Merle was lovely and perfect in Wuthering Heights. As for fashion, her clothes and hair were absolutely perfect early Victorian. Very few actresses could have worked the severe hair styles of that period but she manages it with aplomb. Her acting was wonderful if not in the league of Bette Davis or Vivien Leigh, but she was a fantastic actress nevertheless and deserves to be remembered.
By all accounts, Olivier did heavily push Vivien for the part, to the point that he actively sought Merle Oberon's dismissal. This did not sit well with Merle, who at that time was a bigger star than either Leigh or Olivier. I don't think this was because of any dislike for Merle or her acting, but because he wanted to keep Leigh close by. More to the point, Olivier was still married to Jill Esmond.
In any event, their mutual animosity did not show on screen, and Olivier gives one of his most brilliant performances ever in this movie. As for Merle, she keeps pace with Olivier in every scene, and lights up the screen with a luminous beauty that even Vivien Leigh would find hard to match. If you compare her wardrobe and makeup with say, Greer Garson in (one of my fave movies) Pride and Prejudice, made by the same studio only one year later you'll see the difference. Although I adore both movies and Greer Garson was a great actress, it's evident that Merle's clothing and makeup in Wuthering Heights is 1000 times more accurate than the fantastical late Victorian get-ups (which should have been Regency or even late Georgian) and max factor makeup worn by Greer Garson.

WHAT'S, not "Wots"

I agree - Merle was a wonderful Cathy and Olivier seemed very genuine in his passionate love for her character. I know he wanted Vivien but Merle was terrific. I love that the very young Cathy looked exactly like her - same hair, same face and sameCathy-attitude.

I'm with just about everybody else on this, I like V Leigh, but Merle was right for the role and did a great job.
I'm surprised how much Merle Oberon's looks have faded in only 5 years, compare her looks in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) she is so breathtakingly beautiful, she's a goddess, then look at her here and she's only 28 and should still be at the height of her beauty. I know she had the disfiguring car accident in 1937, but I see no disfigurement, and it can't be the makeup and lighting, and she doesn't appear to have aged in 5 years, but she's gone from a 10+ in the Pimp to a 7 on the Richter Scale and I don't know exactly why, but she's no where near as beautiful and her looks never improved from this point on either.
If you've never seen The Scarlet Pimpernel you don't know what you're missing, it's a great, fun movie and you will not take your eyes off of Merle Oberon she is so gorgeous!

I just saw the film again, and as much as I love Vivien Leigh, I just can't see her as Cathy. She would've looked physically beautiful in the film, but something would've been "off" about her character. Maybe it's that Vivien Leigh doesn't spell "wild" to me. I can definitely see her as Isabella, howevershe'd have been the perfect, refined, manor-born lady. And also, Geraldine Fitzgerald's acting style reminds me a lot of Leigh'sshe gave a much better performance, I thought, than Merle.
Yeah, they're dead; they'reall messed up!

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While I think Vivan Leigh is a great actress, I just can't see her as Cathy. I think because I am not the biggest fan of Gone With the Wind (I really like it, it's just not one of my favorites). In my opinion, I think Leigh kind of over acted in Gone With the Wind. She was still good but I think that she got better as she got older. I really like Merle as Cathy too. This is my favorite novel and I always pictured Cathy in the way that Merle portrayed her. I think if they had filmed the whole novel, it would have been even better. Laurence Oliver would have really got to show his acting as Heathcliff became an even darker character. And if they had done what they did with Julliette Binoche and made Merle play Cathy's daughter as well, I think she would have been fantastic. To me, Merle is the only Catherine.

Ithink Merle was very good, but little bit too cold. As Cathy she should be more wild. Also Julliette Binoches s Cathy was not enought passionate, wild, she made impression that she is good, but Cathy wasnt, she was very arrogant person. I think Angelina Jolie has her fluidom, but is too sexy and moder for that role.

i think Merle did a wonderfull job playing Cathy but i just keep wondering how the film would be with Vivien

It was Oberon who disliked Olivier. In a much later interview she admitted it. She thought he was a terrible, overly dramatic actor. She said his style of acting may have worked on stage but it was "silly" on film.
I thought the dying scene was awful. Her bugged eyes were just laughable. Even with that, I still love the movie.

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Vivien Leigh? But Merle Oberon was a perfect Cathy.

Uh, I had no idea people mourned a Vivien Leighless Cathy, as you put it. Olivier did; he wanted his girlfriend with him. I had no idea anyone else regretted the decision to cast Merle Oberon, though. Leigh would have done a good job; she was a very gifted actress. She was a better actress than Merle Oberon, but I don't think Vivien Leigh was right for the part of Cathy. Merle was. Cathy is dark and beautiful and passionate and, well, that's Merle in a nutshell. Her acting was good enough, too. I cry at the death scene, but my husband always says she looks well enough to get up and go play tennis. It's true she looks great, not a hair out of place, etc., but that was and is Hollywood. My favorite Merle Oberon role by far is as Lady Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernal. She is so gorgeous in that, and so good.

If you liked Merle in this film, you'll love her in The Scarlett Pimpernel with Leslie Howard. She's simply marvelous. People can hate on her and wish Vivien Leigh portrayed Cathy but I think the biggest slight of all classic films was Olivia de Havilland portraying cousin Miriam in Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte. Joan Crawford was due that role if only to slap Bette Davis for her mean ass kicking in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane

I really liked Merle Oberon as Cathy. I love Viven Leigh, but Merle did a good job IMHO.

The death scene with Merle Oberon in Olivier's arms, looking out over the yorkshire moors, is one of the saddest
of any picture I've seen, but even so, Merle Oberon seemed a bit stilted
in her acting. I still loved the film tho.

It is true, she was very good in it. She was exactly the picture i had of her in the book. However, Olivier did hate her because he wanted his girlfriend Vivien Leigh to play Cathy. she did have a slight attitude about her but she never had anything against Laurence Olivier. But she did when he was snotty to on the set of Wuthering Heights. He was like this with evryone though

I don't think Oberon was bad, but the lack of chemistry did affect the movie. Also, her acting is a bit forced in parts. In the scene mentioned, you can count the beats with her eyes sliding; it lacks a certain subtlety that's pretty hard to capture. In the death scene, she tries just a little too hard. Still, it's a great movie for a long, cold evening.
http://www.slywy.com/

Vivien Leigh was doing "Gone with the wind" that year..i don't know if she would have been a better Kathy, i still think Merle Oberon did a great job

I don't see what the fuss was with Oberon. She's funny-looking and her acting is very forced. Vivien Leigh would have been a beauty in the role. Such a better actress, and since she was married to Olivier, I'm sure the two would have had better chemistry. What bothers me most about this film is how we're expected to believe the two are in love. There are hardly any sparks between them, and the love story is lacking (due to the omission of many chapters of the novel). This might have been a monument in filmmaking back in 1939, but it just doesn't hold up well today, in my opinion. I think this film deserves (yet another) remake.

just seen this movie. i really liked it, olivier is good as always, but cathy was simply astonishing..
she was just like i imagined her

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Oberon responded to Oliviereveryone did. He was a master craftsman; the greatest actor of his timeperhaps of all time. Merle Oberon looked the part, had enough ability to follow the leader and was a perfect Catherine. Wuthering Heights, the film, while not all of the Bronte novel, captures the essence and is complete in itself. Why argue with perfection? Revel is the ability to partake.