Rebecca (1940)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Rebecca (1940) – A. Hitchcock

Less a thriller or a suspense film than a gothic melodrama (popular at the time: Wuthering Heights, 1939; Gaslight, 1940/1944, etc.) which stayed true to the novel by Daphne du Maurier (purchased for Hitchcock by producer David O. Selznick). Joan Fontaine is the awkward young woman (a paid companion for a boorish and matronly society lady) who meets wealthy Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier) at Monte Carlo where he is vacationing, trying to escape memories of his late wife, Rebecca. After a whirlwind romance, Fontaine’s character becomes the new Mrs. de Winter and takes her place as the head of the household at the beautiful and remote English mansion Manderley. From the start, she feels that she does not measure up to the beautiful and sophisticated Rebecca and this feeling is encouraged by Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), the unfriendly and hard-hearted housekeeper who was overly fond of the previous Mrs. de Winter (some reviewers have suggested a same-sex attraction). Husband Max does not make things any easier for Fontaine’s character (who is given no first name), often reacting angrily and moodily when Rebecca comes up – and indeed, since there are monogrammed R’s everywhere in the house, this is very often.  In their excellent book about Hitch, Rohmer and Chabrol point out that pairing an emotional woman with an unemotional man in a two-shot became a trope of the director, something I never noticed before (but is clear in Notorious, 1946, too).  Fontaine impresses as she transforms from vulnerable and insecure to become a more confident partner to Olivier -- and both of them, as well as Anderson, received Oscar nods in addition to Hitchcock himself along with best screenplay, score, and a slew of technical category nominations. The film won Best Picture and Best Cinematography, which held true to the Gothic style and produced an air of mystery and ultimately suspense -- which Hitch injects into the film in its final minutes as a startling twist is introduced and foppish cad George Sanders almost destroys the burgeoning romance between Olivier and Fontaine.  When Truffaut suggested to Hitchcock that he developed his interest in the psychological dynamics of his characters when working on this film, the great director agreed.  A must-see.