Wuthering Heights is a 1920 British silent drama film directed by A.V. Bramble and starring Milton Rosmer, Colette Brettel and Warwick Ward. It is the first film adaptation of the 1847 novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, and was primarily filmed in and around her home village of Haworth. It is not known whether the film currently survives, and it is considered to be a lost film.
In 2014, a film script used by director A.V. Bramble consisting of 22 pages of production notes alongside stills from the set of the cast and crew were found and displayed to the public at the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
Contents
Production
Unlike most later adaptations of the Emily Brontë novel, this version includes the novel's storyline following the second generation. Contemporary reviews however noted that in spite of following the book closely, certain liberties are taken with the novel, and that the characters Isabella Linton and her son Linton Heathcliff are omitted from the movie altogether.
Reception
A review from The Guardian writes, "It is a credit to the British film industry that the screen version of the book shown yesterday in Manchester should be so good", and give praise to Milton Rosmer's performance, "It is violent, blustering, turbulently melodramatic: just the kind of acting that Emily Brontë would have wanted for her Heathcliff."
Cast
Milton Rosmer as Heathcliff
Albert Brantford as Heathcliff (age 12)
Derrick Ronald as Heathcliff (age 5)
Ann Trevor as Catherine Earnshaw
Twinkles Hunter as Cathy Earnshaw (age 6)
Colette Brettel as Catherine Linton
Audrey Smith as Catherine Linton (age 7)
Warwick Ward as Hindley Earnshaw
Roy Lennol as Hindley Earnshaw (age 14)
John Lawrence Anderson as Edgar Linton
Lewis Barry-Furniss as Edgar Linton (age 15)
Cecil Morton York as Mr. Earnshaw
Cyril Raymond as Hareton Earnshaw
Lewis Barber as Hareton Earnshaw (age 15)
Dora De Winton as Mrs. Linton
Aileen Bagot as Frances Earnshaw
Mrs. Templeton as Nelly Dean
George Traill as Joseph
Alfred Bennett as Reverend Shields
Edward Thirlby as Attorney
G. Mallalieu as Doctor