Wuthering Heights (1959 film)

Wuthering Heights
Directed by Alan Burke
Written by Nigel Kneale
Based on novel by Emily Bronte
Starring Lew Luton
Delia Williams
Production
company
ABC
Distributed by ABC
Release date
 28 October 1959 (live, Sydney)
9 December Melbourne (recorded, Melbourne)
Running time
 100 mins
Country Australia
Language English

Wuthering Heights is a 1959 Australian TV play adapted from the novel Wuthering Heights. It was directed by Alan Burke and based on a script by Nigel Kneale.

Cast

  • Lew Lutton as Heathcliffe
  • Delia Williams as Cathy
  • Annette Andre
  • David Bluford
  • Richard Davies
  • Geoffrey King
  • Hugh Stewart
  • Nancye Stewart
  • Lou Vernon

Production

The story was mostly filmed live, but some segments were pre-recorded around Sydney.[1] Lew Luton was a DJ and presenter of teen shows at the time.[2]

Reception

It was one of three plays that Alan Burke directed that year. He said they all received "tiny ratings" and that Wuthering Heights "was too large for our television conditions, and things went wrong."[3]

The reviewer for The Age said the play was disappointing and that "the atmosphere of bleakness and howling winds was not created with realism. Noises off were much too prevalent. The casting was not up to standard. . . . Luton showed a lack of understanding on the part of both actor and producer."[4]

The TV critic for the Sydney Morning Herald thought the play was "straightforward enough in its story-telling and sufficiently wide-ranging in its techniques" but "hardly ever caught the necessary brooding Gothic spirit of the time, the place and the situation." He criticized Lew Luton as being too often "merely surly, when he should have been daemonic, and in general failed to reconcile his desire to work like a twentieth century actor." Other actors were praised, and Alan Burke's direction was called "carefully smooth; but there were moments when the spirit of the production was closer to Stella Gibbons than to Emily Bronte."[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "T.V. Highlights". The Biz. New South Wales, Australia. 28 October 1959. p. 11. Retrieved 21 May 2016 – via National Library of Australia.
  2. ↑ "Lew Luton Back". Sydney Morning Herald. 2 September 1972. p. 5.
  3. ↑ Interview with Alan Burke
  4. ↑ "Disappointing TV Drama". The Age. 17 December 1959.
  5. ↑ "Wuthering Heights on ABN". Sydney Morning Herald. 29 October 1959. p. 11.


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