REBECCA:
While getting away from his estate Manderley, widower Maxim de Winter (played by Laurence Oliver) meets a shy, young companion that allows him to forget about his troubles. Getting swept off her feet by the dashing Maxim, the young girl finds herself being taken on a quick courtship that ends with her getting married to Maxim de Winter and becoming the second Mrs. de Winter (played by Joan Fontaine). Not being used to such a rich lifestyle, the new Mrs. de Winter is constantly walking on eggshells around Maxim and the household staff. Everywhere she looks there’s the past life of Rebecca, the first Mrs. de Winter, who even after her death seems to have influence over Maxim and the Manderley estate.

DO YOU THINK THE DEAD COME BACK TO HAUNT THE LIVING:
Rebecca is not one of the Hitchcock films that I knew about and after watching it I understand why I never heard about it before. Even with it being a Hitchcock film, I found this movie to be very slow and pretty boring. It’s plot moves along at a snail pace taking forever to introduce the main characters of Mr. de Winter and the new Mrs. de Winter, then having them get married, and finally getting to the point of what happened to the first Mrs. de Winter. Part of the description for Rebecca is talking about how these two people meet and quickly get married, then having the new Mrs. de Winter being troubled by what might be the spirit of the first wife Rebecca. Only problem is that there is not one bit of supernatural element in this movie, just the Hitchcock doing what he normally does, making us think one thing but giving us something differently.

With a running time of 2 hours 10 minutes this movie should have had a lot more to the plot than it does. Instead it takes too long for these characters to do anything and when something is happening it’s still boring. The second Mrs. de Winter, I call her that because there’s no other name for her, which is actually the one thing that I liked (except for right now cause I have no name to call her in this review), is that Hitchcock didn’t give a name for one of the main characters, is always acting so scared when talking to people. I got a little fed up with every time that she appeared to talk to anyone she would shy away from them stuttering and not know what to say. Joan Fontaine does a great job in making this character go from a young girl who is afraid of the world into this woman who is ready to stand up for her husband. Though as good as a job she does that don’t make the character any less annoying. Laurence Oliver does just as good of a job in making the character Maxim de Winter into this man who seems to miss his dead wife so much that he tries to be alone all the time. However, the character is cunning and seems to always be up to something that will eventually be told and that reason is what saved this movie from getting a lower grade.

It’s a slow paced movie but it’s one that ends by giving me a story that I was not expecting at all. If a half hour had been shaved off the time, Rebecca would have been a captivating movie to watch. I liked how the housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (played by Judith Anderson) seemed obsessed with Rebecca, so much so that she goes out of her way to make the life of the new Mrs. de Winter a living hell. Mrs. Danvers is a mean woman, though she does it out of loyalty for her dead friend who to her is being replaced by a new, young girl who shouldn’t be there. It’s not until the last half hour of Rebecca that the movie gets interesting enough that I was almost at edge of my seat waiting to find out what was going to happen. The truth about the first Mrs. de Winter comes out it was not anything of what I expected it to be. It’s the ending of the movie that actually made watching this worth it.

HITCHCOCK ON BLU RAY:
Sadly this is not one of the classic black and white movies that didn’t transfer over nicely on Blu Ray. During the whole movie there is a grain and noise in the picture along with scratches in the film. This was to be expected considering the movie came out in 1940 but I’ve seen other black and white movies that have looked excellent on Blu Ray even with them being old. If the grain was not in this movie ti would have looked really good but it does have good audio levels. I didn’t have to fiddle with my volume to hear anything that was being said in this movie, even when the music seemed to be louder than the vocals. Though it’s not that great of a Blu Ray when it comes to the picture quality, it don’t look too terrible.