He Said Her Hair Smelled Like Heather

Lacking any romance in my real life these days, seeing "Wuthering Heights" at Movieland's Movies and Mimosas this morning seemed as good an idea as any. It was my first time for one of their weekend classic movie showings, but friends had recommended them as a great way to see older films on the big screen. And since I don't have even a small screen, why not?

I'd read "Wuthering Heights" but knowledge of the book had no relevance since the movie left out about half the story. Ah, Hollywood. Merle Oberon played Cathy and, frankly, she left me cold. Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff, on the other hand, was ungodly handsome and appropriately tragic. What passed for the moors was clearly a California set, but we don't expect realism from a 1939 movie. Good thing, too, because the costumes looked more Civil War-era than Regency, despite the book's setting being late 18th/early 19th century.

So the story of a couple who loved each other their entire lives but couldn't be together because of prejudice (he was a foundling and poor) and circumstances (she was a climbing social bitch who married money) moved me only sporadically, on the few occasions when she let down her defenses and admitted he was her soul mate. Unfortunately for both of them, the rest of the time she buried her true feeling and lived a shell of a life.

My favorite quote from the movie came when Cathy was recovering from being out in a rainstorm overnight looking for Heathcliff. The doctor comes to check on her and his advice amounts to, "Keep her in the sun. And feed her lots of cream and butter." Now that's a prescription to love.

Romance and drama finally intersected when she died in his arms at the end, which is when many women in the audience started crying. I couldn't get into Oberon's wooden performance, though, so I was just glad to see her go. Clearly I do need more romance in my life.