Rebecca is a 1940 American psychological drama-thriller film. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, it was his first American project, and his first film produced under contract with David O. Selznick. A naïve young woman (Joan Fontaine), whose name is never mentioned, is in Monte Carlo working as a paid companion to Edythe Van Hopper (Florence Bates) when she meets the aristocratic but brooding widower Maximilian Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier). They fall in love, and within two weeks they are married. She is now the second Mrs. de Winter; Maxim takes her back to Manderley, his country house in Cornwall. The housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), is domineering and cold, and is obsessed with the beauty, intelligence and sophistication of the first Mrs. de Winter, the eponymous Rebecca, preserving her former bedroom as a shrine. Rebeccas so-called cousin, Jack Favell (George Sanders), visits the house while Maxim is away. The new Mrs. de Winter is intimidated by her responsibilities and begins to doubt her relationship with her husband. The continuous reminders of Rebecca overwhelm her; she believes that Maxim is still deeply in love with his first wife. She also discovers that her husband sometimes becomes very angry at her for apparently insignificant actions. Mrs. Danvers attempts to persuade Mrs. de Winter to leap to her death. Trying to be the perfect wife, the young Mrs. de Winter convinces Maxim to hold a costume party, as he had done with Rebecca. The heroine wants to plan her own costume, but Mrs. Danvers suggests she copy the beautiful outfit in the ancestral portrait of Caroline de Winter. At the party, when the costume is revealed, Maxim is appalled; Rebecca wore the same outfit at the ball a year ago, shortly before her death. The heroine confronts Danvers, who tells her she can never take Rebeccas place, and almost manages to convince her to jump to her death. An airborne flare reveals that a ship has hit the rocks. The heroine rushes outside, where she hears that during the rescue a sunken boat has been found with Rebeccas body in it. Maxim admits to his new wife that he had earlier misidentified another body as Rebeccas, in order to conceal the truth. His first marriage, until now viewed by every other character as ideal, was in fact a sham. At the very beginning of their marriage Rebecca had told Maxim she intended to continue the scandalous life she had previously lived. He hated her for this, but they agreed to an arrangement: in public she would pretend to be the perfect wife and hostess, and he would ignore Rebeccas promiscuity. However, Rebecca grew careless, including an ongoing affair with her cousin Jack Favell. One night, Rebecca told Maxim she was pregnant with Favells child. During the ensuing heated argument she fell, hit her head and died. Maxim took the body out in her boat, which he then scuttled. Shedding the remnants of her girlish innocence, Maxims wife coaches her husband how to conceal the mode of Rebeccas death from the authorities. In the police investigation, deliberate damage to the boat points to suicide. However Favell shows Maxim a note from Rebecca which appears to prove she was not suicidal; Favell tries to blackmail Maxim. Maxim tells the police, and then falls under suspicion of murder. The investigation reveals Rebeccas secret visit to a London doctor (Leo G. Carroll), which Favell assumes was due to her illicit pregnancy. However, the coroners interview with the doctor establishes that Rebecca was not actually pregnant; the doctor had told her she was suffering from a late-stage cancer instead. The coroner renders a finding of suicide. Only Frank Crawley (Maxims best friend and manager of the estate), Maxim, and his wife know the full story: that Rebecca told Maxim she was pregnant with another mans child in order to try to goad him into killing her, an indirect means of suicide that would also have ensured her husbands ruination and possible execution. As Maxim returns home from London to Manderley, he sees that the manor is on fire, set alight by the deranged Mrs. Danvers. The second Mrs. de Winter and the staff escape the blaze, but Danvers is killed when a floor collapses. Finally a silk nightdress case on Rebeccas bed, with a beautifully embroidered R, is consumed by flames.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 02:54:02 +0000
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