Rebecca (1940)
Rebecca is a 1940 American romantic psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It was Hitchcock’s first American project, and his first film under contract with producer David O. Selznick. The screenplay by Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison, and adaptation by Philip MacDonald and Michael Hogan, were based on the 1938 novel of the same name by Daphne du Maurier.
Director – Alfred Hitchcock
Writers – Daphne Du Maurier (celebrated novel), Robert E. Sherwood (screen play), Joan Harrison (screen play)
Cast –
Joan Fontaine as the second Mrs. de Winter
Laurence Olivier as George Fortescue Maximilian “Maxim” de Winter
Judith Anderson as Mrs. Danvers, housekeeper of Manderley
George Sanders as Jack Favell, Rebecca’s first cousin and lover
Reginald Denny as Frank Crawley, Maxim’s estate manager of Manderley and friend
Gladys Cooper as Beatrice Lacy, Maxim’s sister
C. Aubrey Smith as Colonel Julyan
Nigel Bruce as Major Giles Lacy, Beatrice’s husband
Florence Bates as Mrs. Edythe Van Hopper, employer of the second Mrs. de Winter
Edward Fielding as Frith, oldest butler of Manderley
Melville Cooper as Coroner at trial
Leo G. Carroll as Dr. Baker, Rebecca’s doctor
Leonard Carey as Ben, the beach hermit at Manderley
Lumsden Hare as Mr. Tabbs, boat builder
Forrester Harvey as Chalcroft the innkeeper
Philip Winter as Robert, a servant at Manderley
Watch “Rebecca” (1940)
Plot
Maxim de Winter stands at a cliff edge, seemingly contemplating jumping. A young woman shouts at him and stops him in his tracks, but he curtly asks her to walk on.
Later, at Monte Carlo on the French Riviera, the same young woman is staying with her pompous old traveling companion, Mrs. Van Hopper, and she again encounters the aristocratic widower Maxim de Winter, looking much more debonair. They are attracted to each other, and although Van Hopper tells her he is still obsessed with his dead wife, Rebecca, who we are told drowned in the sea near Manderley, she soon becomes the second Mrs. de Winter.
Maxim takes his new bride back to Manderley, his grand mansion by the sea in southwestern England, dominated by its housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, a chilly individual who had been a confidante of the first Mrs. de Winter, whose death she has not forgotten. She has even preserved Rebecca’s grand bedroom suite unchanged, and displays various items that carry her monogram.
Eventually, his constant reminders of Rebecca’s glamour and sophistication convince the new Mrs. de Winter that Maxim is still in love with his first wife, which could explain his irrational outbursts of anger. She tries to please her husband by holding a costume party as he and Rebecca used to. Danvers suggests she copy the dress that one of Maxim’s ancestors is seen wearing in a portrait. Nevertheless, when she appears in the costume, Maxim is appalled as Rebecca had worn an identical dress at her last ball, just before her death.
When Mrs. de Winter confronts Danvers about this, she tells her she can never take Rebecca’s place and tries to persuade her to jump to her death from the second-story window of Rebecca’s room. At that moment, however, the alarm is raised because a ship has run aground due to the fog, and in the rescue of its crew, a sunken boat has been discovered with Rebecca’s body in it.
Maxim now confesses to his new wife that his first marriage had been a sham from the start when Rebecca had declared that she had no intention of keeping to her vows but would pretend to be the perfect wife and hostess for the sake of appearances. When she claimed she was pregnant by her cousin and lover, Jack Favell, she taunted Maxim that the estate might pass to someone other than Maxim’s line. During a heated argument, she fell, struck her head, and died. To conceal the truth, Maxim took the body out in a boat which he then scuttled, and identified another body as Rebecca’s.
The crisis causes the second Mrs. de Winter to shed her naïve ways as the couple plan to prove Maxim’s innocence. When the police claim the possibility of suicide, Favell attempts to blackmail Maxim, threatening to reveal that she had never been suicidal. When Maxim goes to the police, they suspect him of murder. However, further investigation with a doctor reveals that she was not pregnant but terminally ill due to cancer, so the suicide verdict stands. Maxim realizes Rebecca had been trying to goad him into killing her to ruin him.
A free man, Maxim returns home to see Manderley on fire, set ablaze by the deranged Mrs. Danvers. All escape except Danvers, who dies when the ceiling collapses on her.