Rebecca

Rating

Director

Alfred Hitchcock

Screenplay

Robert E. Sherwood, Joan Harrison (Novel: by Daphne Du Maurier)

Length

130 min.

Starring

Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson, Nigel Bruce, Reginald Denny, C. Aubrey Smith, Gladys Cooper, Florence Bates

MPAA Rating

Approved (Certificate #5969)

Review

The celebrated novel by Daphne Du Maurier is brought vividly to the screen by suspense director Alfred Hitchcock. Rebecca tells the story of a widower looking to forget the death of his wife.

Laurence Olivier stars as ‘Maxim’ de Winter, a aristocrat on holiday in Monte Carlo trying to understand where his life is going a year after his late wife Rebecca was washed ashore after a boating accident. There, he meets the snobbish socialite Edythe Van Hopper (Florence Bates) who is traveling with her hired companion played by Joan Fontaine. After she misleads Mrs. Van Hopper into believing she’s taking tennis lessons, she soon becomes the Second Mrs. de Winter.

Fontaine’s character, always in the shadow of Rebecca, is never given a first name. This one symbolic gesture typifies the atmospheric and moody film. While the servants seem content on recognizing the second Mrs.de Winter as mistress of the house, Rebecca’s personal maid Mrs. Danvers(Judith Anderson) goes to great lengths to make her feel unwelcome and hopes to sabotage Maxim’s relationship believing the master needs only remember Rebecca.

Everything in the house that belonged to Rebecca is monogrammed ‘R’. The items are a persistent subtle reminder to the new Mrs. de Winter that she can never replace her predecessor.

Hitchcock had never worked in America prior to the filming of Rebecca. It’s amazing that despite being named Best Picture of 1940, Hitchcock never won an Academy Award. After six nominations, he was honored with the Irving G. Thalberg award by the Academy but never received the ever-elusive Oscar.

Rebecca encapsulates Hitchcock’s ability to set a tone for his pictures. As the film opens, a narrator sets the scene while the camera creates the environment. The camera follows the overgrown road leading up to the burnt husk of Mandalay. Left neglected for reasons to be revealed later in the film, we are immediately aware that we’re in for an unusual and suspenseful picture.

Olivier isn’t at top form here but his torment is evident and it is clear that we are meant to both admire and despise this man. Fontaine, who received her first Academy Award nomination for this film, displays a wide range of talent here. At first timid, Fontaine helps Mrs. de Winter grow into a strong, yet distrustful woman. Though Ingrid Bergman would perfect the paranoid wife in Gaslight,Fontaine does a great job of conveying the complex series of emotions her character must go through.

The film would not be what it is, though, without the powerful performance of Anderson. Mrs. Danvers is a classic villain. Her character is creepy yet worldly. She knows what she wants and knows how to get it. Anderson keeps Mrs. Danvers dark and ominous yet when in private, we see the ache she feels over the loss of a woman sheloved more than her own life.

Rebecca is a blend of psychological torment and gripping mystery. Hitchcock never abandons the audience and keeps the film’s pace tight and controlled. There’s a reason he was called the Master of Suspense and Rebecca was a brilliant first American entry into the illustrious career of one of film history’s most impressive filmmakers.

Review Written

October 17, 2006