Retrospective Film Review

Rebecca (1940) • 80 Years Later — a fantastic adaptation of an incredible novel

A self-conscious woman juggles adjusting to her new role as an aristocrat’s wife and avoiding being intimidated by his first wife’s spectral presence.

Alfred Hitchcock was invited to Hollywood by producer David O. Selznick (Gone with the Wind) to make a film about RMS Titanic, but the project changed when Selznick bought the rights to Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel. Hitchcock had been interested in acquiring Rebecca after the success of his movie The Lady Vanishes (1938), but the bestseller was prohibitively expensive. He adapted another of du Maurier’s stories in his native England instead, Jamaica Inn (1939), but neither he nor du Maurier considered it a success.

Hitchcock’s first Hollywood project under contract was thus expected to remain faithful to its source material. Daphne du Maurier begged Selznick not to alter her story and he consequently opposed any rewrites Hitchcock suggested over a year-long battle with the English director…