Monday, July 17, 2017

Best Picture of 1940: Rebecca

All road lead back to Rebecca......


Either it's her haunting memory, a secret wish she was still there, or the fearing that she is still alive and watching your every single move, all the roads lead back to Rebecca.


The winner of the 13th Academy Awards Best Picture in 1940 went to Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca. Even though this film won the best picture it is not what we normally think when the name Alfred Hitchcock is mentioned. However, even though it's not one of the first ones that we thinking of does not make it the least of his films. This is one of the first times that America has really seen a Hitchcock film, there have been a few before this movie, and it's that start of a great and memorable film career for him in America.


The plot of this film is very simple. A millionaire widow falls in love with a girl while on Holiday in Monte Carlo. Even though many people thought he had lost his heart when his wife drowned a year ago, the young woman still decides to marry him. When he takes her to his mansion of a home a few weeks later the whole staff is there to great her. An older woman named Mrs. Danvers runs the household servants and is the one who wants to get to know the new wife. The plot gets complicated due to the many different perceptions that many people have of Rebecca. Some loved her, some hated her, some were obsessed with her! The young wife realizes that she needs to fight for her husband, and for the favor of the staff, if she is going to be able to survive in this cold home with the man she loves.


Rebecca is one of the first thrillers to even be nominated for an Academy Award let alone win the best picture. Hitchcock does a wonderful job in this film of keeping the story entertaining and questionable at the same time. You never really can figure out if there is a bad guy until the end of the movie. However, this movie did come with it's problems. According to Hollywood lure David O. Selznick, the movie's producer, was busy with Gone with the Wind and left a lot of the creative idea to Hitchcock. When the movie was over Selznick did not like most of what was in the film and ended up reshooting a good portion of the picture. While it worked out for this film and it won the top award of that year, many believe that it changed how Hitchcock filmed his movies later on. After this film he started only shooting scene that he wanted in the final cut of the film. He only would shoot the most vital parts of the picture in an attempt to try and stop the executives and producers from making cut and changes to the films after they were done.


Even with so many changes Rebecca ended up beating out: Warner Brothers' All This, and Heaven Too and The Letter; United Artists Foreign Correspondent, The Great Dictator, The long Voyage Home, and Our Town; 20th Century Fox's The Grapes of Wrath; RKO's Kitty Foyle; and MGM's A Philadelphia Story.


I would have to say that as much as I love Hitchcock I really wasn't that impressed with this film. I think I am more invested in he work in the later year rather than the earlier ones. I have seen four or five of the other nominations on the list and I have to say that Rebecca is my least favorite on that list. I understand why it won. Hitchcock has a very different movie style that the rest of the pictures on the list and a different way of telling a story. It makes for a good movie and a different way to see the world, however, I think that Kitty Foyle should have maybe won instead. That is just this movie buff opinion.

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