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"Rebecca" has the distinction of being the only Hitchcock-directed film to win the Best Picture Oscar. (Ol´ Hitch himself never won the directing Oscar.) However, the movie doesn´t really feel like a Hitchcock production. Rather, given its literary origins and panoramic master shots, it feels like the work of über-producer David O. Selznick. Selznick was the Jerry Bruckheimer of his day--a producer who exercised more authority over a movie than any of his directors. However, whereas Bruckheimer continues to delude himself into thinking that "Pearl Harbor" was a serious movie, Selznick won back-to-back Best Picture Oscars with "Gone With the Wind" (1939) and "Rebecca" (1940).
In "Rebecca", Joan Fontaine plays the young traveling companion of an overbearing aristocratic lady on vacation in Monte Carlo. There, she meets Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier). The two have a rather odd courtship, and they get married within a matter of days. Max was recently widowed when his wife Rebecca died in a boating incident.
The couple returns to Manderley, Max´s humongous estate in England. At Manderley, Rebecca seems to haunt every facet of daily life. Indeed, the new Mrs. De Winter (poor Joanie!) faces being overwhelmed by the dead Rebecca. Especially creepy is the head of the household, Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson delivering a terrifying performance). Our heroine thinks that everyone is comparing her to the old Mrs. de Winter, and she fears that her inability to compare to Rebecca is causing Max to drift away...
Given that this is a Hitchcock movie, nothing is what it seems. It is a testament to the master´s technique that the film plays like a supernatural thriller when it really is a drama with mystery elements embedded into its story. I must say, though, that I feel that the success of "Rebecca" depends largely on the screenplay (written by Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison) and the source novel of the same title (written by Daphne du Maurier). Every little detail of the plot has been carefully constructed, and the clever way that the secrets in the film unravel cannot be attributed to the director in any way. Indeed, I think that the principal filmmakers (Hitchcock and Selznick) got in the way of their own movie.
Hitchcock´s earlier efforts were mostly tautly-paced efforts. Over the years, he began to indulge in longer running times. "Rebecca" was one of his films that ran over two hours in length. Boy, does this movie take its time getting started at the beginning. The first half of the film isn´t slow; it just has some fat that could have been trimmed. (Perhaps Selznick had trouble trimming "Rebecca" because "Gone With the Wind" had been four-hours long!) At any rate, I couldn´t help but think that the filmmakers were self-consciously trying to make a flick with more "heft" than the usual fare.
Some contemporary viewers will be put-off by the brusque manner of Olivier´s character. However, you must understand that he was simply acting the way a person of Max´s social stature would behave during the story´s time frame. Mr. Olivier´s commanding, arrogant presence fits his role perfectly, and it is in performances like the one here that you can see why he is considered one of the top five actors of the 20th Century.
In the other lead, Joan Fontaine acquits herself just as well as Olivier does. One will observe that Fontaine plays a character described as "I"--the character doesn´t even have her own name! The character assumes an identity when she marries Maxim de Winter, but she is still known by someone else´s name ("Mrs. de Winter" belongs to both Maxim and Rebecca--ouch!). Fontaine does a great job of using her delicate features and a shy onscreen persona to generate sympathy for her innocent, naïve, but determined character.
"Rebecca" reminded me of the recent "What Lies Beneath" in its use of actors. Harrison Ford is top-billed in "What Lies Beneath", but Michelle Pfeiffer had to carry 70 percent of the movie. The same thing occurs in "Rebecca". Olivier may have been the bigger star, but Fontaine is responsible for grabbing hold of the audience´s sympathies. Seeing this film, I find it to be a bit of a loss that she did not get along with her sister, Olivia de Havilland. Fontaine and de Havilland would have made such a great onscreen pair.
First released by Anchor Bay in 1999 as a movie-only DVD, "Rebecca" has found new life as a 2-disc set from The Criterion Collection. Some of the extras have been carried over from Criterion´s "Rebecca" laserdisc, and some of the extras are materials that have found their way to the general public for the first time.
Video:
"Rebecca" is more than 60 years old, and the 1.33:1 (full-frame on 4:3 monitors) black-and-white print suffered from physical damage over the years. When the film starts, you´ll see how scratches have seriously degraded the quality of the opening sequences. However, Criterion has done a great job restoring the movie--aside from the first 5-or-so minutes, the video image looks fairly clean. Once a while, you´ll see some dust or hairs, but surprisingly, graininess is hardly an issue. Also, the image looks stable, though I wonder if the film´s light sourcing is supposed to flicker so often during effects shots.
Audio:
The Dolby Digital 1.0 English is generally free of the problems associated with old movies. Basically, I didn´t hear many (if any) instances of hisses, pops, or crackles. Everything comes through clearly and distinctly (including the lush score by Franz Waxman). Sounds in the "middle" range are fine, though "highs" sound thin and "lows" are non-existent. Given the technology of the time, I won´t quibble about the lack of directionality effects. (However, when compared to today´s 5.1/6.1 mixes, mono sound designs definitely can not dazzle.)
English subtitles support the audio.
(Note: I noticed that there seems to be issues with the dialogue dubbing. I don´t think that this is a mastering problem with the DVD, but spoken dialogue doesn´t match up with the actors´ lips sometimes. This must be a case of poor looping during the film´s post-production. I noticed the same problem when I watched the Anchor Bay DVD.)
Extras:
When I reviewed Anchor Bay´s movie-only DVD release of "Rebecca", I wrote that the product fell "under the thank-heavens-it´s-on-DVD category. No one´s going to be thunderstruck by this presentation of the movie. However, bear in mind that this film has been kicked around by different studios over the decades, and whatever promotional work done for the film´s original release has been destroyed, has deteriorated, or has been misplaced in the great unknown. We´re lucky to have the film itself intact." Anchor Bay´s release offers one bonus material--a cardboard insert that displays the original poster artwork on one side and chapter listings on the other side.
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