Rebecca (1940)

User Rating:

8.4/10   

Director:

Alfred Hitchcock

Writers:

Daphne Du Maurier (novel)
Philip MacDonald (adaptation) ...
(more)

Release Date:

12 April 1940 (USA)

Genre:

Mystery | Romance | Thriller

Tagline:

The shadow of this woman darkened their love.

Plot:

When a naive young woman marries a rich widower and settles in his gigantic mansion, she finds the memory of the first wife maintaining a grip on her husband and the servants.

Plot Keywords:

Death | Love | Housekeeper | Monte Carlo | Estate

Awards:

Won 2 Oscars. Another 9 nominations

Cast

Laurence Olivier	...	'Maxim' de Winter
Joan Fontaine	...	The Second Mrs. de Winter
George Sanders	...	Jack Favell
Judith Anderson	...	Mrs. Danvers
Nigel Bruce	...	Major Giles Lacy
Reginald Denny	...	Frank Crawley
C. Aubrey Smith	...	Colonel Julyan
Gladys Cooper	...	Beatrice Lacy
Florence Bates	...	Mrs. Edythe Van Hopper
Melville Cooper	...	Coroner
Leo G. Carroll	...	Dr. Baker
Leonard Carey	...	Ben
Lumsden Hare	...	Tabbs
Edward Fielding	...	Frith
Forrester Harvey	...	Chalcroft
Philip Winter	...	Robert
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Billy Bevan	...	Policeman (uncredited)
Egon Brecher	...	Hotel Desk Clerk (uncredited)
Gino Corrado	...	Hotel Manager (uncredited)
Alfred Hitchcock	...	Man Outside Phone Booth (uncredited)
Leyland Hodgson	...	Mullen (uncredited)
Alphonse Martell	...	Hotel Headwaiter (uncredited)
William H. O'Brien	...	Hotel Waiter (uncredited)
Ronald R. Rondell	...	Hotel Dining Room Guest (uncredited)

Directed by
Alfred Hitchcock

Writing credits
Daphne Du Maurier		(novel)
Philip MacDonald		(adaptation) and
Michael Hogan		(adaptation)
Robert E. Sherwood		(screenplay) and
Joan Harrison		(screenplay)

Produced by
David O. Selznick	....	producer

Original Music by
Franz Waxman

Cinematography by
George Barnes		(photographed by)

Film Editing by
W. Donn Hayes		(uncredited)

Art Direction by
Lyle R. Wheeler		(as Lyle Wheeler)

Makeup Department
Monte Westmore	....	makeup artist (uncredited)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Edmond F. Bernoudy	....	assistant director (as Edmond Bernoudy)
Eric Stacey	....	assistant director (uncredited)

Art Department
Howard Bristol	....	interior decorator
Joseph B. Platt	....	interior designer
Dorothea Holt	....	illustrator (uncredited)

Sound Department
Jack Noyes	....	sound recordist
Arthur Johns	....	sound (uncredited)

Special Effects by
Jack Cosgrove	....	special effects

Visual Effects by
Albert Simpson	....	matte artist (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Arthur E. Arling	....	camera operator (uncredited)
Vincent J. Farrar	....	camera operator (uncredited)
Lloyd Knechtel	....	director of photography: second unit (uncredited)
Fred Parrish	....	still photographer (uncredited)
Irving Rosenberg	....	camera operator (uncredited)
Archie Stout	....	director of photography: second unit (uncredited)
John F. Warren	....	assistant camera (uncredited)
Harry L. Wolf	....	assistant camera (uncredited)

Editorial Department
Hal C. Kern	....	supervising editor (as Hal G. Kern)
James E. Newcom	....	associate film editor

Music Department
Louis Forbes	....	musical associate (as Lou Forbes)
Robert Russell Bennett	....	orchestrator (uncredited)
Hugo Friedhofer	....	orchestrator (uncredited)
Paul Marquardt	....	orchestrator (uncredited)
Joseph Nussbaum	....	orchestrator (uncredited)
Leonid Raab	....	orchestrator (uncredited)

Other crew
Barbara Keon	....	scenario assistant
W.A. Bagley	....	technical advisor (uncredited)
Russell Birdwell	....	unit publicist (uncredited)
Katherine Brown	....	story editor (uncredited)
Adele Cannon	....	script clerk (uncredited)
Val Lewton	....	story editor (uncredited)
Marcella Rabwin	....	executive assistant to producer (uncredited)
Lydia Schiller	....	continuity supervisor (uncredited)
David O. Selznick	....	presenter (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Selznick International Pictures

Distributors

• United Artists (1940) (USA) (theatrical)
• United Artists Corporation (1940) (UK) (theatrical)
• S.R.O. (1947) (France) (theatrical)
• Eagle-Lion Films (1949) (USA) (theatrical) (re-release)
• Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (1956) (USA) (theatrical) (re-release)
• ABC Video (1967) (USA) (all media)
• Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (1978) (USA) (TV) (network premiere)
• Guild Home Video (1986) (UK) (video)
• CBS / Fox Video (1988) (USA) (VHS)
• Key Video (1988) (USA) (VHS)
• Criterion Collection, The (1991) (USA) (video) (laserdisc)
• Braveworld (1992) (UK) (video)
• British Film Institute (BFI) (1996) (UK) (theatrical)
• Total Home Entertainment (1996) (UK) (video)
• Videosonic Arts (1996) (Greece) (VHS)
• Anchor Bay Entertainment (1999) (USA) (DVD)
• Pearson Television International (2000) (UK) (DVD)
• Criterion Collection, The (2003) (USA) (DVD)
• Aventi (2005) (France) (DVD)
• British Film Institute (BFI) (2006) (UK) (theatrical)
• T&K Telefilm (2007) (Japan) (theatrical)
• Athos Films (196?) (France) (theatrical) (re-release)
• Buena Vista International (????) (worldwide) (DVD)
• Fox Video (video)
• Sonoro Filme (Portugal)

Runtime:

130 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)

Certification:

West Germany:16 | UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (re-rating) | Spain:13 | Iceland:L | USA:Approved (certificate #5969) | Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | Finland:K-12 | South Korea:15 | Sweden:15 | Peru:14 | Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Big Sur, California, USA

Company:

Selznick International Pictures

Trivia:

Just as in the original novel, Mrs. de Winter has no first name.

Goofs:

Continuity: After the luncheon, de Winter and "I" are standing on the steps waving goodbye, Jasper the dog moves from one side of the steps to the other between shots.

Quotes:

Jack Favell: I say, marriage with Max is not exactly a bed of roses, is it?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Alchemist in Hollywood (1940)

"She knew everyone that mattered. Everyone loved her."

By the end of the 1930s, working for Michael Balcon at the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation , director Alfred Hitchcock was heading towards the peak of his artistic potential. Films such as 'The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934),' 'The 39 Steps (1935)' and 'The Lady Vanishes (1938)' became both critical and commercial successes, and so it was only a matter of time before he was tempted over to Hollywood to pursue even greater fame and fortune. Though his working relationship with independent producer David O. Selznick proved constantly frustrating – Selznick often demanded a large amount of creative control over his films – their very first collaboration proved one of Hitchcock's most successful, with 'Rebecca (1940)' becoming his only film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Based on Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel of the same name, 'Rebecca' is a tense, atmospheric Gothic melodrama about the lingering influence of the story's unseen title character, long after her own death.

Relative newcomer Joan Fontaine plays a young, modest woman who falls in love with a wealthy widower, Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier), who still apparently mourns the death of his wife, Rebecca. Following a humble wedding in Monte Carlo, the two lovers return to Maxim's sprawling Manderley estate in Cornwall, England, where the servants – especially the chillingly creepy Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson) – find it difficult to accept this young bride as the new Mrs. de Winter. Whenever Fontaine's character finds herself within the walls of her new home, the atmosphere in each of the rooms is discomforting, even suffocating, as she struggles vainly to assimilate into a world for which she is unsuited. Her character symbolically remains without a given name, reinforcing the story's stance that she is without an individual identity; as long as she remains with Maxim, she will continue to be evaluated against Rebecca, and will be forever in the lingering shadow of Maxim's long-dead, "perfect" previous wife.

The Master of Suspense certainly knew how to make an entrance into Hollywood, and 'Rebecca' is definitely one of his top ten films {out of the twenty-seven that I've seen thus far}. Though, at 130 minutes, it is one of the longest motion pictures that Hitchcock ever produced, the film never drags nor feels overly cumbersome, with the extended running time merely prolonging the suffering that the audience must endure through Fontaine's innocent, continually-threatened character. This isn't the sort of thriller that lulls you into a false sense of security and then shocks you, since that was simply not Hitchcock's style. Like another Gothic thriller of which I am fond, George Cukor's 'Gaslight (1944),' the main character is forever at ill-ease with her surroundings, and we, as the audience, are never afforded the luxury of feeling safe and secure. Rebecca de Winter is one of the most meticulously-detailed unseen characters in the history of cinema, and, without the story ever straying into supernatural territory, it seems as though her lingering presence is somehow orchestrating the disturbing events of the film.