Rebecca

Alfred Hitchcock, USA 1940, 130 minutes

Rebecca tells the tale of a timid English girl (whose name we significantly never find out) who falls in love with a rich, distant widower Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier) They marry and he takes her back to his home Manderley - a place still dominated by the memory of his late wife, the beautiful Rebecca, whose shadow not only distances the second Mrs. de Winter from her husband but also makes her an easy victim to the psychological torture of the terrifying housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson).

From the first misty shot of the gates and the famous words of "Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again", Rebecca is an amazing film.

This was Hitchcock's first Hollywood film and compares very well with his previous English films. Refusing David O Selznick's suggestion to have a huge burning `R' in the sky at the end, Hitchcock refused to pander to the Americans and kept up his tense, witty personal style. With our heroine constantly battling a mere memory, this is truly the ghost story without the ghost.

The performances match Hitchcock's brilliant directing. Joan Fontaine is suitably jittery and gauche and Olivier is incredible. Even more so than in Hamlet, Olivier's Maxim really does brood and it truly is a gripping portrait of a man who is terribly haunted by his past to a point where he can not get on with his present. However, at points Olivier and Fontaine are acted off the screen by the chilling Anderson who makes Mrs. Danvers one of Hitchcock's most brilliant and psychotic baddies ever.

"A riveting and painful film" - Time Out

Review by Alicia Forsyth
Taken from EUFS Programme 1996-97