Rebecca

I watched this movie only after I read the book by Daphe Du Maurier several times at different ages. I am glad to say that it was very close to what I had imagined while I read the book. I certainly feel 3 hours are required for doing justice to the book. Though, it would have been much better had they spent more time showing how Maxim de Winter and the narrator fall in love in Monte Carlo. I feel that was too hurried and several details were left out. The last part where Max de Winter tries to save Danvers from the burning Manderley ought to have been avoided as it wasn't part of the story and only added melodrama.

The cast for this second version with Charles Dance, Emilia Fox and Diana Rigg couldn't have been better. The perfect English looking Charles Dance is the only one who could portray the reserved, austre and noble Max de Winter. I feel the difference in age between Max De Winter and the narrator was very accurately portrayed in the film. An older, more mature looking man was very vital for this role. Though the book says that Maxim was about twice the age of the young narrator, around 40, I always imagined Maxim to look older than that with all the fear and suffering he had undergone. Olivier certainly was not cut for this role in Hitchcock's version. I think Emilia Fox was also great with her lost, shy look.

I feel this version is probably the closest it can get to the book and the characters. The cast chosen was the best by far.

It's 1927, and we are in Monte Carlo, a most romantic place... The heroine of the novel, a very young girl (she is also the storyteller) is employed as a companion to a vulgar, rich woman, Mrs. Van Hopper. There she meets Maxim de Winter, a sophisticated, attractive older man, very rich, the owner of a splendid, ancient estate called Manderley. They marry very soon and return to England. Perfect happiness eludes her - she becomes obsessed with Rebecca, Maxim's first wife, who mysteriously drowned in the bay ten months before Monte Carlo. Rebecca's ghost seems to be everywhere - the housekeeper, the creepy, murderous Mrs. Danvers is still obsessively devoted to her and keeps her rooms just as they were before her death. The second Mrs. de Winter knows that everyone compares her to Rebecca, and is convinced she must be a disappointment - "You'll never get the better of her", Mrs. Danvers says. Frank Crawley, the estate manager, tells her Rebecca was "the most beautiful creature I ever saw", but adds that, to a husband, "kindness, sincerity and modesty are worth all the beauty and wit in the world". That sounds very odd: if Rebecca was so perfect, surely she must have been kind and sincere? Rebecca's death and past life seem to be shrouded in mystery, until one day, after a strong storm, the boat in which she drowned is found by the shore. A painful scene follows: the second Mrs. de Winter learns the awful truth. Have she and Maxim already lost their chance of happiness?

I must say that, when I read the novel by Daphne du Maurier on which this film was based, I was just 12 and somehow lacking in understanding. I wondered for days why the writer NEVER mentions the heroine's christian name... Still the pictures of Maxim and the heroine were very clear in my mind. Emilia Fox and Charles Dance ARE them, just as Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine in the 1940 Hitchcock (in my opinion) fall short of a perfect fit. Emilia Fox's Mrs. de Winter, for example, is by no means a weak young woman, helplessly awaiting disaster: when she discovers she is truly needed she finds a strength she didn't know she possessed. Charles Dance's Maxim is the supreme embodiment of high-society sophistication and handsomeness, which, combined with his haunted past, tenderness and brooding intensity is surely enough to make him irresistible! Also, Jonathan Cake is truly loathsome as Jack Favell, Rebecca's lecherous and dishonest more-than-cousin. Diana Rigg plays a Mrs. Danvers who, although more mellow and vulnerable than the character in the novel and previous film version, is nonetheless superlative.

After I rented this Masterpiece Theatre version three times, I was so hooked I bought in the end, and I must say I had no cause to regret it, on the contrary!

I really enjoyed this movie. Charles Dance is wonderful as Maxim and very intense. I saw the black and white version as a child and have never forgotten it but really enjoyed this version. The characters all seemed quite so real, but I especially enjoy Maxim. It is also fun to see Charles Dance's love interest from the Jewel in the Crown reunitd here with him as his sister.