Who Will Star in the New “Rebecca”?

As Daily Variety reports here, Dreamworks and Working Title Pictures are looking to create a new adaptation of “Rebecca.” When I wrote about Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 film adaptation here, I called it “a gothic romance that drips foreboding and suspense,” and while Hitchcock himself was not entirely pleased with the film, it was the only one of his films to win the Academy Award for “Best Picture” – an award that producer David O. Selznick brought home. While it’s possible that Hitchcock’s contentious relationship with Selznick soured his memory of “Rebecca” – and you can read about that relationship in my review of Leonard J. Leff’s book “Hitchcock and Selznick” here – the film stands as a masterpiece. It was an important stepping stone for Hitchcock: His first American film, his first with Selznick, his first taste of Hollywood glamour…

The new “Rebecca” is being scripted by Stephen Knight (“Eastern Promises”), who will go back to the original novel by Daphne Du Maurier as the source for his adaptation. While Hitchcock remained faithful to the novel in his film, a Selznick’s insistence, there were some differences between the two, the primary one of which was that the film significantly toned down the lesbian overtones of Mrs. Danvers’ devotion to the first Mrs. De Winter. It’s easy to imagine that this as the first story element the filmmakers will reinstate, but beyond that, it’s hard to say.

Of course, the big question is who will play the second Mrs. De Winter. Selznick did his best to make the search for the right actress an event similar to his earlier quest for the silver screen’s Scarlet O’Hara, and as the unnamed star of “Rebecca,” Joan Fontaine was naive and tremulous as Mrs. Danvers undermined her confidence. So, who do YOU think should play the second Mrs. De Winter? I could see Michelle Williams or Jessica Brown Findley from “Downton Abbey,” but there are so many terrific young actresses out there, I’d love to hear your thoughts. And who could fill the shoes of Laurence Olivier as the charming but imperious Maxim De Winter, or  Judith Anderson as the obsessive Mrs. Danvers?

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100 Moments with Alfred Hitchcock Part 1

Recently, Roger Ebert posted his list of “100 Great Moments in the Movies” on his Chicago Sun-Times blog. After counting how many of those movies I’d seen (58!) I thought it would be fun to do something like it for our own Mr. Hitchcock. Since I’m only up to 1947 in his long career, I thought I’d split the list and post the first half now.

Here, then, are the first 50 of 100 Moments with Alfred Hitchcock, with annotations below:

1. A cad is haunted by visions of a dead girl in “The Pleasure Garden.”
2. A young woman’s silent scream opens Hitchcock’s first great movie, “The Lodger.”
3. The Lodger (Ivor Novello) arrives at his new home, startling his landlady.
4. An angry mob tries to kill the Lodger.
5. Amateur boxer “One-Round” Jack Saunder is beaten by boxing champ Bob Corby in “The Ring”
6. Ivor Novello rides down an escalator as he falls from grace in “Downhill”
7. Farmer Sweetland makes a list of potential new brides in “The Farmer’s Wife.”
8. A young divorcee gives herself up to the press after being humiliated in court at the end of “Easy Virtue.”
9. A detective watches his quarry through the stem of a glass in “Champagne.”
10. Hitchcock brings the Isle of Man to life in “The Manxman.”
11. Hitchcock teases actress Anny Ondra in the sound test for “Blackmail.”
12. A woman is forced to kill her attacker in “Blackmail.”
13. The blackmailer is chased through the British Museum in “Blackmail.
14. A back-alley speech about Ireland’s freedom is disrupted by gunfire in “Juno and The Paycock.”
15. A cross-dressing killer leaps from the high-wire to his death in “Murder!”
16. At an auction in “The Skin Game,” nouveau riche Edmund Gwenn outbids wealthy aristocrats.
17. A young couple books passage home on a tramp steamer after an unsuccessful cruise, only to nearly die when the ship begins to sink in “Rich and Strange.”
18. Hitchcock revisits his German expressionist roots with “Number 17.”
19. Johann Strauss outshines his father when he conducts “The Blue Danube Waltz” in “Waltzes from Vienna.”
20. Peter Lorre’s surprisingly charming terrorist in “The Man Who Knew Too Much.”
21. Richard Hannay tries to hide from the police by kissing an unwilling fellow traveller in “The 39 Steps.” Unwilling fellow traveller immediately gives him up to the authorities.
22. “Am I right, sir?” With his dying breath, Mr. Memory reveals the secret of “The 39 Steps.”
23. Peter Lorre shoves the wrong man — a suspected spy — off a cliff to his death in “Secret Agent.”
24. A saboteur is killed by his former comrades in the explosive finale to “Sabotage.”
25. The spectacular tracking shot that takes viewers from an overhead view of a hotel lobby across a crowded dance floor and into the eyes of a killer in “Young and Innocent.”
26. The rush to secure rooms in a crowded hotel lobby at the start of “The Lady Vanishes.”
27. The young lovers of “The Lady Vanishes” enter the Foreign Office to find old Mrs. Froy alive and well after all.
28. Charles Laughton climbs a ship’s mast, then throws himself to his death to avoid capture in “Jamaica Inn.”
29. Joan Fontaine opens “Rebecca” with the line “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderly again…”
30. Mrs. Danvers drives Joan Fontaine half crazy while describing her late mistress in “Rebecca.”
31. Mrs. Danvers refuses to leave her late mistress’s room as Manderly burns to the ground in “Rebecca.”
32. An American reporter in Holland chases an assassin through an umbrella toting crowd, then hops into a car and continues the chase into the windmill-dotted countryside.
33. “Mr. And Mrs. Smith” grill each other over breakfast, leading to a break in their marriage.
34. John Aysgarth charms — and is charmed by — Lina McLaidlaw at the start of “Suspicion.”
35. Lina imagines Aysgarth killing his best friend in “Suspicion.”
36. Aysgarth brings his ailing wife a frightening looking glass of milk in “Suspicion.”
37. Barry Kane and Patricia Martin encounter a troupe of circus freaks in “Saboteur.”
38. A fifth columnist plummets to his death from the Statue of Liberty in “Saboteur.”
39. Mr. Newton and Herbert discuss the best way to kill one another over a family dinner in “Shadow of a Doubt.”
40. Uncle Charlie, “the Merry Widow Murderer,” momentarily thinks he’s off the hook in “Shadow of a Doubt.” Bounding up the stairs to get ready for dinner, he turns to see his niece framed in a doorway, still certain that he is a killer.
41. A young pilot realizes that his naivete may have helped the enemy in “Bon Voyage.”
42. Although imprisoned, a French Resistance leader struggles to secure escape for his friends in “Aventure Malgache.”
43. Walter Slezak is hauled into the “Lifeboat,” only to mutter “danke schein,” revealing to his fellow passengers that he’s German.
44. Slezak’s character, now revealed to be the captain of the U-boat that sunk his fellow survivor’s ship, exhibits what seems to be super-human stamina, rowing his fellow survivors toward a German ship.
45. As Gregory Peck kisses Ingrid Bergman for the first time in “Spellbound,” a series of doors open, symbolizing Bergman’s icy doctor’s sexual awakening.
46. Gregory Peck breaks through to the traumatic childhood memory of accidentally killing his brother in a shocking, silent moment of “Spellbound.”
47. Hitchcock outfoxes the censors by having Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant kiss briefly and repeatedly in “Notorious.”
48. “Oh Dev, they’re poisoning me.” Devlin finds Alicia half-dead at the hands of her own husband in “Notorious.”
49. Devlin leaves Alicia’s husband to his ruthless comrades at the end of “Notorious.
50. Mrs. Paradine tells her lawyer, Gregory Peck, that she despises him even though he’s won her freedom in “The Paradine Case.”

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