"Rebecca" Movie Review

 

by Daniel White

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."

One of the most famous lines in film, it is the first sentence in the wistful monologue that Joan Fontaine recites at the opening of Rebecca. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, under the watchful eye of producer David O Selznick, Rebecca (1940) is an expertly-executed movie, as well-crafted as any flick made during the Golden Age of Hollywood. In fact, if one had to pick a film that exemplified the absolute best that Tinseltown had to offer in its glorious heyday, Rebecca would be the perfect choice. Perfect is the word I keep coming back to when thinking about Rebecca. Perfectly cast, perfectly scripted, perfectly directed. Nothing was left to chance here, and while some of you more adventurous souls might find that a bit dull, I appreciate the thoughtful care that went into making the movie.

Fontaine is very, very good as the unnamed timid soul who meets the brooding Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier) while on vacation in Monte Carlo. Working as a paid companion for the boorish Mrs. Van Hopper (the wonderfully repellent Florence Bates), she and de Winter fall in love and marry.

Olivier is unbelievably right for the role of de Winter. Mercurial, mysterious, and remote, I can't think of another actor who could have played it better. Though much fanfare went into the casting of the female lead, it's Olivier's Maxim that deserves special praise. Jimmy Stewart won the Academy Award for best actor that year for The Philadelphia Story, but Olivier gives the more nuanced performance.

Speaking of great performances, Judith Anderson is phenomenal as the lurking, sinister Mrs. Danvers. Whether shaming poor Joan into subservience or slyly coaxing her to suicide, Anderson puts the D in Diabolical. Again, while Jane Darwell deserved her supporting Oscar win for Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, Ms. Anderson is every bit her antithetical equal.

This would be Hitchcock's directorial debut in America, the beginning of one of the most spectacular careers in Hollywood. Conversely, this was the pinnacle of Selznick's career. Rebecca would win best picture. He would never again achieve such dazzling success. Instead it was the onset of a long, slow, painful, and at times very public decline.

Besides the three main protagonists, the film boasts an incredibly rich supporting cast that includes Gladys Cooper, Nigel Bruce, Reginald Denny, and George Sanders at his noxious best. Whisked back to Manderley where she will do battle with the ghost of Rebecca, as well as her very much alive protectress, Mrs. Danvers, the second Mrs. de Winter will be tested, tormented, and tried. But will she triumph? Watch one of the soundest examples of Hollywood know how to receive the answer to that tantalizing question. Watch Rebecca!

With an intelligent, literate screenplay by Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison, cinematography by George Barnes, and music by Franz Waxman, Rebecca is available on YouTube.