I used to write more of these reviews over the course of the week, but my life got busier, and watching movies during the week became more difficult. However, it can still happen. Case in point: the book club I belong to at my job finished Daphne du Maurier’s novel Rebecca and decided to watch the 1940 Alfred Hitchcock-directed movie version. We, as a group, really enjoyed the novel (one person didn’t care for the ending), so we wanted to see how the director sometimes called the “master of suspense” handled it.
It’s actually on YouTube, for what it is worth.
Joan Fontaine stars as a young woman, name never given in neither the book nor the movie, who while working as a companion for a wealthy, if insufferable, woman, has a chance encounter with depressed widower Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier). The two hit it off, even as Fontaine’s character seems to think Maxim isn’t really all that interested in her as a person. The young woman’s employer, Mrs. Van Hopper (Florence Bates) was something of a gossip, and she tells her companion that Maxim lost his beautiful wife Rebecca, someone adored by all, and hasn’t been the same since. So, when Maxim suddenly proposes marriage to the young woman, it may be a bit of a surprise. Even though there isn’t much the young woman knows about Rebecca, she seems to come up short in every way possible to listen to others describe Maxim’s first wife.
However, things get worse for the new Mrs. de Winter when Maxim brings her home to the ancestral estate of Manderly, and the head housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), is incredibly stiff and cold with the new wife, to the point where it seems as if Mrs. Danvers, not the new Mrs. de Winter, really runs the household. The whole thing comes down to the mystery of the late Rebecca. There are no photos or pictures of her anywhere, but her name and monogram seems to be on everything, and the new wife doesn’t come from a moneyed background, so she has no idea how to do the things she is suddenly expected to at least have a say on, but all Mrs. de Winter keeps hearing is how great the late Rebecca was, a universally-beloved woman whose death Maxim never quite got over. What is the mystery of Rebecca de Winter?
Having also recently read du Maurier’s novel, I will begin by saying there are some plot- and character-based moments that can be frustrating. The new Mrs. de Winter isn’t even really given much of a tour of her new mansion home, and she is somehow expected to just fulfill certain duties that, due to her coming from a lower class, without anyone really talking to her. She knows very little about Maxim or Rebecca or Mrs. Danvers, or much of anything involved in her new life. But Fontaine and Olivier really sell it as the newlyweds who love each other and whose bond increases over time even as Mrs. de Winter learns more and more about the late Rebecca de Winter, and as Mrs. Danvers’s true intentions come out. It’s a Hitchcock movie, so you know it’s well-crafted, particularly with some very good lighting moments.
I will say that, coming to this movie so soon after reading the novel, I did pick up a number of changes, one big one that was probably done to make the decisions the main characters makes, for lack of a better word, saner. I’m not a book purist or anything because change is often necessary when adapting a work from one medium to another, so I thought this one worked out pretty well. It’s not my favorite Hitchcock movie, and it may come closer to a romance than it does anything else as the big worry the main character has is whether or not her new husband loves her. All I have to say is in the end is both versions of this story are very well done, but man, do these characters really need to work on their communication skills.
Grade: A-
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