Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Rebecca (1940)
Alfred
Hitchcock’s American debut “Rebecca” – based on a bestseller – defines what old
timers (and us TCM fanatics) mean with “They don’t make them like they used to.”
Four years older than my father, this gorgeously shot black-and-white thriller
sucks you in to its tale of romance as a woman (Joan Fontaine) falls for a
widower (Laurence Oliver). The man is, of course, crazy wealthy, owning a
castle named Manderley, and crazy, haunted by wife No. 1. In what I gather is a
sick-twist Hitchcock joke, an old bird (Florence Bates) tells our heroine that Manderley
will eat her alive. She’s right. Our nameless heroine is smothered by the stone
walls and wealth, the “ghost” of Rebecca, the wife who drowned mysteriously and
questionably, and the black-oil stare of the watchful housekeeper (Judith
Anderson), who defines wicked. Secrets boil over as our heroine sinks into a mess,
her ramrod morality straining against fates I still awe at, second watching. This
is exceptional filmmaking, smooth, and with as much dark humor as betrayals, our director taking us innocents for a ride. The cast is flawless, the film
endlessly re-watchable. A+
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