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Rebecca (1940)
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TYPE OF FILM: Suspense
STUDIO: Selznick Studios
PRODUCER: David O. Selznick
DIRECTOR: Alfred Hitchcock
SCREENWRITERS: Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison; adapted by Philp MacDonald and Michael Hogan
SOURCE: Rebecca, novel by Daphne de Maurier
RUNNING TIME: 130 minutes
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Laurence Olivier……………………………………………………………..…..Maxim de Winter
Joan Fontaine……………………………………………………………………….Mrs. de Winter
George Sanders………………………………………………………………………….Jack Favell
Judith Anderson………………………………………………………………………Mrs. Danvers
Nigel Bruce………………………………………………………………………….…Giles Lacey
Reginald Denny………………………………………………………………..……Frank Crawley
Aubrey Smith……………………………………………………………………Colonel Julyan
Gladys Cooper………………………………………………………………..…….Beatrice Lacey
Florence Bates……………………………………………………………………Mrs. Van Hoppe
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DID YOU KNOW?
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With both of the principals being nominated for Academy Awards, one would think that casting has been not only inspired, but simple. Nothing could be further from the truth. The director, Alfred Hitchcock, and the producer, David O. Selznick, both brilliant and stubborn moviemakers with excellent taste, disagreed on casting from the outset. Selznick bought the rights to the Daphne du Maurier novel especially for Carol Lombard and planned to have Ronald Colman opposite her. Colman turned down the role because he regarded the film as a “woman-starring” vehicle. Selznick’s next two choices were William Powell and Laurence Olivier, with Leslie Howard and David Niven also considered. Olivier, as an emerging star after his outstanding performance in Wuthering Heights, was willing to work for $100,000 less than the already established Powell, and so was given the role.
Selznick’s first choice for the role of Mrs. de Winter, Lombard, also did not take the part. He then decided he would conduct a major search for the female lead, as he had done for Gone with the Wind, which had not yet finished filming when he began work on Rebecca. He wanted Olivia de Havilland, which presented numerous problems: She was under contract to Warner Brothers, which was reluctant to loan her out to other studios; she was committed to begin principal photography on Raffles; and was not interested in competing for the role with her sister, Joan Fontaine, with whom she had a lifelong animosity. Olivier desperately wanted the role for his wife, Vivien Leigh, while Fontaine’s agent was pushing his own wife, Margaret Sullavan. Selznick also considered Loretta Young, Anne Baxter, Anita Louise, and more than twenty others for the role, finally settling on Fontaine over the objections of Hitchcock and others at the studio who claimed she had not established herself as a star—not surprising since she was only twenty-two at the time.
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THE STORY
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The shy, young, paid companion to a wealthy socialite meets the wealthy Maxim de Winter in Monte Carlo and is enchanted by his charm, sophistication, and good looks, happily accepting when he proposes marriage. Her joy is dramatically diminished when she arrives with her husband at his magnificent mansion Manderley, whose housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, does everything in her considerable power to make her feel unwelcome.
At every opportunity, Mrs. Danvers contrasts the demure second Mrs. de Winter with Rebecca, Maxim’s first wife, who was more beautiful, more sophisticated, and more elegant. Implicit, too, is that Rebecca was more loved by Maxim and certainly more respected and admired by the housekeeper.
Soon after Mrs. de Winter settles into Manderley, a boat is wrecked near the shore, and during the rescue attempt, another sunken boat is discovered to contain the body of Rebecca. For the first time, Maxim tells his bride of his miserable marriage to Rebecca, who had flaunted her infidelities. When Rebecca told him that she was pregnant with another man’s child, Maxim had struck her and she smashed her head when she fell. He put her body into the boat and sank it. A new inquest is held, and it appears that de Winter will be charged with murder, until Rebecca’s doctor testifies that his patient had been dying of cancer and contemplated suicide.
Maxim and his bride are now freed of the specter of Rebecca, but Ms. Danvers, still devoted to her former mistress and the house she loved so much, commits suicide by setting fire to Manderley.
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While Rebecca was Hitchcock’s first American film, it is difficult to tell, since virtually all the actors (Olivier, Sanders, Anderson, Bruce, Denny, Smith and Cooper) are British, as is the setting and the author (du Maurier) of the novel on which the film was based. Fontaine, though she had a British father, was brought to the United States by her mother when she was less than a year old.
In addition to the difficulties with casting, there were terrible script problems. The original treatment was written by Hitchcock, his wife Alma, and Joan Harrison, with whom he worked longer than virtually anyone else. It was submitted to Selznick, who loathed it, returning it with a memo longer than the treatment itself. Hitchcock once said that he had finally finished reading it. He said it in 1969. Hitchcock had changed nearly everything from the book, and Selznick insisted that the script be started again. Selznick had promised Daphne de Maurier (to whom he paid $5,000 for the rights) the film would remain faithful to the novel, after she expressed such disappointment in the film of Jamaica Inn, which Hitchcock had filmed and changed unrecognizably.
In spite of the endless problems incurred in the making of Rebecca, it was a huge box-office success and received eleven Academy Award nominations, winning only for Best Picture and Cinematography. Other nominations went to Hitchcock for Best Director, Olivier for Best Actor, Joan Fontaine for Best Actress, and Judith Anderson for Best Supporting Actress.
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BEST LINE
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The most memorable line is the first of the picture, “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again,” but since it is also the opening line of Daphne du Maurier’s novel, no credit goes to the screenwriter. For much of the film, the second Mrs. de Winter (unnamed in both the book and film) worries that her husband loves the dead Rebecca so much that he cannot love her. In a desperate moment, she begs for reassurance that they are, in fact, happily married. “We are happy, aren’t we?” When Maxim does not respond, she asks why he won’t answer. “How can I answer you,” he finally replies, “when I don’t know the answer myself. If you say we’re happy, let’s leave it at that. Happiness is something I know nothing about.”
