Rebecca - La prima moglie

This fine classic combines a great director, a great story, and a great cast. Any one of those would have made for a good movie, but all three make it an excellent one. Hitchcock's style and eye for detail combine very well with a story (from a novel that is extremely good in its own right) filled with psychological fear and settings that are interesting and suggestive.

Most of the time the story itself moves fairly slowly, allowing the focus to be on the characters, but there are also a couple of very good plot twists, which can be very surprising if you've not seen the movie or read the novel. So if you happen not to know the story, it's a good idea to see the film before reading a lot of comments about it. Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, Judith Anderson, and George Sanders are all perfectly cast and do a wonderful job bringing their characters to life, and making you feel a part of the story.

"Rebecca" should be satisfying not only to any Hitchcock fan, but to anyone who likes classic movies. Whether you like romance, suspense, or drama, they're all here, and put together by a director and cast that are masters of their art.

Hitchcock's first American movie, a word, American that is, that should be put in quotes because as Hitchcock pointed out, all of the cast and almost all of the crew were British. The film has already garnered so many comments that I'll avoid repeating most of them. The plot I'm sure has been thoroughly outlined and professionally analyzed but a few points are worth emphasis.

The plot of very precisely structured. It consists basically of a man who is the dream of many women in the 1940s audience: ruggedly handsome, intelligent, keen witted, a bit commanding but not too much, fabulously wealthy, a touch roguish, and mysterious. It's the mystery that provides the plot engine. Every incident of his past emotional life needs to be pried out of Maxim deWinter (what a name, suggesting frigidity and distance) as if it were an abcessed tooth. Each secret, as he reveals it, is a surprise to his wife. Except for the final secret uncovered in the plot, which surprises everybody. Maxim could clear the whole mystery up with an hour's worth of private conversation with his wife. But of course he doesn't, or else there would be no story. That's why Hamlet takes so long to slaughter Claudius. And why the Indians don't shoot the horses as they're chasing the stagecoach.

The acting. Olivier is extremely good at impersonating deWinter with all his charm and challenge. George Sanders is the best cad that the movies ever produced, and he proves it again here. Mrs. Danvers has a face and an expression that looks like an ice sculpture. The implicit lesbianism in her character of course had to remain implicit, but it is still rather a shock when she tenderly unfolds Mrs. DeWinter's nightie and says smoothly, "Look, you can see my hand through it." As for Joan Fontaine, a friend in Ireland said of her performance, "She does the shivering wife very well." Precisely put. With her delicate bone structure, fragile looking limbs, and her overall ikabani flower arrangement appearance, her wide asymmetrical eyes, with one brow arching up over her pale forehead, she looks about to faint with fright through half the movie. The only thing coarse about her is her wardrobe: bulky knit sweaters over her girlish bosom, long flapping drab skirts over her small but saucy rump, and those clodhoppers she wears while clunking about the house. She does the shivering naif in at least two other films of the period -- Hitchcock's "Suspicion" and "Jane Eyre." In fact, rummaging through the disarranged attic that is my long-term memory, I can't really remember her "doing" any other role.

It's the closest Hitchcock ever came to making what was then called "a woman's picture." It received a "best picture" Oscar, which went to Selznick. Something Hitchcock seemed to resent for the remainder of his life. It was a commercial and critical success and it deserved to be.

This is one of my favorite movies of all time. Definitely my favorite classic. There are some that come close, such as Citizen Kane, Spellbound, and Psycho, but none quite compare to this amazing movie.

The first thing that you notice is the outstanding cinematography. You have to remember that this movie was made in 1940, when they didn't have the technology we have now. But that first shot of the water beating up against the rocks grabs you and for one split second you wonder if maybe this isn't part of the movie but rather something filmed just recently. But then you see the familiar face of Laurence Olivier, reminding you that this was made 60 years ago, a fact that forever amazes me. The only oscar it won besides Best Picture was well deserved.

Another thing that makes it such a wonderful film is the acting. I have debated on whether Laurence Olivier's character, the tortured Maxim de Winter, is the pitiable character or if his second wife played by Joan Fontaine is really the one to feel sorry for. Every time I watch it I see it from a different point of view. Joan Fontaine is excellent. Laurence Olivier is wonderful, but that's no surprise. The only thing that bugs me is that it seems in every movie he's in (well, at least, everything I've seen him in), he always plays the same type of character. But he's extremely good at it, so I suppose it doesn't matter.

But although Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier are wonderful, Judith Anderson steals the show! The first time I watched the movie, I was immediately grabbed by her stunning performance as the sinister Mrs. Danvers. You hardly notice the other characters when she's in the scene. She acted the part so well that it's strange to imagine that she was any different in real life.

With a wonderful storyline, and a very surprising ending, Rebecca well deserves the title as the only of Hitchcock's films to win the oscar for Best Picture. Although it may not be the most famous of all his films, it is without a doubt the greatest

"Rebecca" was the first Hitchcock film I ever saw, and I was mesmerized by it from the start, convinced that I had to see more of the director's work. It richly deserved the Oscar it received, but it's a real puzzle that the Academy saw fit to withhold a best director award for Hitch. Would one possibly give an award to a work by Picasso and not to Picasso himself?

"Rebecca" was the first of the director's American-made films, and it shows. It's quite different from his earlier British-made films, such as "Young and Innocent" and even "The Lady Vanishes," which somehow seem more amateurish by comparison. (I know little of the British cinema of that era, but it's difficult not to conclude that Hollywood was better at producing more sophisticated efforts.) I would even judge "Rebecca" the best of his films of the early 1940s, with the possible exception of "Shadow of a Doubt." It is true, of course, that much of this film has become cliché (remember the spoofs on the old "Carol Burnette Show"!), but it still weathers the decades very well. The acting is uniformly excellent. Olivier is the hardened Maxim de Winter, untitled lord of Manderly, trying to forget the past and given to unexpected bouts of anger and coldheartedness. Fontaine is perfect as the unnamed mousy heroine, innocent yet deeply in love, still carrying with her the aura of an awkward schoolgirl. Even character actor Nigel Bruce, best known for his role in the Sherlock Holmes films, makes an appearance and plays, in effect, Nigel Bruce!

But it is Judith Anderson's role as Mrs. Danvers that viewers are likely to remember best. Her presence is as dark and foreboding as that of the deceased Rebecca herself, and Fontaine is evidently cowed by her icy stare and unnervingly formal manner. The dynamics between the two actresses are wonderful. Who could fail to empathize with Fontaine's unenviable position as, in effect, the new employer of such an intimidating personage? On the other hand, Olivier seems quite unfearful of Anderson, despite her representing so much of the past he is trying to block out. This part of the plot (even in the book) never made much sense to me and is unconvincing.

As far as I know, this film marked Hitch's first collaboration with composer Franz Waxman, whose haunting score makes it all the more memorable. Waxman's scores are perhaps less obviously cinematic than those of the incomparable Bernard Herrmann, who would score Hitch's films from 1955 to 1966. Contrast the score for "Rebecca" to Herrmann's music for "Citizen Kane" the following year, and you'll immediately hear the difference. Waxman's is more symphonic in the central European style reflective of his own birth and upbringing. Yet it is worth recalling that scoring films was still a new art at this time, and both Waxman and Herrmann were pioneers.

Finally, one has to mention the cinematography, which is magnificent. Technically "Rebecca" might have been filmed in colour, which was newly available in 1940. ("Gone with the Wind" was filmed entirely in colour the previous year, while "The Wizzard of Oz" and "The Women" had colour scenes.) But colour would have diminished its impact. The suspense and the ominous sense of impending doom could only have been communicated through the medium of black-and-white and the deft use of light and shade which it affords.

In one respect, of course, "Rebecca" is not a typical Hitchcock film. There is no fleeing innocent trying to clear his name of a crime he did not commit. Surprisingly, there isn't even a murder, although its absence was apparently imposed by the Hayes Code and is certainly foreign to Daphne du Maurier's original novel. Some have said that there is more Selznick than Hitchcock in this film, and perhaps there's something to that. Still, if the collaborative effort between the two was not exactly amiable, it was nevertheless successful.

In short, this is the first in a string of Hitchcock masterpieces.

The only Alfred Hitchcock (Oscar-nominated for directing) film to win the Best Picture Oscar, "Rebecca" is one of those typical films from the amazing director that chills, entertains and puts you on the edge of your seat each time you watch it. Joan Fontaine (Oscar-nominated) has just married the very wealthy Laurence Olivier (also Oscar-nominated), but she is haunted by his mysterious housekeeper (a show-stopping Oscar-nominated performance by Judith Anderson) and the memory of the film's titled character (Olivier's late wife). Hitchcock, noted for his subtle sexual under-tones in films spares none of that here as Anderson's character and the late titled character's relationship seemed to go much further than employee-employer. Anderson slowly tries to drive Fontaine to insanity and the end she may accomplish her devious goal. Hitchcock's first real major U.S. debut stunned the Academy and audiences alike and would lead to the coveted Best Picture Oscar. It is not the best film the legendary director ever worked on, but it is still an amazingly good production that works on many cinematic levels. 4.5 out of 5 stars.