Rebecca was the second consecutive Best Picture produced by David O. Selznick. Selznick did the right thing in bringing Hitchcock to direct the film and in doing so, turned it into a classic. Hitchcock is a genius and throughly deserved an Oscar. Laurence Olivier plays the rich English owner of Manderly, Maxim De Winter. Olivier gives a fine and tortured performance of a man who is haunted by his dead wife, Rebecca. His performance was great but the only flaw is that his character is annoyingly unresponsive to his wife. Judith Anderson gives a chilling performance as Mrs. Danvers, the crazed housekeeper with a lunatic obsession to her dead mistress, Rebecca. Her lines are classic and it is she who gives the tense atmosphere to the movie-Hitchcock's dark and cold Manderly just enhanced Miss Anderson's performance. It is Joan Fontaine who really gave the stellar performance as the second Mrs. De Winter. She is a shy girl who suddenly marries the haunted Maxim of a great estate. Hitchcock originially wanted Fontaine's sister, Olivia De Havilland to play the part. Olivier wanted his wife, Vivien Leigh. Although both ladies are great actresses, I'm glad that Fontaine was cast because she made Rebecca what it is today. This was the movie that sprung Fontaine to stardom and her shyness of the camera was carefully inputed into the character of the lonely Mrs. De Winter. Her first words: "Last night I dreamt we went to Manderly again" sets context not only to the story but to the character of Mrs. De Winter. She is shy, unused to a formal life, desperate for Maxim's love and most of all, intimidated by the presence of the late Rebecca in Manderly. Mrs. De Winter was supposed to be a plain and mousy person and so, Fontaine had the misfortune of being a beautiful woman playing an unattractive one. However, Fontaine presents other ways of being unattractive--such as that Mrs. De Winter has absolutely no social skills. All in all, Fontaine gave a performance that deserved a Best Actress Oscar. Although she lost out to Ginger Rogers, the Academy gave a compensation Oscar the following year for her less impressive "Suspicion".
