Rebecca
Maximillian de Winter is a rich man who lost his wife, Rebecca de Winter about one year ago. He travels to Montecarlo, where he meets Mrs. Van Hopper and his young partner, from who we don't get a name. Slowly, Maximillian starts getting interested in the young girl so, that finally he marries her.Maximillian and the new Mrs. de Winter return then to "Manderley", de Winter's home in Cornwell, but since their arriving, the new Mrs. de Winter starts feeling overwhelmed, almost pursued by Rebecca's remembrance, who seems to be present in everything belonging to "Manderley". Besides, Mrs. Danvers, who was Rebecca's maiden, seems to violently reject Maximillian's new wife, acting as if Rebecca's memory was menaced by the presence of the young girl.
After starting his own investigation about the mysterious Rebecca, the new Mrs. de Winter will uncover the truth: Rebecca was not the wonderful creature she was meant to be, and she commited suicide as she knew she would die because of a cancer she had developed; however, Rebecca prepared her "suicide" in order to make Maximillian appear guilty of her death. Unable to accept the truth, Mrs. Danvers burns "Manderley", but accidently dies, thus setting de Winter's matrimony free.
'Rebecca' was a new success in Hitchcock's filmography, something really hard to achieve if we consider the quality of 'Foreign Correspondent', and even more because of the fact that Alfred was obliged by Selznick to exactly follow Daphne du Maurier's novel at all times, which caused the movie's argument to be a bit complex, though brightly resolved. This is similar to what happened 1969 with 'Topaz', which again was based on an extremely complex novel by Leon Uris. This time, not even Hitchcock could solve this problem so, that 'Topaz' signified a complete disaster.
The whole film is presented to the viewer as a flash-back: since the beginning we suppose that the actual Mrs. de Winter is telling the story. This fact causes the Rebecca's clue to get more intensity, so that as we enter Manderley, we do want to know what really happened to Rebecca and why it happened.
Besides, we should mention the unbelievably mysterious and somewhat mighty atmosphere created around the dark "Manderley". It almost seems that de Winter's home configures some sort of shadowed world apart, where time has been stopped and everything has got its own significance. This feeling is boosted by Mrs. Danvers' role; she's the true source of Rebecca's omnipresence so, that shortly before the movie's end, as Rebecca's memory dies with "Manderley", Mrs. Danvers must disappear for the same reason.
As a last observation, we should emphasize Joan Fontaine's marvelous actuation in this movie; she possibly belonged to the few ones capable of playing the role of the shy but, at the same time, brave English young girl.
