And here is the screenplay, I highlighted my favorite scenes (the best ones are at the end!); I got the screenplay from http://www.filmsite.org/wuth.html, by the way.

The credits play over views of Wuthering Heights, an estate on the edge of the
storm-tossed Yorkshire moors.

On the barren Yorkshire moors in England, a hundred years ago, stood a
house as bleak and desolate as the wastes around it. Only a stranger lost
in a storm would have dared to knock at the door of Wuthering Heights. During a raging blizzard, a bitterly cold, snowy night on the moors, a solitary traveler
staggers for refuge toward Wuthering Heights. In the dark, mysterious house, Mr.
Lockwood (Miles Mander), a "new tenant at the Grange," announces to his landlord
Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier) (the master of the house) and his wife Isabella (Geraldine Fitzgerald) that he is lost and must stay the night for shelter. Although given a cold reception, Lockwood is begrudgingly given a room. He is led by candlelight to a drafty, depressing, upstairs "bridal chamber" guest room by Joseph (Leo G. Carroll), where he is told: "Nobody slept here for years." Lockwood cannot sleep, for the wind blows the shutter against the window all through the night. When he rises from his dusty bed to close the shutter, he hears a strange, ghostly, female voice, desperately crying: "Heathcliff." He shouts downstairs to Heathcliff: "Help, help, Mr. Heathcliff, Mr. Heathcliff, there's someone here." He draws his hand back in from the window, after appearing to have had someone clutch his hand in an icy grasp.
Lockwood: Mr. Heathcliff, there's someone out there in the storm. It's a
woman. I heard her calling. She said her name. It - Cathy, Cathy, that was it. Cathy? Oh, I must have been dreaming. Forgive me Mr. Heathcliff.
Heathcliff: Get out of this room. Get out! Get out I tell you!
After throwing Lockwood out of the room, Heathcliff flings open the window, and

cries out for his long-lost love: Cathy, Cathy, come in, Cathy come back to me...Oh my heart's darling. Cathy. My own, my, Cathy. Half-mad, Heathcliff runs downstairs and rushes out into the raging storm. [The film concludes when he is reunited to the ghost of his Cathy, who had come back to Wuthering Heights and was calling his name from the snowy moors.] Lockwood asks the housekeeper Ellen Dean (Flora Robson) where Heathcliff is going: Ellen: She calls him, and he follows her out to the moor.
Lockwood: Oh, he's mad. He's like a madman. He seized me by the
collar and dragged me out. You see, I had a dream. I thought I heard a
voice calling. I reached out to close the shutter and something touched
me, something cold and clinging like an icy hand. And then I saw her, a
woman, but then my senses must have become disordered, because the
falling snow shaped itself into what looked like a phantom...
Ellen: It was Cathy.
Lockwood: Who is Cathy?
Ellen: A girl who died.
Lockwood (startled): Oh no, I don't believe in ghosts. I don't believe in
phantoms sobbing through the night.
Ellen: Poor Cathy.
Lockwood: I don't believe that life comes back, once it's died, and calls
again to the living. No, I don't.
Ellen: Maybe if I told you a story, you'd change your mind about the
dead coming back. Maybe you'd know, as I do, that there is a force that
brings them back, if their hearts were wild enough in life.
Seated in front of the fireplace with him, she begins to tell the story, in flashback, of the
tragic love between Heathcliff and Cathy forty years earlier. Wuthering Heights, "a lovely place in those days," was owned by a middle-class, early-19th-century Yorkshire widower named Mr. Earnshaw (Cecil Kellaway). Returning from a trip to the city of Liverpool, the congenial gentleman/farmer brought home a young, dirty-faced gypsy boy (Rex Downing as youth): "a gift of God, although it's as dark as if it came from the devil." The boy was found unwanted, starving in the streets of the city, "kicked and bruised and almost dead...Nobody would lay claim to him." The gypsy boy is to be given a scrubbing and some "Christian clothes." Although the two highborn children, Catherine (or 'Cathy') (Sarita Wooten as youth)
and son Hindley (Douglas Scott as youth), are inhospitable, they are told by their
father that he will be raised as one of them: "Children, you may as well learn here and now that you must share what you have with others who are not as fortunate as yourselves...We'll call him Heathcliff." The newly-adopted Heathcliff quickly becomes the companion/soulmate to Catherine as they grow up on the moors and ride horses together. During one of their carefree days, she challenges Heathcliff: "I'll race you to the barn. The one that loses has to be the other's slave." When Heathcliff wins the race, Hindley appears in the yard, showing his immediate loathing for the intruder by resenting and tormenting him, calling him a "gypsy beggar." Hindley's enmity for Heathcliff causes him to hit his step-brother in the
head with a rock, knocking him unconscious. Wild-eyed, dark Heathcliff rages with
primitive revenge: "How can I pay him back? I don't care how long I wait if I can only pay him back." The bond between Cathy and Heathcliff grows stronger when she convinces him to play make-believe just beneath a rock/castle on the moors at Peniston Crag, imagining that he is a prince of noble birth, and she is his queen: Cathy: You're so handsome when you smile...Don't you know that you're handsome? Do you know what I've always told Ellen? That you're a prince in disguise...I said your father was the Emperor of China. Your mother an Indian queen. And it's true Heathcliff. You were kidnapped by wicked sailors and brought to England. But I'm glad they did. Because I've always wanted to know somebody of noble birth.
Heathcliff: All the princes I ever read about had castles.
Cathy: Of course, they captured them. You must capture one too. (Cathy
points up at Peniston Crag) There's a beautiful castle that lies waiting for
your lance, Sir Prince.
Heathcliff: You mean Peniston Crag?
Cathy: Yes.
Heathcliff: Aw, that's just a rock.
Cathy: If you can't see that that's a castle, you'll never be a prince,
Heathcliff. Here, take your lance and charge. (She hands him the riding whip) See that black knight waiting at the drawbridge - Challenge him! Now charge... (After a make-believe struggle) Heathcliff! You killed him. You killed him. You killed the black knight.
Heathcliff: He deserved it, for all his wicked deeds.
Cathy: Oh it's a wonderful castle. Heathcliff, let's never leave it.
Heathcliff: Never in our lives. Let all the world confess, that there is not in all the world a more beautiful damsel than the Princess Catherine of Yorkshire.
Cathy: (She curtsies down to serve him) But I - I'm still your slave.
Heathcliff: No Cathy. I now make you my queen. Whatever happens out there, here, you will always be my queen.
With the death of Mr. Earnshaw, Heathcliff's benefactor, Hindley establishes himself as the new master of the house and orders Heathcliff to become the stable boy: "You're not wanted up there...Go and help the stable boys harness the horse for the vicar. Do as you're told. I'm master here now." Ellen Dean narrates how things changed when Hindley (Hugh Williams as adult) became the new master of Wuthering Heights, inheriting his father's estate. He became an ill-tempered, heavy drinking, cruel tyrant, disliked by everyone, and especially
distasteful toward Heathcliff: And as the children grew up, Hindley was indeed master of Wuthering Heights. It was no longer the happy home of that child. Even as adults, Cathy (Merle Oberon as adult) and Heathcliff playfully run into the
moors to meet in their make-believe castle high above Wuthering Heights, in the first of their memorable scenes together on the moors, far away from the misery of the estate. Their childhood affection has fully ripened into romance. Heathcliff's love for Cathy prevents him from leaving and seeking his fortune elsewhere when she urges him to escape from Wuthering Heights:
Cathy: Did Joseph see which way you came?

Heathcliff: What does it matter? Nothing's real down there. Our life is here.
Cathy: Yes, my lord.
Heathcliff: The clouds are lowering...see how the light is changing?
Cathy: It would be dreadful if Hindley ever found out.
Heathcliff: Found out what? Can't you talk to me once in a while?
Cathy: Shouldn't talk to you at all. Look at you. You get worse every day. Dirty, unkempt, and in rags. Why aren't you a man? Heathcliff, why don't you run away?
Heathcliff: Run away? From you?
Cathy: You could come back to me rich and take me away. Why aren't you my prince like we said long ago? Why can't you rescue me Heathcliff?
Heathcliff: Cathy, come with me now.
Cathy: Where?
Heathcliff: Anywhere.
Cathy: And live in haystacks and steal our food from the marketplaces? No Heathcliff, that's not what I want.
Heathcliff: You just want to send me off. That won't do. I've stayed here and been beaten like a dog, abused and cursed and driven mad, but I stayed just to be near you, even as a dog. And I'll stay 'til the end. I'll live and I'll die under this rock. Distracted by the sound of music from the neighboring Linton party, Cathy doesn't
hear Heathcliff's pledge of undying love. Although strongly attracted to him and
possessing some of his wild, gypsy blood, she is also interested in a safe, well-to-do, elegant, well-dressed and secure life that he cannot provide: That's what I want. Dancing and singing in a pretty world. And I'm going to have it. Come on, let's go and see. Come on. They leave the moors and make their way to the formal ball at the wealthy Lintons, where they climb the wall and then look in upon the dancing couples at a window sill. Cathy is entranced by the sight of the beautifully-costumed, whirling couples waltzing together, admiring their respectable places in life: Isn't it wonderful?...Isn't she beautiful? That's the kind of dress I'll wear.
And you'll have a red velvet coat and silver buckles on your shoes. Oh Heathcliff! Will we? Will we ever? When she stumbles slightly at the window, she arouses the attention of the estate's dogs. They rush back to the wall, where one of the dogs bites Cathy's leg and then another dog attacks Heathcliff's arm. The guests come out to see about the commotion - Cathy is recognized and carried into the house in the arms of son Edgar Linton (David Niven), while Heathcliff is regarded as a common "insolent rascal." Inside the house while the Lintons are attentive to her painful injury, and she is surrounded by high-society and another way of life, Cathy expresses her desire for finer things, goading Heathcliff into going away and making a gentleman of himself.


As he parts, he
curses the Lintons for their snobbery, promising to repay them some day for taking Cathy away from him: Cathy: Go on Heathcliff. Run away. Bring me back the world.
Heathcliff: ...I'm going. I'm going from here and from this cursed country both...But I'll be back in this house one day, Judge Linton, and I'll pay you out. I'll bring this house down in ruins about your heads. That's my curse on you. (He spits downward) On all of you.
The narrated flashback continues:
And so Cathy found herself in this new world she had so often longed to enter. And after some happy weeks, Mr. Edgar brought her back to Wuthering Heights. Having tasted and been introduced to a new prestigious, wealthy life-style, Cathy has also developed a fondness for Edgar, almost forgetting about Heathcliff during her long recuperation and visit at the Lintons. Wearing a borrowed dress, she is stylishly brought home by Edgar in a carriage. When first looking at Heathcliff, she quickly asks him to look respectable and better himself so that she can be seen in his company with Edgar:
Cathy: Heathcliff. Is he here?

Ellen: Oh yes, he came back one night last week with great talk of lying in a lake of fire without you. How he had to see you to live. He's unbearable. I wonder where he could be, the scoundrel. Heathcliff? Heathcliff?
Heathcliff: Cathy!
Cathy: Heathcliff!
Heathcliff: Why did you stay so long in that house?
Cathy: Didn't expect to find you here?
Heathcliff: Why did you stay so long?
Cathy: Why? Because I was having a wonderful time. A delightful, fascinating, wonderful time. Among human beings. Go and wash your face and hands Heathcliff. And comb your hair so that I needn't be ashamed of you in front of a guest. (Edgar walks into the room and stands next to Cathy)
Ellen: Heathcliff! What are you doing in this part of the house? Go and look after Mr. Linton's horses.
Heathcliff: Let him look after his own.
Cathy: Heathcliff! (She is restrained by Edgar)
Edgar: I've already done so.
Cathy (to Heathcliff): Apologize to Mr. Linton at once. (Heathcliff walks out of the room without a word) The polished, but feckless Edgar utters his contempt for Heathcliff in Cathy's presence, and she vehemently defends her friendship for him: Edgar: I simply cannot understand how your brother can allow that beast of a gypsy to have the run of the house.
Cathy: Don't talk about him.
Edgar: Cathy, how can you, a gentle-woman, tolerate him under your roof? A roadside beggar giving himself airs of equality. How can you?
Cathy: What do you know about Heathcliff?
Edgar: All I need or want to know.
Cathy: He was my friend long before you.
Edgar: That blaggard!
Cathy: Blaggard and all. He belongs under this roof and you speak well of him or get out.
Edgar: Are you out of your senses?
Cathy: Get out I said, or stop calling those I love names.
Edgar: 'Those you love?'
Cathy: Yes! Yes!
Edgar: Cathy, what possesses you? Do you realize the things you're saying?
Cathy: I see that I hate you. I hate the look of your milk-white face, I hate the touch of your soft, foolish hands.
Edgar: Some of that gypsy's evil soul has gone into you I think.
Cathy: Yes, it's true!
Edgar: So that beggar's dirt is on you?
Cathy: Yes, yes! Now get out!
In her room in front of her full-length mirror, Cathy forcefully strips off her dress and
changes into her own clothes, and then runs across the moors to find Heathcliff at Peniston Crag. After a long pause, they rush into each other's arms, in another of their memorable, romantic scenes together on the moors:
Cathy: Forgive me Heathcliff. Forgive me. Heathcliff. Make the world stop right here. Make everything stop and stand still and never move again. Make the moors never change, and you and I never change.
Heathcliff: The moors and I will never change. Don't you, Cathy.

Cathy: I can't. I can't. No matter what I ever do or say Heathcliff, this is me, now, standing on this hill with you. This is me forever. Heathcliff, when you went away, what did you do? Where did you go? Heathcliff: I went to Liverpool. One night, I shipped for America on a brigantine going to New Orleans. We were held up by the tide and I lay all night long on the deck, thinking of you, and the years and years ahead without you. I jumped overboard and swam ashore.
Cathy: I think I'd died if you hadn't.
Heathcliff: Cathy, we're not thinking of that other world now.
Cathy: Smell the heather. Heathcliff. (She stands and holds her arms outstretched) Fill my arms with heather. All they can hold. Come on.
Heathcliff: Cathy. You're still my queen.
They run down from the crag to the moors, where Heathcliff fills Cathy's arms with

heather. In the wind, he touches her hair, and then they kiss each other. And as time went by, Cathy again was torn between her wild, uncontrollable passion for Heathcliff and the new life she had found at the Grange that she could not forget. Edgar pens a letter to Cathy: "I have passed weeks of misery. Our house has been so empty since you left. I am counting the hours until I shall see you tonight." Cathy's strong, spiritual love for Heathcliff is counterbalanced by her worldly care for Edgar and earthly things. Ellen describes how Cathy has been transformed by wearing a silk dress to prepare for Edgar's arrival: I can't believe this change in you, Miss Cathy. Just yesterday it seems, you were a harem-scarem child with dirty hands and a willful heart. Look at you - oh you're lovely Miss Cathy. Heathcliff derides Cathy for having Edgar call on her, and for changing so drastically from her mood on the moors: Heathcliff: You're not gonna sit all evening, simpering in front of him again, listening to his silly talk.
Cathy: Oh I'm not!
Heathcliff: No.
Cathy: Well Heathcliff I am. It's much more entertaining than listening to a stable boy.
Heathcliff: Cathy. Don't you talk like that.



Cathy: I will. Go away. This is my room. It's a ladies room. Not a room
for servants with dirty hands to come into with their insulting complaints. Now let me alone.
Heathcliff: Yes. Yes. Tell the dirty stable boy to let go of you. He soiled your pretty dress. But who soiled your heart? Not Heathcliff. Who turns you into a vain, cheap, worldly fool? Linton does. You'll never love him, but you'll let yourself be loved because it pleases your stupid, greedy vanity. Loved by that milksop with buckles on his shoes...
Cathy: Stop it. Stop it and get out. You had your chance to be something else. The people's servant were all you were born to be, a beggar in the center of the road, begging for favors, not earning them but whimpering for them with your dirty hands.
Heathcliff: That's all I've become to you. A pair of dirty hands. Well have them then. Have them where they belong! (He strikes her across the face with one hand, and then with the other) It doesn't help to strike you.
After their violent quarrel and misunderstanding, Heathcliff leaves the house and goes
out to the stable in the pouring rain, just as Edgar Linton arrives to call on Cathy. Heathcliff climbs to his bed in the stable loft and lies there in front of a window. After staring at his hands, he plunges them through the glass, cutting them badly. After Edgar has left, Ellen washes Heathcliff's hands, as he expresses his love for Cathy: I want to crawl to her feet, whimper to be forgiven, for loving me, for needing her more than my own life, for belonging to her more than my
own soul. In the kitchen without her knowledge, Heathcliff overhears Cathy telling Ellen that she is considering Edgar's proposal of marriage:
Cathy: Ellen, can you keep a secret? Ellen, Edgar's asked me to marry
him.
Ellen: What did you tell him?
Cathy: I told him I'd give him my answer tomorrow.
Ellen: Well, do you love him Miss Cathy?
Cathy: Yes, of course.
Ellen: Why?
Cathy: Why? That's a silly question isn't it?
Ellen: No, not so silly. Why do you love him?
Cathy: Because he's handsome and pleasant to be with.
Ellen: That's not enough.
Cathy: Because he'll be rich someday, and I'll be the finest lady in the county.
Ellen: Oh. Now tell me how you love him.
Cathy: I love the ground under his feet, the air above his head, and everything he touches.
Ellen: What about Heathcliff?
Cathy: Oh Heathcliff. He gets worse everyday. It would degrade me to marry him. I wish he hadn't come back. (Dejected, Heathcliff turns away from what he hears) Oh it would be Heaven to escape from this disorderly, comfortless place. As Ellen speaks, the candles flicker and the lights dim, indicating that Heathcliff has
opened the outer door and left. He departs in a rage before hearing Cathy's confession that she wasn't made for Edgar's Heaven. Tortured and confused by the warring dualities in her nature, one part of her is wild and passionate, the other desiring security and wealth. She identifies herself with the bedeviled man-child creature Heathcliff, associating his soul with her own in one of the most famous lines in film history:
Ellen : Well, if Master Edgar and his charms and money and parties mean
Heaven to you, what's to keep you from taking your place among the Linton angels.
Cathy: I don't think I belong in Heaven, Ellen. I dreamt once that I was there. I dreamt I went to Heaven, and that Heaven didn't seem to be my home. And I broke my heart with weeping to come back to Earth. And the angels were so angry they flung me out into the middle of the heap, on top of Wuthering Heights. And I woke up sobbing with joy. That's it, Ellen. I have no more business marrying Edgar Linton than I have of being in Heaven. But Ellen, Ellen, what can I do?
Ellen: You're thinking of Heathcliff.
Cathy: Who else? He's sunk so low. He seems to take pleasure in being mean and brutal. And yet, he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. And Linton's is as different as frost from fire...Ellen, I am Heathcliff. Lightning flashes and strikes and thunder simultaneously rolls behind her, as she realizes her bond with Heathcliff's soul: Everything he's suffered I've suffered. The little happiness he's ever known I've had too. Oh Ellen, if everything in the world died and Heathcliff remained, life would still be full for me.
She is startled to hear horse's hoofbeats and Joseph's voice calling after Heathcliff to
stop. Ellen tells Cathy - to her dismay: "He must have been listening," overhearing their conversation up to the point at which Cathy stated that she wouldn't marry him because of his low birth - it would degrade her. She runs outside into the driving rainstorm, hoping to tell him of her long-repressed feelings and love, but Heathcliff has already disappeared. Cathy calls after him, and then makes the difficult ascent on foot to Peniston Crag, but he is nowhere to be seen. There, she collapses as the rain beats down on her. Alcoholic Hindley refuses to help search for Cathy because she ran off with Heathcliff, a "gypsy scum." He chastises both of them, demanding a drink instead: "They're birds of a feather and the devil can take them both. Now get me a bottle." The next morning, Cathy is found by Edgar "near one of the rocks on Peniston Crag, the life almost out of
her," and brought to the Linton estate. As she is revived, she deliriously murmurs the name: "Heathcliff," but apparently, Heathcliff has "disappeared into thin air." As Cathy is convalescing from pneumonia at the Linton home, an overly-attentive,
well-meaning, but vapid Edgar promises life-long caring, and she quickly forgets her love and memories of Heathcliff, consenting to Edgar's flattering proposal of marriage:
Edgar: Darling, let me take care of you forever. Let me guard you and
love you always.
Cathy: Would you love me always?
Edgar: Yes. It's so easy to love you.
Cathy: Cause I'm no longer wild and black-hearted, and full of gypsy ways?...Of course you were right Edgar. What you said long ago was true. There was a strange curse on me, something that kept me from being myself, or at least from being what I wanted to be - living in Heaven.
Edgar: How sweet you are! I never kiss you. (Edgar kisses her gently)
Cathy: No one will ever kiss me again but you. No one. I'll be your wife and be proud of being your wife...And I'll be good to you and love you truly, always.
With a troubled look on her face after the marriage ceremony, Cathy feels Heathcliff's
cold and dark presence: "A cold wind went across my heart just then. A feeling of doom. (To Edgar) You touched me and it was gone." As Edgar's carriage takes Cathy away, a zoom close-up finds the teary-eyed, worried countenance of Ellen, the Wuthering Heights housekeeper: And I too felt a cold wind across my heart as they rode away together. But as the years went on, they were really in possession of a deep and growing happiness. I wish you could have seen Miss Cathy then. She became quite the lady of the manor, and seemed almost overfond of Mr. Linton. For Isabella, she showed great affection, and presided over Thruschcross Grange with quiet dignity. Cathy considers herself fortunate for having found Edgar, unlike the misfortune of her unmarried sister-in-law Isabella: "Poor Isabella. I'm afraid I got the only prize in the county." And then she is told by Ellen that Heathcliff - "a ghost," has returned. Heathcliff suddenly reappears as a worldly, refined, wealthy gentleman who has come back from America to see Cathy:
Ellen: There's someone wishes to see you.

Cathy: You sound as if it were a ghost.
Ellen: It 'tis. He's come back.
Cathy: (after pausing and slowly raising her head): Who?
Ellen: Heathcliff.
Cathy: What does he want?
Ellen: He wants to see you.
Cathy: Tell him, tell him I'm not at home.
Edgar: Not at home? To whom Cathy, you're 'not at home'?
Cathy (to Edgar): It's Heathcliff. It means he's come back.
Edgar: Well that's news. Where's he been?
Ellen: In America he said. He's so changed I hardly recognized him.
Edgar: Oh, for the better I hope.
Ellen: Oh yes, he's quite the gentleman. Fine clothes, a horse...
Cathy: Don't stand there prattling. Go and tell him I don't wish to see him.
Edgar: Oh nonsense Cathy. We can't be as cruel as that. He's come a long way and he's a fine gentleman, so Ellen says. Let's see how America has managed to make a silk purse out of old Master Heath. Show him in Ellen.
A distinguished, sophisticated Heathcliff returns after amassing a considerable fortune,
with a polished manner and a persistent interest in reviving Cathy's love. After seeing him again, Cathy resists the inner awakenings of her feelings for him, as he explains how he has acquired Wuthering Heights by playing "the Good Samaritan in secret" and buying up all Hindley's debts and obligations:
Edgar: Well, what brought about this amazing transformation? Did you,
uh, discover a gold mine in the New World, or perhaps you fell heir to a fortune?
Heathcliff: The truth is, I remembered that my father was an Emperor of China and my mother was an Indian Queen. (He glances at Cathy, watching her reaction to their childhood make-believe) And I went out and claimed my inheritance. It all turns out just as you suspected Cathy - that I had been kidnapped by wicked sailors and brought to England, that I was of noble birth.



Cathy: Are you visiting here long? I mean, in the village?

Heathcliff: For the rest of my life. I've just bought Wuthering Heights - the house, the stock, and the moors.
Edgar: You mean that Hindley has sold you the estate?
Heathcliff: He's not aware of it as yet. I'm afraid it will be somewhat of a surprise to him when he finds out that his gambling debts and liquor bills were all paid up for him by his former stable boy. Or perhaps he will merely laugh at the irony of it, Mr. Linton.
Before Heathcliff excuses himself, after being treated "abominably" and accused by
Edgar of theft (an "underhanded piece of work") of Cathy's dissolute brother Hindley's property, Cathy advises that as a new neighbor, Heathcliff must show less bitterness:
Cathy: Edgar and I have many neighbors whom we receive with
hospitality and friendship. And if you are to be one of them, you're welcome to visit our house, but not with a scowl on your face or an old bitterness in your heart.
Heathcliff: Thank you. It occurs to me that I have not congratulated you on your marriage. I've often thought of it. Allow me to express my delight over your happiness now.
After Heathcliff has departed, Isabella expresses her disappointment at both her

brother and sister-in-law for being uncivil to Heathcliff:
Isabella: You dismissed him as if he had been a servant.

Edgar: Don't tell me you thought of him as anything else?
Isabella: I thought him very distinguished.
Edgar: I hope I misunderstood you. It's impossible that any sister of mine could think of Heathcliff as anything but a surly dressed-up beggar, a lout, and a boor. I shall take precautions to insure that you never see him again.
Back at Wuthering Heights, alcoholic Hindley bemoans to Joseph all about his

misfortune at the hands of Heathcliff: How can I stay sober with that vulture's beak inside me? He stabbed me in the dark Joseph. He robbed me, he robbed me of my home and gold. Although Heathcliff allows Hindley to remain at Wuthering Heights, he cruelly torments Hindley and encourages him to become bitter and disconsolate: What I have done to you Hindley is to enable you to be yourself. My
money has helped you to drink and gamble and enjoy the world as you wished. And now that you're without a home of your own, I remember that you once gave me a place to sleep when you might have turned me out. And I allow you to remain Hindley and even provide you with solace... (Heathcliff pours him wine from a
bottle, goading him to drink)
against the doctor's orders.



Miserable from continued torment, Hindley threatens to shoot Heathcliff with a gun,
but his cowardice and fear prevent him from doing so. Heathcliff banishes Hindley from the house and announces his long-awaited ownership: I'm master here now. A visitor from the Grange arrives at Wuthering Heights - it isn't the expected Cathy, but Isabella. Her excuse that her horse went lame isn't entirely credible. Isabella shares with Heathcliff her anger at her brother and sister-in-law and apologizes for their
behavior: I was furious with my brother and Cathy too. I told them so. I thought
they acted most shamefully. Realizing how helpless he is, but that he can use lonely Isabella as his pawn and avenge himself on Cathy for being married to Edgar, Heathcliff pays attention to Isabella, calling her a unique friend: "So that in all the county, you are my only friend." As the scene fades to black, he promises her: You won't be lonely anymore.



At another fancy evening ball at the Lintons, Isabella has invited Heathcliff as her guest,
and it worries her brother Edgar: Oh, it's just a young girl's fancy, but one has to be careful not to enflame it with too much opposition. Cathy feels Heathcliff's dark eyes staring at her during a harpsichord concert, realizing that Heathcliff may find his revenge (or incite her jealousy) by romancing her sister-in-law.



In the moonlight while getting a "breath of fresh air," Heathcliff finds a
moment to speak to Cathy, expressing his undying love to her once again:
Cathy: You're very grand Heathcliff, so handsome. Looking at you tonight, I could not help but remember how things used to be.
Heathcliff: They used to be better.
Cathy: Don't pretend life hasn't improved for you.
Heathcliff: Life has ended for me.



(A long pause) How can you stand
here beside me and pretend not to remember? Not to know that my heart is breaking for you. That your face is the wonderful light burning in all this darkness.
Cathy: Heathcliff no, I forbid it.
Heathcliff: Do you forbid what your heart is saying to me now?
Cathy: It's saying nothing.
Heathcliff: It 'tis. I can hear the love of the music. Oh Cathy, Cathy.
Cathy: I'm not the Cathy that was. Can you understand that? I'm somebody else. I'm another man's wife and he loves me. And I love him.
Heathcliff: If he loved you with all the power of his soul for the whole lifetime, he couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day. Not he, not the world. Not even you Cathy can come between us.
Cathy: Heathcliff, you must go away. You must leave this house and never come back to it. I never want to see your face again or listen to your voice again as long as I live.
Heathcliff: You lie. I did come here tonight because you willed it. You willed me here to cross the sea.



After the party, Cathy demands to speak to Isabella about Heathcliff, thinking she

behaved "disgracefully," making a spectacle of herself by throwing herself at him. And then she tries to warn her sister-in-law of his vengeful motives, but Isabella accuses Cathy of simply being jealous and wanting Heathcliff's attention all for herself:
Cathy: You fool, you vain little fool. I'll not be silent any longer. I'm going
to tell the truth. You're old enough to hear it and you're strong enough...Don't you see what he's been doing? He's been using you to be near me. To smile at me behind your back. To try to rouse something in my heart instead. I'll not have it any longer. I'll not allow you to help him any longer.
Isabella: You were vain and insufferable. Heathcliff's in love with me.
Cathy: It's a lie.
Isabella: It's not a lie. He's told me so. He's kissed me.
Cathy: He's...
Isabella: He's kissed me. He's held me in his arms. He's told me that he loves me.
Cathy: I'm going to your brother.
Isabella: Go to him. He's asked me to marry him. Tell Edgar that, that we're going to be married, that Heathcliff's going to be my husband.
Cathy: Isabella, you can't. Heathcliff's not a man, but something dark and horrible to live with.
Isabella: Do you imagine, Catherine, that I don't know why you're acting so? Because you love him. (Cathy slaps Isabella) Yes, you love him and you're mad with pain and jealousy with the thought of my marrying him. (Cathy slaps Isabella again) Because you want him to pine for you and dream of you, die for you while you live in comfort and security as Mrs. Linton. You don't want him to be happy! You want to make him suffer! You want to destroy him! But I want to make him happy. I will, I will!
To plead with Heathcliff to not carry out his plan to marry Isabella (and thereby

abandon her), Cathy goes to Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights, but he remains
implacable:
Cathy: Oh Heathcliff, you must not do this...she hasn't harmed you.
Heathcliff: You have.
Cathy: Then punish me.
Heathcliff: I'm going to. When I take her in my arms, when I kiss her, when I promise her life and happiness.
Cathy: Oh Heathcliff, if there's anything human left in you, don't do this! Don't make me a partner to such a crime. It's stupid, it's mad!
Heathcliff: If you ever looked at me once with what I know is in you, I would be your slave. Cathy, if your heart were only stronger than your dull fear of God and the world, I would live silently contented in your shadow.



But no, you must destroy us both with that weakness you call
virtue. You must keep me tormented with that cruelty you think so pious. You've been smug and pleased with my vile love of you, haven't you? Haven't you? (Cathy turns to leave) Well, after this, you can think of me as something else than Cathy's foolish and despairing lover. You can think of me as Isabella's husband. (Cathy turns back) And be glad for my happiness as I was for yours.
Emotionally tormented by Heathcliff's spiteful decision to marry her sister-in-law and thereby crush their former love, Cathy pleads with Edgar to stop the marriage, causing him to doubt Cathy's love for him within their own marriage. And so, Heathcliff and Isabella were married. And many months later at Wuthering Heights... Indeed, Heathcliff finds his revenge by marrying and then neglecting Edgar's sister Isabella. His post-marital cold indifference and abominable
treatment forces her to wither, and she realizes too late that Cathy was right. Dr. Kenneth (Donald Crisp), the family doctor, advises that Isabella (considered "disowned") return to the Grange, because Cathy is "gravely ill." In fact, Cathy is dying of a broken heart, lacking the will to live: Fever, inflammation of the lungs, something beyond that. I don't know. I'd call it the will to die. Isabella speculates that Cathy's death may help her own marriage, turning Heathcliff's love toward her at last: If Cathy died, I might begin to live. Almost pleased that Cathy is near death, Isabella encourages her unloving husband to change and direct his pain and revenge into passion toward her:
Heathcliff: Why isn't there the smell of heather in your hair?
Isabella: Oh Heathcliff, why won't you let me come near you? You're not black and horrible as they all think. You're full of pain. I can make you happy. Let me try. You won't regret it. I'll be your slave. I can bring life back to you, new and fresh.
Heathcliff: Why are your eyes always empty? Like Linton's eyes.
Isabella: They're not empty, if you'd only look deeper. Look at me. I'm pretty. I'm a woman and I love you. You're all of life to me. Let me be a single breath of it for you. Heathcliff, let your heart look at me just once!



Heathcliff: Almighty God, give me life. What is it but hunger and pain?

When Heathcliff learns from Ellen that Cathy is sick and dying



(and that Edgar wants
Isabella to return home to assist), Heathcliff rushes on horseback to the Grange. On her deathbed, Cathy deliriously asks Edgar to get her some heather from her make-believe castle on Peniston Crag:
Cathy: My heather. There's a beautiful patch by the castle. I want some
from there...the castle on the moors Edgar. Go there please.
Edgar: There's no castle on the moors darling.
Cathy: There is. There is. It's on the hill beyond Wuthering Heights.
Edgar: You mean Peniston Crag.
Cathy (smiling): Yes. Yes. I was a queen there once. Go there Edgar. Get me some heather please.
After Edgar leaves, Heathcliff runs up and sneaks into Cathy's room, and together they
share one of the most memorable, luminous deathbed scenes ever filmed. There, they pledge their enduring, undying love after so many years of mutual unhappiness:
Cathy: Heathcliff. Come here.
Heathcliff: Cathy...
Cathy: I was dreaming that I wake up before I die, that you might come and scowl at me once more.
Heathcliff: Cathy...
Cathy: Oh, Heathcliff. Oh how strong you look. How many years do you mean to live after I'm gone? (They passionately hug and kiss each other, finally revealing their truest emotions to each other) Don't, don't let me go. If I could only hold you until we were both dead. Will you forget me when I'm in the earth?
Heathcliff: I could as soon forget you with my own life Cathy, if you die.
Cathy: Boy, Heathcliff. Come. Let me feel how strong you are.
Heathcliff: Strong enough to bring us both back to life Cathy, if you want to live.
Cathy: No, Heathcliff, I want to die.
Heathcliff: Oh Cathy, why did you kill yourself?
Cathy: Hold me. Just hold me.
Heathcliff: Oh, and love comfort you. My tears don't love you Cathy. They blight and curse and damn you!
Cathy: Heathcliff, don't break my heart.
Heathcliff: Oh Cathy, I never broke your heart. You broke it! Cathy! Cathy! You loved me! What right to throw love away for the poor fancy thing you felt for him, for a handful of worthiness. Misery and death and all the evils that God and man could have ever done would never have parted us. You'd be better alone. You wandered off like a wanton, greedy child to break your heart and mine.
Cathy: Heathcliff, forgive me. We've so little time.
When Ellen warns that Mr. Linton is returning, Heathcliff vows to stay with Cathy as

her strength ebbs. He hears her claim that he was always the only man she ever loved:
Heathcliff: I won't go Cathy. I'm here. I'll never leave you again.

Cathy: I told you Ellen. When you went away that night in the rain, I told you I belonged to him, that he was my life, my being.
Ellen: Don't listen to her ravings.
Cathy: It's true. It's true. I'm yours Heathcliff. I've never been anyone else's.
Ellen: She doesn't know what she's saying. You can still get out. Go before they get here.
Cathy: Take me to the window. Let me look at the moors with you once more, my darling. Once more. Heathcliff carries her in his arms to the window, where they look out on the moors and the Crag where they played together as children. Before slumping into his arms after breathing her last breath, she promises to wait for him there in death until they are reunited again one day: Heathcliff, can you see the Crag over there where our castle is? I'll wait for you 'til you come.



When Dr. Kenneth enters the bedroom with Edgar, Heathcliff tells them: "Leave her
alone - she's mine." While they pray for Cathy's soul, a distraught Heathcliff gives an impassioned plea to his deceased beloved to haunt him for the rest of his days, wishing that he won't have to suffer a long separation:
Ellen: Oh my wild heart! Miss Cathy. She's gone! She's gone!

Dr. Kenneth: You've done your last black deed Heathcliff. Leave this house.
Edgar: She's at peace now, in Heaven beyond us.




Heathcliff: What do they know of Heaven or Hell, Cathy, who know
nothing of life? Oh, they're praying for you Cathy. I'll pray one prayer with them. I repeat 'til my tongue stiffens. Catherine Earnshaw - may you not rest so long as I live on. I killed you. Haunt me then. Haunt your murderer. I know that ghosts have wandered on the Earth. Be with me always. Take any form. Drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this dark alone where I cannot find you. I cannot live without my life. I cannot die
without my soul.



With Cathy's death scene ended, the film returns to the end of Ellen's narration, told to
Mr. Lockwood in front of the fireplace at Wuthering Heights.
Ellen: I can still see and hear that wild hour, with poor Heathcliff trying to tear away the veil between death and life, crying out to Cathy's soul to haunt him and torment him 'til he died.
Lockwood: You say that was Cathy's ghost I heard at the window?
Ellen: Not a ghost, but Cathy's love, stronger than time itself, still sobbing
for its unlived days and uneaten bread.
Dr. Kenneth enters the room, claiming to have seen Heathcliff walking the moors with a woman. After desperately searching for Cathy's ghost in the snowy cold storm, Heathcliff freezes to death. His soul joins his love in death at their favorite place forevermore:
Dr. Kenneth: I tell you, I saw them both. He had his arm about her. So I
climbed up after them. And I found him, only him, alone, with only his footprints in the snow.
Ellen: Under a high rock on a ledge near Peniston Crag.
Dr. Kenneth: Yes.
Lockwood: Was he dead?
Ellen: No not dead, Dr. Kenneth. Not alone. He's with her. They've only just begun to live. Goodbye Heathcliff. Goodbye my wild sweet Cathy.
In the final memorable image, the young, ghostly spirits of Cathy and Heathcliff are
re-united for eternity (super-imposed as they walk over the snow) in death on Peniston Crag, where they had spent many happy hours together in their childhood walking joyously across the heath.





Back