Rebecca (1940)

A self-conscious bride is tormented by the memory of her husband's dead first wife.

Director:

Alfred Hitchcock

Writers:

Daphne Du Maurier (celebrated novel), Robert E. Sherwood (screen play)

Stars:

Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders

Top Rated Movies #176 | Won 2 Oscars. Another 5 wins & 10 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Laurence Olivier	...	'Maxim' de Winter
Joan Fontaine	...	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. Van Hopper
Melville Cooper	...	Coroner
Leo G. Carroll	...	Dr. Baker
Leonard Carey	...	Ben
Lumsden Hare	...	Tabbs
Edward Fielding	...	Frith
Philip Winter	...	Robert

Storyline

A shy lady's companion, staying in Monte Carlo with her stuffy employer, meets the wealthy Maxim de Winter. She and Max fall in love, marry and return to Manderley, his large country estate in Cornwall. Max is still troubled by the death of his first wife, Rebecca, in a boating accident the year before. The second Mrs. de Winter clashes with the housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, and discovers that Rebecca still has a strange hold on everyone at Manderley.

---

Plot Keywords:

widower | castle | unhappy marriage | haunted by the past | marriage proposal | 

---

Taglines:

The shadow of a remembered woman came between their lips... but these two had the courage to hope... and to live their love!

---

Genres:

Drama | Mystery | Romance | Thriller

---

Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English French

Release Date:

12 April 1940 (USA)

Also Known As:

Rebecca

Filming Locations:

Big Sur, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$1,288,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$4,360,000

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$7,592,465

Company Credits

Production Co:

Selznick International Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

130 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

A chinchilla coat valued at $25,000 was loaned by Jaeckel's of New York to appear in Rebecca's closet. Nobody actually wears it in the movie. It is one of the items Mrs. Danvers shows to the second Mrs. de Winter.

---

Goofs

When de Winter is showing the honeymoon film, he tells Mrs. de Winter "this is where I set the camera up on the tripod". However, the image they're watching zooms in (this is before the cinematographic image zooms in on the entire film-viewing scene in the movie, itself). Since the camera was on a tripod, it wouldn't have been able to zoom by itself since de Winter was posing with his wife at the time, not adjusting the camera.

---

Quotes

Maxim de Winter: [after he has asked her to marry him] My suggestion doesn't seem to have gone at all well, i'm sorry.
The Second Mrs. de Winter: Oh but you don't understand! It's just that I, well i'm, not the person men marry.

---

Crazy Credits

The original 1940 credits read "Selznick International presents its picturization of Daphne Du Maurier's 'Rebecca'". The credits on the re-issue version read "The Selznick Studio presents its production of Daphne Du Maurier's 'Rebecca'".

---

Alternate Versions

The opening credits were re-done (with different font) for the 1950's re-release of the movie. It is these credits that have turned up on all telecasts of the film (even as recently as 2013) and all previous video releases. The Criterion release (which is now only available through outlet stores) restores all of the credits to their original form.

---

Connections

Featured in Hitchcock: Shadow of a Genius (1999)

---

Soundtracks

Love's Old Sweet Song (Just a Song at Twilight)
(1884) (uncredited)
Music by J.L. Molloy
Hummed by Joan Fontaine

User Reviews

A film with a nameless protagonist and an invisible namesake

This was Alfred Hitchcock's first American-made film. Quite frankly, I'm amazed at how well Hitchcock "got" what American audiences wanted in their suspense films, hitting them out of the park from the moment he began working in the US.

Apart from being a tad bit long, this is a well made film. I love the inside of Mandalay and Sir Laurence Olivier played a wonderful mysterious and sullen Maximillian De Winter opposite his new wife, a beautiful and naive young Joan Fontaine who is never even given a name here, probably deliberately and in keeping with how mousy and "second hand" she feels about herself in relation to the first and late Mrs. De Winter, who is actually Rebecca from the title.

Of course there is also George Sanders, playing the type of character he is best known for--sarcastic, snobby, self-assured, pompous, witty and verbose. He hits the nail on the head as Rebecca's "cousin" - so he calls himself. Of course the most eerie and unsettling character was Mrs. Danvers, Rebecca's housekeeper or "maid in waiting." Danvers takes great pains in sabotaging the second Mrs. De Winter's marital relationship with Max de Winter,--even going as far as calmly urging her to to plunge to her death into the water from Rebecca's bedroom window at Mandalay. There are a couple of twists in this movie, but I won't give them away. It's best if you watch them unfold yourself in true Hitchcockian style.

I will say that Rebecca, the first wife of Max de Winter, is NEVER seen, but we learn about her by what is said about her by the various characters, even going as far as seeing the untouched shrine of a bedroom maintained by Mrs. Danvers. But soon you learn that Rebecca was never the perfect wife Danvers and others make her out to be. The ending is a surprise in more way than one, and yet Mrs. Danvers gets the last word in her own way. A great movie by Alfred Hitchcock and David O. Selznick.