Hitting fresh Heights (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)
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Hitting fresh Heights
3:41pm Friday 26th June 2009 in Search
Wuthering Heights (1992)
There have been various movie adaptations of Emily Bronte’s only published novel.
Sam Goldwyn at MGM had a go at it in 1939, and then in 1991, American International Pictures spent a reported $9 million on a remake, written by Irish playwright Anne Devlin, with Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff and Anna Calder-Marshall as Cathy. The film was released through Paramount Pictures.
Director Peter Kominsky rejected Haworth as a location because of the prevalence of TV aerials, pylons and power cables. But scenes were shot at Keighley’s East Riddlesden Hall and Shibden Hall, Halifax, between September and October, 1991.
Casting French actress Juliette Binoche as Cathy seemed unusual, but no more so than Merle Oberon starring opposite Laurence Olivier 52 years before.
Ralph Fiennes, Simon Ward, John Woodvine and Sinead O’Connor as Emily Bronte were among the cast.
Seventy-room Broughton Hall, near Skipton, was the base for crew and cast. It also doubled as Thrushcross Grange, home of Edgar and Isabella Linton. Ralph Fiennes went to art school with the wife of the-then owner, Roger Tempest.
Fairytale: A True Story (1997) There was a time when newcomers to Bradford’s media had to learn at least two things: East Morton’s Busfeild Arms had an unconventional spelling, and there were fairies in Cottingley.
Well, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was convinced there were, but then the creator of Sherlock Holmes, the private eye with forensic intelligence, was deeply attracted to spiritualism.
In fact, in 1917, two teenage cousins, Elsie Wright and Florence Griffiths, had concocted the whole thing by the simple means of faking photographs.
To the surprise of some, Icon Entertainment International thought this sufficiently interesting to go ahead with a £9 million film, starring Harvey Keitel, Peter O’Toole, Bill Nighy, Paul McGann, Bob Peck, Tim McInnerny and Mel Gibson.
The film was shot anywhere but Cottingley. North Yorkshire and Keighley railway station provided the locations in May and June, 1996.
