Rebecca (film)

Rebecca —known in Spanish as Rebeca and Rebeca, an unforgettable woman — is a 1940 American feature film shot in black and white and spoken in English. It is based on the novel Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier. It was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, produced by David O. Selznick, and starred Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. In addition to its artistic merits, which earned him the Oscar for best film, it is important for being the first film that the Englishman Hitchcock shot in the United States.

Background

In the mid-1930s, British director Alfred Hitchcock had heard of the interest that some American producers had in acquiring his services. His films The Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps had brought him worldwide fame. The idea of crossing the Atlantic was tempting due to the greater technical solvency of American cinema, but it also carried a risk. In his country he was already a well-known and respected figure, he had almost total control over his work and he developed a rich social life in which he was revered by journalists. Thus, after finishing the filming of Innocence and Youth he decided to spend a vacation in the United States. On August 22, 1937, he disembarked in New York accompanied by his wife, his daughter, and his secretary Joan Harrison.

He soon received an offer from Pandro S. Berman to shoot a film with RKO, a project that never came to fruition. At the same time, Katherine "Kay" Brown, a manager for producer David O. Selznick, invited him to spend a few days at her Amagansett country house and negotiated vigorously with him. However, on September 4, without having agreed anything, the director and his family returned to the United Kingdom.

While Hitchcock was preparing to film The Lady Vanishes, Selznick sent Brown and John Hay Whitney, a prominent executive from his production company, to England in November. They both got to see Innocence and Youth in a private showing and, while the latter did not like it at all and telegraphed his boss telling him not to make any decisions without seeing it first, the former liked it and advised Selznick to ignore Whitney in the slightest. In this way, and not only for that detail, Kay Brown was decisive for the understanding between director and producer. In addition, Hitchcock had the sincerity to express in front of them his interest in the novel Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier, who was the daughter of an old friend of his. The result was that Selznick sent him a telegram on January 9, 1938, offering him the chance to direct the film for him, and subsequently acquired the rights to the film adaptation from him.

In March 1938, Selznick was able to see Innocence and Youth, a film that delighted him. He continued to send telegrams to England laying out plans for possible films. But an interview Hitchcock gave in which he said the deal was still up in the air and expressed his desire to have as much weight in the film as the producer disappointed him. The interruption of his telegrams, in turn, disappointed the English director, who reacted by sending a letter to his representative to convey to Selznick his annoyance for not having reached an agreement. In addition, he had hired Myron Selznick, brother of the producer, as a representative, in the conviction that this would facilitate the agreement.

In May, Selznick offered Hitchcock to make a film about the sinking of the Titanic, an idea that the English filmmaker said —with more or less sincerity depending on one source or another— was also on his mind. He still made a new trip to the USA in June 1938, in which RKO did not accept his conditions and Samuel Goldwyn did not even make him an offer. The uncertain European political situation had affected the British film industry, which was severely diminished. It was then that he finally decided to sign a contract with Selznick that would begin in April 1939. The announcement was made on July 9, and the contract included Joan Harrison as special assistant director, something rare and something Myron Selznick felt very much about. satisfied. Hitchcock would thus have time to direct his last British film: Jamaica Inn, also based on a novel by Du Maurier. Director and producer finally met in person in a very cordial meeting, the contract was signed on July 14 and Hitchcock returned to England.

The Hitchcock and Joan Harrison family during their first visit to the United States.

The director's decision was logical. The reaction of British academic circles towards cinema had always been contemptuous, considering that it was an industry created by the middle classes for consumption by the lower classes. Hitchcock's work was regarded by these elites as little more than passable entertainment. However, Americans were enthusiastic about the filmmaker's work and it was only natural that he would respond favorably.

In September Selznick considered Titanic his first choice, although he kept thinking of Rebeca. Daphne du Maurier's novel had been published on August 5, and the writer expressed her dissatisfaction with the film version of Jamaica Inn . But the good references she received about the fidelity with which Selznick treated the literary texts in her adaptations convinced her to sell him the rights for $50,000.

The successful October release of The Lady Vanishes convinced American critics that Hitchcock was the only major foreign director. In December, Selznick expected the director and Joan Harrison to have finished the first script for Rebecca , but the filmmaker's response was that he needed more time due to the writing of the novel in the first person. The producer understood that Hitchcock needed more freedom than other directors.

On March 1, 1939, the Hitchcock family boarded the Queen Mary from Southampton bound for America. With them were the faithful Harrison, a cook, a maid and two dogs. Rebecca. With the Pennsylvanian producer still wrapped up in the gigantic production of Gone with the Wind, the Hitchcocks were in no rush. After a few days in New York, they arrived in California and spent the time looking for a house and establishing some social relationships. On April 10, the director officially joined Selznick International Pictures and began to go to an office accompanied by Joan Harrison and, usually, his wife Alma de él to work on the script for Rebeca .

The Producer

At this time, David O. Selznick was expanding his film empire. He had started as a producer in 1923 in his father's company. Subsequently, he had worked successively at Metro, RKO, Paramount, and again at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he was supported by his mother-in-law, Louis B. Mayer. He had finally just founded his own company, Selznick International Pictures.From 1935 he formed the leading triumvirate of the United Artists production company along with Samuel Goldwyn and Walter Wanger. There he had implanted a style based on spectacular productions intended to satisfy popular taste with scenic grandeur. He had successfully produced films as diverse as The Little Lord (John Cromwell, 1936), The Prisoner of Zenda (J. Cromwell, 1937), A Star is Born (William A. Wellman, 1937) and Intermezzo (Gregory Ratoff, 1939).. When Hitchcock arrived in the United States, the businessman was completely immersed in the complex filming of Gone with the Wind. Very fatigued from the effort, he looked more than thirty-seven years old, but he made it clear that, Despite her workload, she would pay personal attention to Rebeca.

David O. Selznick was at the top of his career.

Selznick was a meticulous script writer, visiting the set frequently and making sure the shoot was on schedule in every detail. Every day he wrote an extensive memorandum that contained numerous instructions addressed to his directors and many other collaborators indicating the things that had to be corrected so that his products would bear the seal of the house. In addition, he considered fidelity to the literary works on which the films were based was essential, in order not to disappoint the public that had read them and expected their translation to the screen. In the case of Rebeca, he believed that the romantic nature of the novel had to be respected, so that the spectators could identify with the main character.

Hitchcock proposed shooting the film in forty-eight days and for $947,000, but Selznik lowered both figures to thirty-six days and $750,000. He also expected the director to shoot four pages of the script each day. However, the Englishman was not yet used to the way of working in the United States and shot more slowly. Despite the differences in style, Hitchcock ended up enjoying greater independence than other directors who had worked with the producer. But that relative freedom did not prevent friction from arising. Preparations for the premiere of Gone with the Wind did not prevent Selznick from paying the same attention to Rebeca as he did to her biggest hit. His publicity director, Whitney Bolton, would later say that Hitchcock was not nice and that he enjoyed prodding others. He also believed that he was always looking for attention and, if he didn't get it, he would react with irritation. For his part, at thirty-seven years old, Selznick was making his sixty-ninth film, and was developing remarkable energy in his production work. He relied on his wife Irene, daughter of Louis B. Mayer, as well as his use of a delicate mix of barbiturates and amphetamines.

In addition to monitoring the progress on a daily basis, the producer personally attended the filming of certain key scenes, such as the one in which Mrs. Danvers shows the protagonist Rebeca's personal items; an insignificant scene in the novel that Hitchcock turned into one of the best in the film. This sequence in Rebecca's old room was enriched with a subtle detail at Selznick's request: a portrait of Max de Winter placed on the dressing table whose presence should hurt the protagonist.

Selznick's efforts paid off. Rebeca won the Oscar for best film in the 1940 edition. And she did so, beating rivals such as The Grapes of Wrath and The Long Voyage Home, both directed by John Ford; The Great Dictator, by Charles Chaplin; The Philadelphia Story, by George Cukor; Our Town, by Sam Wood; The letter, by William Wyler and Foreign Correspondent, written by Hitchcock himself. Selznick was very pleased to receive the award, which was the second in a row after Gone with the Wind.

Although Selznick always respected Hitchcock's talent, he made three more films with him —Spellbound, Notorious and The Paradine Case— and the public responded to them at the box office, not he never came to like the director due to their notable differences regarding how to approach the film medium.

The novel

Rebeca, romantic and Gothic novel.

Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier, is a psychological novel with clear roots in the soap opera, a romantic and gothic story with some similarities to Jane Eyre, the novel written by Charlotte Brontë in 1847: young protagonists overwhelmed by doubt, luxurious mansions located in desolate places, the weight of the past and the deceased, terrifying fires and apparently happy endings. Published in 1938, it had been a bestseller in the United Kingdom and the United States, and had already been translated into several languages. Although surely far from the tastes of the 21st century, it is still a popular novel. Its plot is somewhat maudlin, with good characters and bad guys and a Cinderella who gets a happy ending.

The script

At the end of 1938 Selznick had asked Hitchcock for a first treatment of the script and had tried to name a writer to review it. The English director told him that he should wait to see the first script before thinking about another adapter. In fact, he rejected the names of Lillian Hellman, Martin Buckley, Charles Brackett, Delmer Daves and Philip MacDonald, although the latter did briefly collaborate on the project and was eventually credited as co-adaptator. Before moving to America, he began to work on the script together with his secretary Joan Harrison and Michael Hogan, a script that he would finish in the United States. Hitchcock disparaged the novel, which he considered women's literature. He decided to keep the main framework, but suppressing much of the plot and modifying several characters. He introduced humorous sequences and tried to eliminate that feminine spirit. In addition, the structure of the script was very different from that used to be used in Hollywood and contained many more scenes and greater precision in terms of dialogue and camera focus. This first script horrified Selznick when he read it on June 3, 1939, and was flatly rejected by the producer, who did not like the sense of humor introduced and wanted a respectful treatment of the original novel so as not to offend his numerous readers..

The playwright Robert E. Sherwood (sensed), gave a more American touch to the script.

The producer sent Hitchcock one of his lengthy memos explaining the reasons for the rejection. "We bought Rebeca and we intend to film Rebeca ," he said in summary. An opening scene in which Maxim de Winter made the other passengers on a ship sick by smoking a cigar seemed extremely vulgar to him. He further believed that the script had not correctly designed the complex personalities of Mrs. Danvers, Maxim and Mrs. de Winter herself; and that she was left with a lunatic grandmother who did not exist in the novel and who lived in an isolated Brönte-style tower.

Selznick then hired Robert E. Sherwood, a prestigious playwright and frequent film adapter of English literary works. He revised the previous text, adjusting it to the producer's taste, although Hitchcock was able to deftly weather some of Selznick's impositions. Although Sherwood's contribution was quantitatively minor, it is by no means negligible. For example, it was he who helped resolve the treatment of Maxim de Winter's confession sequence to his wife—which Hitchcock had initially intended to resolve with a flashback—by turning it into a monologue to which the director would give imaginative treatment. visual. There was also a problem with the Film Production Code, which couldn't accept that Maxim de Winter was the murderer of his first wife and went unpunished. Selznick was very irritated by film censorship, which he considered an obstacle to art, and he thought that Sherwood might be the person to overcome that obstacle and to expunge and polish the script. For his part, Hitchcock was aware that he had to accept both the impositions of the Hays code and those of the producer. He, too, appreciated being allowed to participate in writing the script, though he lamented Selznick's long work shifts, which stretched into the wee hours of the morning. On the other hand, the producer was undoubtedly an experienced filmmaker with excellent judgment about how a film could succeed commercially and artistically. And he offered excellent pay and comfortable working conditions that made up for the hectic pace followed.

On July 29, 1939, a script summary was reached that included the ideas common to the producer and director and on September 7 the final script was approved. Finally, Sherwood and Harrison were the signatories of the script, including the aforementioned Hogan and MacDonald as co-adapters. The involvement of each in the final result remains disputed, as Donald Spoto opines that Sherwood contributed the least while pointing to the uncredited involvement of Hitchcock's wife, Alma, who had collaborated with Hogan in the first script. However, Hitchcock himself later acknowledged to François Truffaut that Sherwood had a great influence on the film by writing "the script from a less narrow point of view than we would have done in England".

The Hays code prevented development that was present in the first script. The fact that for much of the film Max de Winter was suspected of having murdered her first wife was replaced by her accidental death. The director accepted the modification without major problem.

Sherwood and Harrison were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, but were defeated by Donald Ogden Stewart for their work on The Philadelphia Story.

Synopsis

"Last night I dreamed I was going back to Manderley...". The protagonist's off voice opens the film with the already famous phrase while the camera crosses the threshold of the aforementioned mansion and shows a misty, ghostly landscape typical of dreams or memories.

The humble wife feels out of place in the mansion.

A young lady who works as a chaperone meets a lord in Monte Carlo by chance. This one —Max de Winter— is traumatized by the recent death of his wife and seems to find happiness in the young woman's company. Soon after they marry and settle in Manderley, the English country mansion where the lord lived in the company of Rebecca, his first wife. The new Lady de Winter has difficulty adjusting to the new role of her ladyship, self-conscious about her image of her predecessor, which is further contributed to by the hostile attitude of the housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers. She seems intent on pointing out that she can't compete with the previous lady of the house, and her advice to wear a certain dress to a costume ball will only make things worse.

The same night of the dance, Rebeca's yacht is found sunk near the coast, containing her body. Max confesses to his wife that he did not love Rebeca and that she died accidentally. Frightened, he put her aboard her sloop and opened her spigots so she would sink. At first, suspicions of murder fall on him. However, the investigation reveals that Rebeca suffered from an incurable disease, which is why it is assumed that she committed suicide. Overcome with the memory of the deceased, the couple prepare to live happily, but before that they witness Mrs. Danvers set fire to Manderley until the complete destruction of both the mansion and the estranged housekeeper.

While in the novel the narrator narrates all the action from a happy present that the reader knows, in the film she disappears after that beginning, the viewer ignores the outcome and the plot takes the retrospective form.

Shooting

Filming began on September 7, but it was marked by the outbreak of war in Europe. Hitchcock was concerned for his relatives living in London, fearing that the city would be bombed. In addition, the insecurity of Joan Fontaine also had an influence. Hitchcock considered it essential to prepare her work. She was the only American actress in the cast along with Florence Bates, and Laurence Olivier made clear her displeasure that Vivien Leigh had not been cast. All this produced an unusual slowness in the work and a delay that disgusted Selznick. In addition, the producer was also bothered by the traditional working method of the British director. This was often shot solely from one camera angle, leaving few editing options and limiting Selznick's role in post-production.

The relationship between Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine was difficult.

Selznick tasked his script supervisor, Lydia Schiller, with keeping an eye on Hitchcock and reporting back whenever he strayed from the script. The director found out about it and was furious. From then on, he declared war on Schiller, and every time they met, he quietly uttered what she called disgusting obscenities. Despite this, the employee got over it and continued with her work.

As the film progressed, Hitchcock became increasingly annoyed by Selznick's presence and imposition despite the fact that all of his regular collaborators told him that the producer was being much more flexible with him than with others directors. In late September he openly complained that Rebecca appeared to be a Selznick film. The stubborn director was up against an equally stubborn producer with comparable knowledge of the industry and art of film. The expansive character of the producer was very different from the reserve of the English director and they could collide at any moment. However, the tension did not exceed the limit of what was admissible due to the tolerance shown by both and the assumption of multiple "gentlemen's agreements".

Finally Selznick found a way to ease the existing polite tension with Hitchcock. He negotiated with producer Walter Wanger to loan him out to shoot another film that would end up being Foreign Correspondent . On September 21, the director had lunch with Wanger and, a few days later, the assignment contract was made official. Hitchcock saw his presence in the United States consolidate, Wanger was very satisfied and Selznick got excellent economic conditions and somewhat relieved the pressure caused by two such important and upcoming films as Gone with the Wind and Rebecca. Immediately, the pace of shooting Rebeca picked up. However, the three-way relationship ended up producing some friction. In February Selznick called in the filmmaker to direct a few additional takes for a week, probably with the aim of getting Wanger's attention because he was overstepping the limits of the contract.

Address

Although Hitchcock's daughter Patricia remembered the shoot as pleasant because she said Selznick was distracted by the complicated filming of Gone with the Wind, that impression is not what her father conveyed. Quite the contrary, the director always reported that his work was not pleasant due to the constant interference of the producer. The British filmmaker had wanted to move to the United States to benefit from the technical and financial advantages of the Hollywood industry, but he had not expected to find such interference in his work or so many differences in artistic conception. The strict control that Selznick carried out so that the script was respected was something that Hitchcock was not used to, since in his country the successive producers with whom he had worked had respected his creative freedom.

The honeymoon is narrated elliptically through the domestic film.

But Hitchcock knew how to successfully navigate the difficult relations with an authoritarian businessman such as Selznick. He not only vetoed several writers who were not to his liking, but also participated in the choice of the leading actress. His working method was very different from that of the producer, since the British liked to experiment, he was a friend of taking unconventional shots and he did not consider the script to be untouchable. The director had a great "left hand" and deftly evaded some of the producer's impositions despite the producer's frequent visits, to the point that many considered him the director who had enjoyed the most freedom under Selznick. He realized that he had to leave him a greater margin of decision than other directors, which facilitated relations between the two.

The beginning of the film has been noted as one of Hitchcock's best, a director characterized by excellent movie openings. The moon, breaking through the clouds, illuminates the trellis surrounding Manderley as Joan Fontaine's voice haltingly recounts his dream. Finally, the silhouette of the still imposing mansion is outlined with a mixture of lordship and perversity. The sequence places the viewer in an unreal space linked to dreams and nostalgia.

After the prologue, a disturbing scene is shown in which, after showing us how the waves break against the coast, a panoramic view presents the figure of a man at the top of the cliff. A close-up shows the tormented face of Maxim de Winter and an insert, his foot subtly advancing into the void. In a few seconds the disturbing relationship between the character and the sea is shown and, shortly after, the female protagonist is introduced. The sequence is linked to a much later sequence in which Maxim will finally confess the truth of his relationship with Rebeca.

The sequence of the second car ride of the main couple through Monte Carlo is a good example of the evocation of a past that weighs on the present of the characters. Its planning and shooting in ten shots is perfectly coordinated with the dialogues – "there are memories that are like demons", Maxim replies when she expresses her desire to keep the memories bottled up – to show the successive moods of both characters.

Manipulating the soap opera roots of the novel, the British director planned the film more to define characters and situations than to serve the narrative. In it, space plays a fundamental role, as can be seen in the repeated shots that show the protagonist alone in a room while the camera moves back, evidencing the helplessness of the second Mrs. de Winter. An example is the sequence in which that the faithful administrator Frank Crawley confesses to him that Rebecca was "the most beautiful creature that I have ever seen." The throwback doll dwarfs the characters and opens the painting to the surroundings of the Manderley mansion, oppressive for the protagonist.

He also makes clever use of ellipsis. This is the case with the fleeting courtship of the protagonists, shown through car rides with unique shots and little dialogue; or with the honeymoon, excellently shown through the projection of the home movie. In it, the happiness of the lovers shown by the filming of their trip is subtly contrasted with the uncomfortable situation that the new Mrs. de Winter begins to experience in Manderley. The breaking of the film serves as a sign of the fragility of the marital relationship. Critics have highlighted the image of her husband's tormented face reflecting the projection, which anticipates a similar image of Gloria Swanson on Sunset Boulevard by ten years.

Hitchcock repeatedly uses the close-up of the protagonist to highlight suffocating situations for her that seem to lead her to a dead end. For example, when her sister-in-law tells her that Mrs. Danvers adored Rebecca, the camera cuts to Joan Fontaine in an almost expressionist close-up while the figure of Gladys Cooper fades to black behind her. Another close-up is used in the intense sequence in which Mrs. Danvers goads the second Mrs. de Winter into throwing herself out of a window. And again during Maxim's judicial interrogation, when his wife loses consciousness due to the stress she suffers.

But perhaps the most valued sequence is that of Maxim's confession to his wife in the little house on the beach. In a brilliant movement of the camera, the camera moves around the room following the explanations offered by Mr. de Winter of the movements that Rebeca made to illustrate the story of her death in the present time, without resorting to flashback and thus avoiding the visualization of the first wife.

Danvers incites Winter's lady to suicide.

The scene in which the couple declares their love in the library before attending the court hearing has also been highlighted as one of the best love scenes in Hitchcock's cinema. When they both kiss, the camera does a backwards trolley again, but this time reinforcing the couple's union and the young woman's presence in the mansion. A similar excellent sequence would be included by Michael Curtiz a year later to narrate the farewell of the leading ladies in They Died With Their Boots On.

The closing sequence is not in keeping with the wishes of Selznick, who intended smoke from the mansion fire to trace a large letter "R" in the sky. After suggesting the death of Mrs. Danvers, the camera moves and shows Rebeca's bed, with the exquisite embroidery done by the housekeeper on her bag about to perish in the flames. The scene is a year before that of Citizen Kane in which Orson Welles shows the viewer a sled with a large "R" engraved on it burning at the end of the film.

It has been debated among critics whether Rebecca is an authentic Hitchcock film or belongs more to David O. Selznick. The debate was encouraged by the director himself, stating in his famous book-interview with François Truffaut that "it is not a Hitchcock film." Noël Herpe affirms that the film is nothing more than a kind of letter of introduction addressed to the Hollywood industry. The dispute is somewhat sterile. There is no doubt that Rebeca is a Selznick film to the extent that it is based on a best seller, has an excellent script, is exquisitely designed and has a superbly selected cast; but the staging is typical of the British director.

Hitchcock was nominated for the Oscar for Best Director in the 1940 edition. That year was the first time the Academy resorted to the system of sealed envelopes and the consequent uncertainty about the name of the winner. Along with the other candidates present —George Cukor, Sam Wood and William Wyler— the English director tried to hide his nervousness. But Frank Capra announced that the prize went to John Ford for The Grapes of Wrath. It was the first of several disappointments for Hitchcock with the Academy.

Characters and performers

Selznick International Pictures had few actors on staff, so Hitchcock was initially tasked with casting, as was standard company practice.

Cast

The film featured notable British secondary schools such as Reginald Denny, George Sanders, Leo G. Carroll and C. Aubrey Smith.

• Laurence Olivier — "Maxim" by Winter
• Joan Fontaine — The Second Lady of Winter
• George Sanders — Jack Favell
• Judith Anderson — Mrs. Danvers
• Gladys Cooper — Beatrice Lacy
• Nigel Bruce — Giles Lacy
• Reginald Denny — Frank Crawley
• C. Aubrey Smith — Colonel Julyan
• Melville Cooper — Medical
• Florence Bates — Mrs. Van Hopper
• Leonard Carey — Ben
• Leo G. Carroll — Dr. Baker
• Edward Fielding — Frith
• Lumsden Hare — Mr. Tabbs
• Forrester Harvey — Chalcroft
• Philip Winter — Robert

Max de Winter

The interpretation of Laurence Olivier is not the most appreciated of his career.

The choice of the actor to play the tormented Mr. de Winter was relatively simple. Initially Selznick had thought of Ronald Colman and Hitchcock agreed with him. However, the British actor turned down the role because he considered - quite rightly - that the female character was much more prominent. In addition, he claimed that he did not like the criminal character of Maxim de Winter. The names of Leslie Howard, Melvyn Douglas, William Powell—dismissed for having too much of an American accent—David Niven—whom Hitchcock said was too “shallow”—and Walter Pidgeon were thrown around. They ultimately settled on Laurence Olivier because they liked his somewhat smug way of speaking. The English interpreter was delighted to accept.

Olivier had achieved success with his performance in Wuthering Heights and was performing Behrman's No Time for Comedy on Broadway. The actor immediately went to great lengths to promote his wife Vivian Leigh for the lead role. Olivier had just finished filming Gone with the Wind, which would launch her to stardom, but screen tests indicated she was unsuitable for the role. Olivier earned a salary of $695 a day, the highest among the members. of the cast.

Despite his indisputable status as an actor, Rebecca is not among the British's most valued works. Olivier felt uncomfortable in his collaboration with Joan Fontaine and with Hitchcock. Film historian Donald Spoto criticizes his interpretation, according to him based on constant forehead and temple massages. And it seems that Selznick himself disliked his long, deliberate pauses. Equally negative is the opinion of Robin Wood. However, Tomás Fernández Valentí considers that the character is difficult and Olivier perfectly nuances his emotions. In any case, his work earned him an Oscar nomination for best actor, although the award went to James Stewart for The Philadelphia Story .

His character was one of those who were modified by the demands of the censorship led by Joseph I. Breen, to the point that Hitchcock later joked about it. When someone asked if it hadn't been better to kill him (Max de Winter), the director replied "who? Breen? No, I don't think so."

The Second Mrs. de Winter

Before the making of Jamaica Inn, Selznick had expressed interest in Loretta Young to play the lead. For his part, Hitchcock proposed Nova Pilbeam, the lead of Innocence and Youth, but then she changed her mind. Once selected for the lead male role, Laurence Olivier tried to convince Selznick to cast his wife, Vivien Leigh, who had just starred in Gone with the Wind. However, the producer was more in favor of repeating the same gigantic casting process that he had followed in that last film, a method that seemed very effective from the publicity point of view. For this, both famous stars and unknown applicants would be tested. Selznick, Hitchcock, George Cukor and John Cromwell formed a court before which, among many others, Jean Muir, Lucile Fairbanks, Heather Angel, Frances Reid, Rene Ray, Julie Haydon, Dorothy Hyson, Ellen Drew, Pauline Moore, Louise Campbell, paraded., Fay Helm, Anita Louise, Augusta Dabney, Frances Dee, Joan Tetzel, Virginia Gilmore, the aforementioned Loretta Young and the recommended Vivien Leigh. Finally, four finalists remained: Joan Fontaine, her sister Olivia de Havilland, Margaret Sullavan and Anne Baxter.

Candidates to the role that could have offered a different protagonist

Anne Baxter Margaret Sullavan Olivia de Havilland Vivien Leigh Loretta Young Jean Muir Pauline Moore Joan Tetzel

Of the finalists, Sullavan seemed to be favored by Selznick's collaborators, but seemed too independent to play a naive and shy young woman who seemed to demand great passivity and to inspire compassion. Olivia de Havilland was reluctant to compete with her sister, especially when she had already played a major role in Gone with the Wind while Fontaine had yet to break through. Baxter had a solid theatrical experience and the strong support of Alma Reville and Joan Harrison, but at sixteen years old the producer considered her too young to play the wife of Olivier, who was twice her age and played an even older character. Although Hitchcock's collaborators believed that Fontaine was extremely "prissy" and the director himself thought that she had "a silly smile to a degree that is intolerable", the camera tests revealed her suitable for her simplicity and restlessness, either due to her interpretive qualities or his own lack of security caused by his inexperience. Although hesitant, Hitchcock defended her candidacy despite the criticism he received from those around him. Selznick asked the actress to do one last camera test, but she refused because she was going to get married and go on a honeymoon trip. It may be that a certain infatuation of Selznick for the actress influenced the final choice —as one of his biographers pointed out—, but the truth is that Fontaine married actor Brian Aherne. To the peace of mind of the entire team, the artist canceled her wedding trip when she was told at the last minute that she had been selected for the role.

Joan Fontaine was about twenty-two years old, the daughter of English parents and raised in California. She had a certain culture and it was said that she was a bit conceited. She had worked in a dozen films without standing out any more than many other pretty young women, and she was dwarfed by her sister Olivia de Havilland. Unlike Selznick, Hitchcock was not impressed by her, and did his best to isolate her from the rest of the team in order for her character to convey her proper sense of loneliness and anxiety. He didn't have much difficulty doing it because the actress was not very popular with the rest of the cast. Fontaine's salary was $166 a day, lower than both Olivier's and Judith Anderson's despite the fact that she played the main character on whom the weight of the plot fell.

Since the weight of the film fell on her character, Hitchcock strove to treat her affectionately and rehearse all her scenes meticulously. The actress always remembered her collaboration with the director with pleasure. He ignored Laurence Olivier's complaints and used Fontaine's insecurity and nervousness to enrich her performance. The young her had to exert herself considerably. The first few days she would arrive on the set at seven in the morning and not leave until eight in the evening. Hostility from other cast members and the intensity of the shoot forced Selznick to reduce her hours to prevent her from getting sick.

Joan Fontaine's insecurity and loneliness helped him in his interpretation.

The opinion eventually prevailed that Fontaine was not experienced enough to play the role. This is how Selznick's executive assistant, Marcella Rabwin, later remembered him. The same producer, despite her infatuation with the artist, ended up acknowledging that getting a good interpretation of her required work and time. At one point he asked his wife to review the footage in case the film had to be cancelled, but she told him it would be a great movie. Once the filming was finished, Fontaine's performance had to be contained at certain times. It seems that Hitchcock and cameraman George Barnes removed shots she hadn't been up to, many lines of her dialogue were re-recorded, and Selznick himself worked with editor Hal Kern to improve her on-screen performance. mounting. Script supervisor Lydia Schiller graphically described her as "a puppet".

But the actress was no stranger to her acting achievements. On one occasion, she herself asked Hitchcock to slap her to get her to cry in a sequence that required it. The director obeyed without hesitation.

The name of the second Mrs. de Winter is never known to the viewer. The character undergoes an evolution throughout the film. Initially, she is a humble and innocent escort who marries an aristocrat without a shadow of careerism. This means that at a certain moment she is referred to as a new Cinderella. Upon her arrival at Manderley, she feels the absence of her predecessor constantly. Accidentally breaking a porcelain figurine and hiding the pieces, she reacts more like a servant than the mistress of the house. Her surreptitious irruption into the deceased Rebeca's room is the peak moment in this process of knowledge. Immediately afterwards she will rebel against Mrs. Danvers: "Mrs. de Winter is me." It will be the sequence of the cabin next to her beach that allows her husband to elaborate and confess that he did not love his first wife. It is then that the young woman frees herself from the threat of comparing her with Rebeca and conceives the hope of reestablishing her relationship with her husband.

The story of the protagonist is, therefore, that of a lower-class girl immersed in the world of the British aristocracy, something already present in Daphne du Maurier's novel. But to this Hitchcock adds a satirical portrait of that upper class. The young woman captures the attention of Lord de Winter thanks to her sincerity and modesty. In fact, it seems that it is the difference in social class that attracts Maxim, as she infers from her advice that she never become a thirty-six-year-old woman in a black dress and a pearl necklace..

American critics were pleased with Fontaine's performance, but English critics were much harsher. It is discussed whether that monotonous and prim tone that the character maintains —once the first half hour characterized by doubt has passed— is a defect of the actress or, on the contrary, a characteristic that the character has in the script. In any case, and contrary to what happens with Laurence Olivier, it is usually considered that it is the best interpretation of her. Fontaine was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar, which ultimately went to Ginger Rogers for Mirage of Love. She was also nominated for the Best Actress award from the New York Critics Circle, although this one went to Katharine Hepburn for The Philadelphia Story.

Mrs. Danvers

Danvers charges a ghostly threat.

Selznick had thought of Alla Nazimova or Flora Robson to play the housekeeper. But it was Kay Brown who appeared with the perfect actress: Judith Anderson. Anderson was an artist of Australian origin who triumphed on the Broadway tables embodying roles such as Lady Macbeth, but whose presence in the cinema and in the memory of the spectators was marked by the unforgettable character she built in Rebeca.

Anderson was so impressed by being selected to work on a Hitchcock film that she asked for a written guarantee that Hitchcock would direct the film. The demand compromised Selznick for the comparative tort it entailed, but he accepted it, earning the actress $291 a day, more than the inexperienced Joan Fontaine.

Anderson recounted that shortly before the shoot she went to Nevada to get a divorce and there she received a letter from the producer telling her not to pluck her eyebrows under any circumstances. Details like this show how thorough and observant the producer was in his work.

The housekeeper is a perfect example of the relationship between character and set. She is characterized by a great stasis and absence of gestures that coincides with Manderley's immobility. Her clothing in black tones also identifies her with the darkness of the mansion.In the interview he had with François Truffaut, Hitchcock explained this feature that makes Danvers resemble a ghost:

Mrs. Danvers isn't almost there, she never saw her move. If she entered the room where the heroin was, the girl heard a noise and Mrs. Danvers was there, always standing, without moving. It was a means of showing it from the point of view of the heroine: I never knew where Mrs. Danvers was and in this way it was more terrifying; seeing Mrs. Danvers walk would have humanized her.

Her admiration for Rebeca has led to a passion for love being attributed to her, and even lesbian traits. The sequence in which a fur coat belonging to the deceased passes over her face seems to suggest this, and all it took was Hitchcock's perversity to highlight that feature already present in the novel. However, the Hays code prevented too much underlining about it. Censor Joseph I. Breen warned Selznick that he would not condone explicit or implicit perversions. The handling of the deceased's underwear and the description of her physical attributes had to be suppressed, leaving only a mention of the “fine nightgown embroidered by the nuns of the Saint-Clair convent”.

On the other hand, it has also been pointed out that Danvers's complicity with his former mistress's lover precludes selfish love. Since he came to Manderley with Rebecca, he seems to be trying to keep the deceased present in the world of the living in order to justify her own existence. He is an essential character for the protagonist to feel Rebeca's absence, as in the sequence in which he proceeds to comb her hair, explaining the ritual he followed with her former mistress. His immolation in the final fire occurs when the maintenance of the myth is impossible and he definitively merges it with the set. He thus becomes one of the most emblematic characters in Hitchcock's cinema.

Tania Modleski, who reinterprets Hitchcock's filmography in a feminist key, goes further and considers that Danvers' lesbian passion extends to the second Mrs. de Winter, since she would try to replace the deceased Rebeca with the new one ma'am.

Anderson was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her memorable performance, though the award was won by Jane Darwell for her role as Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath.

As late as 2003, the American Film Institute included Mrs. Danvers in its list of the fifty greatest movie villains at number thirty-first.

Jack Fawell

George Sanders plays Jack Fawell, Rebekah's lover. His false, careerist and manipulative nature is shown in small details enhanced by Sanders' performance. In his first appearance on screen, the actor goes through a window, thus evidencing the role of an intruder that the character plays. He treats himself to lunch while trying to blackmail Maxim. And he also insults Colonel Julyan stating that he intends to protect Lord de Winter during the investigation just because he is rich and invites him to his dinners.The censorship accepted the adulterous relationship due to the demands of the plot.

It is significant that during the sequence in which Dr. Baker reveals that Rebecca suffered from an incurable disease, the camera focuses on Fawell, defeated by a revelation that puts an end to his blackmailing plans. As a consequence of the discovery that the supposed pregnancy was nothing more than a tumor —which supports the thesis of the suicide of his lover— the character immediately telephones Mrs. Danvers, precipitating the end of Manderley.

Miss Van Hopper

Florence Bates incarnates the nasty Miss Van Hooper.

For the role of the insufferable Miss Van Hopper, for whom the protagonist works as a young lady at the beginning of the film, the names of Lucile Watson, Laura Hope Crews, Mary Boland, Alice Brady and Cora Witherspoon were considered. However, the choice was decided by Hitchcock, who attended a theatrical performance at the Pasadena Playhouse with his wife and was pleasantly impressed by Florence Bates, a fifty-one-year-old actress who had given up her legal profession to pursue acting. and for which Rebeca was her film debut. Bates was highly intelligent and had been the first woman to receive a law degree in Texas.

Despite her age, Rebecca was Bates's second film and she still made mistakes due to her inexperience. At the time of Laurence Olivier's appearance at the Monte Carlo hotel, he was to say to his companion: "Look, it's Max de Winter." However, it was necessary to take up to ten takes to shoot such a simple sentence due to the constant mistakes of the actress. Hitchcock lost his temper and yelled at her when she was going to start acting.

The mature Bates was also not spared from the director's irony despite her age and appearance. On one occasion he was rehearsing off-camera poses preparing a sequence that was going to be shot next when he heard Hitchcock's voice over the PA saying, "My, my, Miss Bates, since when have you started playing with your body? ». A sample of the double meaning profanity that the British filmmaker used to lavish.

Van Hopper is a tart portrait of wealthy American women: unable to take medicine without eating a bonbon, displaying the traditional American qualms about the British, and cruelly offensive to his young lady-in-waiting that he's "caught" her husband deliberately getting pregnant.

Other characters

The supporting cast were recruited from the abundant British colony in Hollywood: C. Aubrey Smith, Leo G. Carroll, Nigel Bruce, Reginald Denny and Melville Cooper. The start of filming coincided with the outbreak of war in Europe, which worried Selznick as he thought they might decide to return to the UK.

Manderley

The film's prologue already hints at the importance that the mansion has in the story. It is the third vertex of a triangle that forms together with Max de Winter and his second wife. His presence will make the protagonist feel the absence of a Rebeca whom she did not get to know, until Mrs. Danvers's last gesture of madness —or love— destroys her in a raging fire. From her very arrival, the The walls of the building morally crush the former escort: the rooms seem to reject her, the library is not a suitable place because its fireplace is not lit until the evening, the butler Frith watches her faltering steps and even the dog Jasper dodges her company.

Music

Selznick wanted to bring in Max Steiner again, who had written the highly successful Gone with the Wind score and been nominated for an Oscar. However, Warner Bros. did not want to cede the services of the musician. Consequently, the producer decided to turn to Franz Waxman, who had already worked for him on the comedy The Young in Heart (1938), also getting the Oscar nomination.

Waxman had great difficulties in making the soundtrack for Rebeca due to the constant delays caused by the predominance of Gone with the Wind, which forced him to simultaneously his job for Selznick with his obligations to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. However, he got one of her best works, with a theme dedicated to the late Rebeca that helps make her an important character in the plot despite never appearing on screen. For this he resorted to the novachord , a primitive synthesizer. With similar purposes, he created a specific leitmotiv for Manderley that turns the mansion into one more character. The theme of love will only emerge strongly after the destruction of the imposing building.

However, the excessive use of music during the film has been criticized, which diminishes its power at times when it should be decisive. Examples of this saturation would be the first part of the film that takes place in Monte Carlo or the walks of the Winter couple through the Manderley gardens. Waxman got a new Oscar nomination for his work, although he was defeated by the authors of the soundtrack. of Pinocchio.

Photography

George Barnes did a great job that earned him an Oscar for best black and white photography.

Assembly

The official editor was Hal C. Kern. Initially Hitchcock ignored this phase and it was Selznick who personally supervised it. His was a first assembly. However, the director returned to this work a little later and it can be said that the final cut is the joint work of both filmmakers.Kern was nominated for an Oscar, but was defeated by Anne Bauchens and her work in Canadian Mounted Police.

Reception

The film was premiered in New York at Radio City Music Hall.

Rebeca was finished at the end of November 1939. On February 13, 1940, it premiered in Santa Barbara and the following March 28 at Radio City Music Hall in New York, after Gone with the Wind would have garnered ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture, which Selznick picked up. The new film allowed the producer to get his hands on a new consecutive Oscar the following year, the box office success allowed Selznick to recoup his investment and Hitchcock did not regret his move to America.

In addition, the film was nominated in February in eleven categories for the 1940 Academy Awards.

Ratings

Hitchcock's first American film, however Rebecca is also a very British film due to the novel it is inspired by, the director's personality, the main actors and its adherence to its own tradition from the old continent. But at the same time, it is made with technical means and has an industrial finish typical of Hollywood cinema. The mixture of different circumstances gives rise to a product in which the soap opera, the neo-Gothic thriller and the fairy tale are intermingled.

The consideration of Rebecca as a fairy tale has become a cliché, since it was supported by Hitchcock himself in his long interview with François Truffaut. In addition, there are references to Cinderella and Alice in the dialogues of the film. And Mrs. Danvers turns out to be a cruel stepsister. Tania Modleski points out that the sequence in which Maxim rejects her wife when he sees her in the same costume that he used, Rebecca, is a cruel reversal of the Cinderella myth.

Although it is not quite a ghost story, the atmosphere that Hitchcock creates does lead the film to realms close to fantastic cinema. The story is based on the almost supernatural influence that a deceased woman has on the inhabitants of the mansion where she lived.

Éric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol already pointed out in 1957 that, without ceasing to be a novel, Rebeca rebels against her soap opera roots. "Scrupulously respecting the letter, Hitchcock fabricates the spirit." In the same sense, it has been pointed out that the director took a novel of little literary value and built a film that achieved critical and public success, although it cannot be considered as totally "Hitchcockian" due to Selznick's intervention.

Donald Spoto considers that it is more a work of Selznick than of Hitchcock, as the director himself went so far as to say. He believes that it is an entertaining drama, although with less sense of humor than other films by the British director and that it manages to create a climate of terror based on the idea that someone who has died can continue to control the lives of other people, an idea that Hitchcock would take up again. later in Vertigo and Psychosis.

Awards and recognitions

13.a edition of the Oscar Awards

National Board of Review

New York Film Critics Circle Awards

American Film Institute

Used bibliography

• Alberich, Enrique (1987). Alfred Hitchcock. The Power of the Image. Barcelona: Directed by. pp. 76-93. ISBN 84-85999-05-3.