Screenshot for the Week of 10 August 2020: "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" (1939)

 

Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff and Merle Oberon as Cathy in Wuthering Heights (1939).  C: Gregg Toland.  D: William Wyler.

I have said that when I'm lucky and I capture a great screenshot, it is a collaboration between myself and the cinematographer.  I neglected to add that great cinematography is a collaboration between the cinematographer and everyone else.  You're looking at not only Oscar-winning cinematography, but great acting, direction, art direction, and visual effects (matte painting).

Gregg Toland was one of the greatest cinematographers of all-time.  He won an Oscar for Wuthering Heights (1939).  He might easily have won five more Oscars.  I think he did his best work on Citizen Kane (1941).  In addition to using unique, often distorted camera angles in that film, he invented a cinematography technique that became known as "deep focus"—when the depth of field is so enlarged that the foreground, subject, and background are all in focus.  It has been used routinely by cinematographers ever since.

Here are some of the best films showcasing the talents of Gregg Toland, with the directors he worked for:

• The Wedding Night (1935) [King Vidor]
• Les Misérables (1935) [Richard Boleslawski]
• Dead End (1937) [William Wyler]
• Intermezzo (1939) [George Ratoff]
• Wuthering Heights (1939) [William Wyler]
• The Grapes of Wrath (1939) [John Ford]
• The Westerner (1940) [William Wyler]
• The Long Voyage Home (1940) [John Ford]
• Citizen Kane (1941) [Orson Welles]
• The Little Foxes (1941) [William Wyler]
• Ball of Fire (1941) [Howard Hawks]
• The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) [William Wyler]
• The Bishop's Wife (1947) [Henry Koster]

Toland was subject to bouts of deep depression, which he medicated with alcohol.  Biographers credit his alcohol intake with contributing to the fatal heart attack that cut his brilliant career short at age 44.

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I first saw Merle Oberon on Channel 11 as a kid in Los Angeles, back in the 1960s, in one of the hundreds of old movies that were shown on local TV there.  Her face was arresting and exotic.  If I'd seen it only once I'd still remember it.

By the way, Channel 2, the CBS-owned station in L.A., showed one movie a week at 11:35 P.M. on Friday night in a program called "The Late Show." It showed the best movies, but I couldn't stay up that late until I was a teenager, well into my movie buff years.  Channel 9's "Million Dollar Movie" showed the best movies in my viewing time periods.  Channel 11 was a distant third place, but still pretty good.  Between Channels 5, 9, 11, and 13, I could see a couple of different movies every day seven days a week.

The Merle Oberon movie in question was The Cowboy and the Lady (1938), co-starring Gary Cooper and William Demarest.  Over the years of my youth I watched it several times, as I did all the old movies I liked.  Since those years I've seen other Oberon films, most notably The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) with Leslie Howard, one of my all-time favorite movies.  And I still like The Cowboy and the Lady.

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William Wyler should be a household name.  His credits as a director are impressive.  Any movie buff worth the label has seen several of his movies even though he or she might be unaware of the Wyler connection.  Here are some of his better films:

• Dodsworth (1936) with Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, and Mary Astor.  Oscar for Best Art Direction.
• Dead End (1937) with Joel McCrea, the "Dead End Kids," Claire Trevor, and Humphrey Bogart.
• Jezebel (1938) with Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, and Faye Bainter.  Oscars for Davis (Best Actress) and Bainter (Supporting Actress).
• Wuthering Heights (1939) with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon.  Oscar for Cinematography (Gregg Toland).
• The Westerner (1940) with Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan.  Oscar for Brennan (Supporting Actor).
• The Little Foxes (1941) with Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, and Teresa Wright.
• Mrs. Miniver (1942) with Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, and Teresa Wright.  Oscars for Garson (Best Actress), Wright (Supporting Actress), Wyler (Director), plus Best Picture, Screenplay, Cinematography (Joseph Ruttenberg), and Music Score.
• The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) with Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, and disbaled Navy veteran Harold Russell.  Oscars for March (Best Actor), Russell (Supporting Actor), Wyler (Director), plus Best Picture, Screenplay, Editing, and Musical Score.
• The Heiress (1949) with Olivia de Havilland and Montgomery Clift.  Best Actress Oscar for de Havilland.
• Detective Story (1951) with Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, and William Bendix.
• Roman Holiday (1953) with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.  Oscars for Hepburn (Best Actress), Screenplay, and Costume Design.
• Friendly Persuasion (1956) with Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire, and Anthony Perkins.
• The Big Country (1958) with Gregory Peck, Charles Bickford, Jean Simmons, Carrol Baker, Charlton Heston, Burl Ives, and Chuck Connors.  Oscar for Ives (Supporting Actor).
• Ben-Hur (1959) with Charlton Heston.  Won 11 Oscars including Heston (Best Actor), Wyler (Director), Cinematography (Robert Surtees), and Best Picture.
• The Children's Hour (1962) with Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine.
• Funny Girl (1968) with Barbara Streisand and Omar Sharif.  Oscar for Streisand (Best Actress co-winner with Katharine Hepburn).

How many of these have you seen?

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According to Ben Mankiewicz of Turner Classic Movies, Charlton Heston actively sought a role in The Big Country (1958), just for the chance to work with the great William Wyler.  To do so, he swallowed his pride and took on the supporting role of Steve Leech.  Their working relationship was so good, Wyler picked Heston to star in his next picture, Ben-Hur (1959).

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For the 1940 Academy Awards (film year 1939), Laurence Olivier and his wife Vivian Leigh were nominated for acting Oscars—Best Actress for Leigh (Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind) and Best Actor for Olivier (Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights).  Leigh won.  Olivier didn't.  He did win a Best Actor Oscar for his performance in the title role of the Oscar-winning Best Picture of 1948, Hamlet.