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  Directed by Henry King, The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926) begins with a woman (Vilma Bánky) burying her husband in the desert. She and her young daughter, Barbara (Carmencita Johnson), then get back in their covered wagon and continue to head West. At the same time, Jefferson Worth (Charles Lane) and his party — which includes Tex (Clyde Cook) and Pat Mooney (Erwin Connelly) — are also travelling West. They all run into a violent sandstorm and try to take cover. Once the storm clears, Mr. Worth and his companions find Barbara clinging to her dead mother in the sand. Mr. Worth decides to adopt the girl and raise her as his own daughter. Fifteen «sun-parched» years pass and Barbara Worth (Vilma Bánky) is now a grown woman beloved by her childhood friend, Abe Lee (Gary Cooper), a young engineer who surveys the desert with his father, Henry, the Seer (Paul McCallister). Mr. Worth wants to build a dam on the Colorado River to bring irrigation to the vast arid land he owns. To ...

Directed by William Wyler, Wuthering Heights (1939) begins when a traveller named Mr. Lockwood (Miles Mander) gets caught in a snowstorm and ends up at Wuthering Heights, an old house on the barren moors of Yorkshire, England, owned by the dour Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier). Lockwood asks for a guide to take him to his place at The Grange, but Heathcliff refuses and reluctantly allows him to stay the night. Later that night, Lockwood is awaken by a noisy window shutter. As he closes it, he hears a woman outside calling, «Heathcliff, let me in! I'm out on the moors. It's Cathy!» and then feels an icy hand touching his. When Lockwood relates the disturbance to Heathcliff, he frantically runs into the blizzard, calling out to Cathy. Ellen D ean (Flora Robson), the housekeeper, t ells a perp lexed Lockwood that he has seen the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw, Heathcliff 's great love, and proceeds to tell him their story . Forty years previously, an or phan boy named Hea thclif...