IT'S generally accepted that film versions of great novels rarely live up to the expectations. The Great Gatsby, Catch-22 and Captain Corelli's Mandolin, to name just three, have all enjoyed the Hollywood treatment but failed to match the luminosity of their literary counterparts.

There are exceptions to the rule, of course, with the first two Godfather movies and The Lord of the Rings trilogy frequently cited as cases in point. But it's fair to say that popular books don't usually transfer well to the screen, which is why some Brontë enthusiasts are a little concerned with two new
screen versions of Wuthering Heights about to go into production.

Their fears won't have been allayed by reports that the rival adaptations, which both begin filming later this year, are going for radically different takes on Emily Brontë's classic tale of obsession and revenge.

A three-part television version for ITV described by insiders as "edgy, cool and raw" will see a distraught Heathcliff take his own life on hearing news of Cathy's death. Meanwhile the British film version is expected to stick closer to the idea of the two being childhood sweethearts, with Keira Knightley and Lindsay Lohan both reportedly vying for the role of Cathy.

Brontë's novel, which revolves around the doomed love between Heathcliff and Cathy, has become one of the most famous works in English literature. Joanne Harris, whose own book, Chocolat, became a bestseller and was made into a film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, described it as an "astonishing novel" that "conveys the landscape and atmosphere of the Yorkshire moors better than any other work in fiction."

Wuthering Heights was Brontë's only novel. Originally published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, it received mixed reviews. Emily died the following year, but her elder sister, Charlotte, edited and re-published it in 1850 under Emily's name, and a literary classic was born.

Since then, the novel has inspired numerous adaptations, including films, a musical and a ballet and opera, along with several songs, most notably Kate Bush's hit single Wuthering Heights. Arguably the most famous screen adaptation of the novel starred Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff and Merle Oberon as Cathy and was nominated for an Oscar in 1940, while the 1989 version with Ralph Fiennes and Juliet Binoche hardly set pulses racing and was a box office flop.

Many adaptations prefer to concentrate on the ill-fated obsession between Heathcliff and Cathy rather than tell the whole story, although any re-working of a much-loved classic novel is always likely to incur the wrath of some fans. But by the same token, just as Shakespeare's plays have been re-imagined over the centuries, so new versions of books not only keep them in the public eye, they
also introduce them to a whole new audience.

Alan Bentley, director of the Brontë Parsonage Museum, in Haworth, hopes the new film versions will be true to the spirit of the original. "One of the strengths of the Brontës' books is they have always inspired new adaptations whether it's a film,
or a painting.

"I think they ought to try and keep to the basics of the plot, but ultimately what we are here to do is bring the book to as many people as possible, and film and TV adaptations reach a bigger audience than we can, so we're quite supportive in general," he says.

"I don't think any adaptation has ever really captured the essence of Wuthering Heights, but that's often the fate of
novels because they tend to be more complex.

"Maybe the edgy re-interpretations will give people an idea of the impact the novel had at the time, because it was seen as very radical, it was thought of as being raucous, full of bad language and encouraging moral depravity.

"The Brontës' works weren't the cosy classics many see them as today. Wuthering Heights is edgy and it's not certainly not Jane Austen."

However, he accepts that not everyone will like the new films. "I'm sure there will be some purists who will be deeply disappointed, and I can understand that, but I think it's important to remember that a film can't do the same things as a novel," he says.

"But what it can do is encourage people who haven't heard of the Brontës before, to go and read their extraordinary books and find out more about these remarkable daughters of an obscure vicar from Yorkshire."