian Ogilvy, Hilary Heath, Hugh Griffith and Pamela Brown.