Rebecca
Rewatch of this has confirmed why it’s my second favourite Hitchcock film (first is Rope, by the way, with The Lady Vanishes probably rounding out the top 3).
Rebecca effortlessly combines the creepy thriller aspects with romantic drama, all drenched in atmosphere.
Joan Fontaine is wonderfully awkward as the unnamed main character, thrust into a life she is completely unprepared for. Laurence Olivier has just the right air of ‘could be a romantic hero, could be a psychopath’ as the moody Maxim. Judith Anderson as the sinister Mrs Danvers, still devoted to the dead Rebecca, is the real highlight.
Joan Fontaine’s character says something towards the beginning about wishing there was an invention that could preserve memories - but it is the memory of Rebecca preserved in the very air of Manderlay that causes so many problems. (Well, that and Maxim’s failure to communicate.)
It’s an interesting conceit that the main character is never named - her very identity becomes secondary to Rebecca’s every time someone refers to ‘Mrs De Winter - I mean the late Mrs De Winter’. It’s a difficult thing to get the hang of a new name, and having to fill the shoes of that name’s late owner must make it peculiarly difficult - I like the moment when surrounded by Rebecca’s monogrammed stationery she tells the gardener on the phone that Mrs De Winter is dead, forgetting that actually means her.
One of my favourite scenes is the whole scene in which they look at the movies from their honeymoon - the light flickering uncertainly over her face and the way he blocks the light when he’s angry about her mentioning gossip.
I think it’s great that we never actually see Rebecca; however I stumbled across a discussion wondering what Rebecca would have looked like, with some people suggesting Gene Tierney and others Vivien Leigh - I think either of these would fit my idea of Rebecca (think of Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven). According to imdb trivia, Olivier wanted Leigh to play the lead role and as a consequence treated Fontaine horribly.