BEFORE: So Alfie goes to Hollywood, and boom, home run right out of the box. He directed "Rebecca", which won the Best Picture Oscar for 1940. Did it deserve it? I'll be the judge of that...
Linking from "Jamaica Inn", Charles Laughton was also in "Spartacus" with Laurence Olivier (last seen in "The Bounty").
AFTER: This one went through a couple of phases - at first it just seemed like it was going to be a romance film, where a young woman (funny, I don't think they ever gave her name...) meets an older widower, Mr. De Winter, while working as an older lady's traveling companion in Monte Carlo. She ducks out for "tennis lessons" but is really going on long car trips with this gentleman, and when the time comes for her to travel on, he offers to marry her instead. Parts of this phase were even close to comic, with the older woman wondering why the gentleman's not calling on her.
When our heroine moves in with "Maxim", it looks like this is going to be another stuffy British drama with stuffy people in a big stuffy mansion, Manderley. But Hitchcock had other ideas - there's no shortage of creepy people working on staff, like Mrs. Danvers, the head of staff (?) who sees fit to undercut the new Mrs. De Winter at every opportunity. When she invites the new bride in to see the room of Rebecca, the first Mrs. De Winter, which has been lovingly preserved since the day she died, we start to wonder what the hidden agenda really is.
It's still possible at this point that the new bride is just being paranoid - it's a common fear, after all, to wonder about your mate's ex-lovers or previous spouses. How do you measure up, by comparison? Are they still holding a torch for their ex-wife or old lovers? Max certainly seems to act the part, going from sullen to wistful to just plain erratic. And he flips out when Mrs. Danvers tricks the new bride into dressing just like Rebecca at a costume ball.
But then Hitchcock pulls another about-face and a couple of shocking occurences bring new truths to light. Nothing is what we first thought it was, and even Max's reasons for acting the way he does are seen from a new angle. There are secrets within secrets, and no one is safe.
Like "Jamaica Inn", this was based on a novel by Daphne DuMaurier, and Hitchcock even later adapted her short story "The Birds" as well.
Also starring Joan Fontaine, George Sanders (last seen in "All About Eve"), Judith Anderson (last seen in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"), Reginald Denny (last seen in "Around the World in 80 Days"), Nigel Bruce, C. Aubrey Smith, Gladys Cooper, Florence Bates (last seen in "On the Town"), Leo G. Carroll.
RATING: 6 out of 10 home movies
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