Rebecca (1940) Director: Alfred Hitchcock
“Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again…”
★★★★★
Hazy, atmospheric, and ominous —Rebecca is a gothic-mystery about a traumatized young woman haunted by the psychological ghosts of a dark past. However, as with all Hitchcock pictures, nothing is what it seems. The film is told as a flashback; as if it is a distant recollection which has long since passed. Rebecca is about darkness and obsession: or the false idea of someone, the inescapable image that lingers long after a person has passed, and the power that image can hold over a person. In many ways, this film tells the story of things unseen, the ghosts of the past that linger in the present.
Based on Daphne du Maurier’s celebrated novel of the same name (published in 1938) –which was, in turn, a similar re-telling of Charlotte Brontë’s Gothic novel Jane Eyre— amazingly, Rebecca was Hitchcock’s only film to ever win an Oscar for Best Picture. At the time, producer David O. Selznick was hoping to follow-up his highly successful production of Gone With The Wind in 1939 with yet another success. He decided to usher in new talent in the form of a young British director, Alfred Hitchcock (Selznick is the one who brought Hitchcock to Hollywood from England). And for this film, Selznick insisted that Rebecca remain true to the novel, though Hitchcock made some notable minor adjustments throughout production. Apparently, Selznick was somewhat disappointed and he entirely re-shot several scenes in the film causing a rift between Hitchcock and Selznick for the remainder of the director’s contract.
“Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again…”
As in the novel, our narrator and protagonist is never actually given a name (she is wonderfully played by Joan Fontaine). On holiday in Monte Carlo, she is traveling with her characteristically boorish employer, Mrs. Van Hopper (hilariously played by Florence Bates). Our protagonist is a simple girl (age seventeen) who works as a paid “companion” of Mrs. Van Hopper. In Monte Carlo, while out walking one day, she stumbles upon a man apparently considering suicide at the edge of a cliff. He turns out to be a wealthy aristocrat named Maxim de Winter (played by Laurence Olivier), a widower who owns a vast castle at Manderley on the coast of England. Soon, they begin secretly spending afternoons together, but Mr. de Winter often appears moody, distant, and agitated. One day, the holiday is called short when Mrs. Van Hopper is called to New York for her daughter’s engagement. Suddenly, and unexpectedly, Mr. de Winter casually makes a surprise-proposal of marriage to his new beau (offscreen while he is in the shower) before she can depart with her employer, and they leave together to be quickly wed. The couple honeymoons and then moves to Manderley where the new Mrs. de Winter can meet the entire staff she will be expected to manage. From the outside edifice, the vast coastal palace gives the impression of status and opulence, however our narrator, now the second Mrs. de Winter, soon finds the estate to be imprisoning. In particular, Manderley’s housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers (brilliantly played by Australian stage actress Dame Judith Anderson), is uniquely unfriendly to the new lady of the house, and she moves like a ghost throughout the estate.
Hitchcock deliberately captures the vastness of Manderley throughout the film –the high, arched ceilings, the long creeping shadows, and the hanging haziness that gives the audience an impression of a memory that has long since passed. In contrast, our narrator is timid and shy. She is unaccustomed to being a proper lady. Everywhere she turns in the house, remnants of Mr. de Winters’s first wife, Rebecca, lie carefully placed in plain view, almost as if Rebecca had never truly died –her stationary, the way she took her meals, her clothes, and even a personally embroidered pillow. Indeed, as stories are told about Rebecca, the camera often moves in such a way that we in the audience imagine that we can see her as she once was. We learn that Rebecca was a beautiful lady and a gregarious hostess, loved by all, including the servants, but that she died tragically in a boating accident. Gradually, our narrator grows distant and distraught when comparing herself to such a superior woman. Meanwhile, Mrs. Danvers plants all manner of terrible ideas in the head of the new Mrs. de Winter (and we also learn that Mrs. Danvers’s affection for Rebecca ran deeper than simply an employer to housekeeper, as in one scene, Mrs. Danvers can be clearly seen embracing the silk and see-through lingerie of Rebecca, her lover). Apparently, the Hays Office entirely missed the veiled references in Rebecca to a lesbian romance between Mrs. Danvers and Rebecca. At any rate, in order to win the true affection of Maxim de Winter, along with all the servants, our narrator desperately decides to throw a grand costume party. Under the advice of Mrs. Danvers, she dresses up as a prominent painting of one of Mr. Winters’s relatives, however as soon as she unveils her costume at the party there is a quiet hush and Maxim grows suddenly irate and embarrassed. This was apparently the same costume once worn by Rebecca only a year prior at another costume party. Mortified, our narrator runs out of the room and contemplates suicide (again, urged on by Mrs. Danvers), but she is interrupted. A boat has run aground off the coast, and it has led to the discovery of another boat lying at the bottom of the sea with a dead body in it. Our protagonist rushes to find Mr. de Winter down at the boathouse, where he confesses the true events of the night Rebecca died. Their marriage had not been well, Rebecca was a manipulative and uncaring woman who entertained numerous friends and suitors (including her own cousin, Jack Favell, played by George Sanders). In fact, Maxim hated Rebecca. The last straw came when she led Maxim to believe that she was pregnant with the child of one of her suitors, and she taunted him to the point that Maxim struck her, she fell, hit her head, and died. Maxim then stowed her body in a boat, and broke several holes into the hull so it would scuttle and sink. He then cast the boat adrift on the waves. In the film, in order to satisfy the censors, Rebecca’s death is described as an accident resulting from a fight, whereas in the book, Maxim had intentionally killed her.
The final part of the film involves a renewed investigation into the death of Rebecca now that her boat has been discovered. Maxim is questioned again about his potential involvement in his late wife’s death. Jack Favell, Rebecca’s cousin and lover, claims to possess a letter that could implicate Mr. de Winter in her death. Favell attempts to blackmail Maxim. However, Maxim refuses to relent and in the course of the investigation, it comes to light that Rebecca had been secretly visiting a doctor in London. We are led to believe this was due to her pregnancy, however it turns out she had actually contracted cancer. Maxim is not found culpable in her death, but upon their return to Manderley, Mrs. Danvers has decided to set the vast estate on fire (a plot-point also found in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre). Mrs. Danvers prefers to die with the memory of Rebecca, rather than continue living with the new Mrs. de Winter. She dies as a shadowy silhouette, surrounded by growing flames, crushed by falling rubble in the West Wing where Rebecca used to reside. Thus ends the film.
In Rebecca, we feel a desperate need to feel close to someone, and overcome Mr. de Winter’s cold and off-putting demeanor, while also seeking to expose the thin veil that keeps a successful marriage held together, as in the case of the de Winters. We don’t get a name for our anonymous narrator, but her desperation hangs everywhere. Sadly, she is too mousy and passive to transform Manderley into her new home, at least at first, as Rebecca (the late Mrs. de Winter) still dominates the hearts and minds of everyone she once encountered. Rebecca is named but never seen in the film, whereas out narrator is seen but never named. Even the title of the film “Rebecca” overshadows everything –it seems impossible to escape her intoxicating memory. Yet, in the end our narrator does indeed transform herself. She shows that she is willing to perpetuate the lie of Rebecca’s death in order to protect her own fledgling marriage, proving that she is not wholly innocent and naive. In the end, she escapes the lingering memory of Rebecca with Mrs. Danvers’s suicide amidst the burning of Manderley. And yet our narrator (as evidenced in the opening monologue of the film) still thinks back upon Manderley in her later years, demonstrating that she is never truly free from the ghosts of her past either.
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Credits:
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Screenplay by: Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison
- Adaptation by: Philip MacDonald and Michael Hogan
- Based on: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
- Produced by: David O. Selznick
- Starring:
- Laurence Olivier…..George Fortescue Maximilian “Maxim” or “Max” de Winter
- Joan Fontaine…..the second Mrs. de Winter (her first name is never given)
- Judith Anderson…..Mrs. “Danny” Danvers, housekeeper of Manderley
- George Sanders…..Jack Favell, Rebecca’s sleazy first cousin and lover
- Reginald Denny…..Frank Crawley, Maxim’s estate manager of Manderley and friend
- Gladys Cooper…..Beatrice Lacy, Maxim’s sister
- C. Aubrey Smith…..Colonel Julyan who investigates the renewed case of the death of Rebecca
- Nigel Bruce…..Major Giles Lacy, Beatrice’s husband (a silly comedic relief Hitchcock uses to poke fun at the fussy, aloof, stuffy British gentlemanly class)
- Florence Bates…..Mrs. Edythe Van Hopper, employer of the second Mrs. de Winter (another vain, ridiculous British character in a Hitchcock film who has a heavy presence in the first third or so of the film at Monte Carlo)
- Cinematography: George Barnes
- Edited by: W. Donn Hayes
- Music by: Franz Waxman
- Production Company: Selznick International Pictures
- Distributed by: United Artists
Other Notes:
- Hitchcock Cameo: Near the end of the film, Hitchcock can be seen walking, with his back turned to the audience, past Jack Favell who is being amusingly chastised by a police officer for parking along the street, while Flavell in turn chides the policeman for apparently having nothing better to do. Mr. Flavell has just completed his call to Mrs. Danvers to inform her of Rebecca’s previously unknown cancer diagnosis.
- Rebecca won two Academy Awards: Best Picture and Best Cinematography (George Barnes). It was nominated for nine other Academy Awards.
- This film marked the first of five nominations Hitchcock would receive for Best Director at the Academy Awards (Rebecca, Lifeboat, Spellbound, Rear Window, and Psycho) though in this particular year he would lose to John Ford for The Grapes of Wrath. Shamefully, Hitchcock never did win an Oscar for Best Director.
- The Breen Office, Hollywood’s censorship board, specifically prohibited any outright hint of a lesbian infatuation or intimate relationship between Mrs. Danvers and Rebecca, even though a subtext is readily apparent throughout the film. Additionally, many viewers have been careful to note a quiet implication of Maxim’s apparent impotence.
- Hitchcock’s initial plan was to make a film about the Titanic before pursuing Rebecca with David O. Selznick. Hitchcock actually had an opportunity to purchase the film rights to Rebecca, but he was outbid by Selznick.
- After a successful casting publicity stunt David O. Selznick launched the year before for Gone with the Wind, he once again opened the doors for every leading lady in Hollywood to audition for the part of Mrs. de Winter. The top contenders for the role were Loretta Young, Margaret Sullavan, Anne Baxter (who was only 16 years old at the time), Vivien Leigh (fresh off Gone with the Wind), and Joan Fontaine (her nemesis sister Olivia de Havilland was also considered for the part). Laurence Olivier had been partial to Vivien Leigh but when she didn’t get the role, he tended to snub Joan Fontaine as she was outcasted onset particularly by Olivier –and Hitchcock encouraged this ostracization in order to increase her character’s feeling of isolation and helplessness.
- It was initially intended that Manderley would go up in smoke and the flames would spell out a giant “R” shape. However, Hitchcock rightly found this to be too cliche of an ending, so while Selznick was distracted with other projects, he replaced it with iconic burning pillow that features an “R” embroidered by Mrs. Danvers on Rebecca’s bed. In some senses, it echoes the closing scene of Citizen Kane which would be released the following year.
- David O. Selznick and Alfred Hitchcock had entirely different working styles –Selznick was often frantic, operating on minimal sleep, and he distributed numerous memos, whereas Hitchcock was slow and methodical in his creative output.
- In his famous interview with Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock notes that there is one chief flaw with Rebecca –namely the problem posed by the fact that a second body of a dead woman had washed ashore on the evening in which Rebecca died, and no one recognized this woman, allowing Max de Winter to claim it was the body Rebecca. Who was this woman? Did no one else claim her body? Would the mortician not have identified her?