Rebecca (1940)

Rebecca movie storyline. On holiday in Monte Carlo, the wealthy widower Maxim de Winter meets a young woman who is working as a lady’s companion to Mrs. Van Hopper. They spend a good deal of time together and it leads to love marriage. The second Mrs. de Winter is somewhat overwhelmed however when, after their honeymoon, they return to his vast estate, Manderley.

She not only has to deal with a huge house and numerous servants but also with the dour and domineering housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers. She soon feels inferior and a disappointment to everyone, particularly her husband Max and Mrs. Danvers – who still adores her dead mistress. Not all is as it seems however particularly after a striking discovery is made in the sea near Manderley.

Rebecca (1940) is the classic Hitchcock gothic thriller and a compelling mystery (and haunting ghost story) about a tortured romance. An expensively-produced film by David O. Selznick (following his recent success with Gone With The Wind (1939)), it was Hitchcock’s first American / Hollywood film, although it retained distinctly British characteristics from his earlier murder mysteries. The somber film’s screenplay (by Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison) was based on a literal translation of Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 gothic novel of the same name, in the tradition of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.

One of the film’s posters asks the intriguing question: “What was the secret of Manderley?” The film creates a brooding atmosphere surrounding the tragic courtship, marriage and relationship of a naive, plain and innocent young woman (Joan Fontaine) to a brooding and overburdened widower – an aristocratic, moody patriarch (Laurence Olivier) who lives in an estate named Manderley.

The pathetic, bewildered and shy bride experiences fear, pain and guilt when psychologically dominated by the ‘presence’ (and memories) of the deceased first wife (named Rebecca but never seen on screen), and when she is tormented by Rebecca’s blindly adoring, sinister and loyal housekeeper’s (Judith Anderson) recollections of the dead woman.

Only by film’s end, with the flaming destruction of the estate, do the real character and secrets of Rebecca’s death become clear. Many well-known actresses tested for the part of the young woman – Loretta Young, Margaret Sullavan, Anne Baxter and Vivien Leigh (her role in Gone With the Wind (1939) made her participation impossible), and Ronald Colman was also considered for the male lead role.

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson, Nigel Bruce, Reginald Denny, C. Aubrey Smith, Gladys Cooper, Florence Bates, Melville Cooper, Leonard Carey
Screenplay by: Robert E. Sherwood, Joan Harrison
Cinematography by: George Barnes
Film Editing by: W. Donn Hayes
Art Direction by: Lyle R. Wheeler, William Cameron Menzies
Music by: Franz Waxman
Distributed by: United Artists
Release Date: April 12, 1940