NFR Project: 'Rebecca' (1940)

 

NFR Project: ‘Rebecca’

Dir: Alfred Hitchcock

Scr: Robert E. Sherwood, Joan Harrison

Pho: George Barnes

Ed: Hal C. Kern, James E. Newcom

Premiere: March 21, 1940

130 min.

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

Rebecca is a masterful adaptation of a great psychological thriller of a novel, and well deserved its Best Picture Oscar in 1940. More importantly, it was the first American effort of director Alfred Hitchcock, and it cemented his reputation as a popular craftsman and movies steeped in mystery and suspense.

Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel was tailor-made for a film version, and producer David O. Selznick and a squad of writers toiled away to get the script in shape. There were numerous points of the book which the censor deemed inappropriate for filming, so workarounds were made in the screenplay. The result is still deeply disturbing, given Hitchcock’s ability to generate menace even in the most seemingly placid of situations.

In the film, Joan Fontaine plays the never-named protagonist. A paid companion to an obnoxious rich lady, she meets in Monte Carlo the reserved Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier), a rich widower who falls in love with her. They quickly marry, and he whisks her off to his palatial estate Manderley, on the Cornwall coast.

The new Mrs. de Winter finds herself overshadowed and suffocated by the stifling, shadowy presence of Maxim’s late wife, Rebecca, a charming, beautiful, witty, and well-loved woman. De Winter’s housekeeper, the unsettling Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), is obsessed with preserving everything she can of Rebecca’s things, and her way of doing things. Hostile to the new wife, Danvers attempts to sabotage her relationship with Maxim.

Gradually, the new Mrs. de Winter begins to assert herself, and to find out hidden truths about Rebecca. It turns out that Maxim and Rebecca’s marriage was loveless, based on lies and infidelity. Rebecca had drowned in her sailboat – or had she? Revelations come thick and furious, and Rebecca is revealed as a thoroughly evil and vindictive character. As things progress, it seems that Maxim is responsible for her death.

To tell more would be to give away a delightfully twisty tale. Suffice it to say that Hitchcock plays with ambivalences, making the viewer feel always on unsteady ground, along with its heroine. The camera creeps shyly through the great halls of Manderley, where Mrs. de Winter feels overwhelmed by the luxury of the place, the dismissiveness of Mrs. Danvers, and the confessions she is forced to hear.

Cinematographer George Barnes, a mentor to the wonderful Gregg Toland, picked up an Oscar as well for his superb work. The casting is excellent, and includes some of Hitchcock’s favorite supporting actors, including Leo G. Carroll and Nigel Bruce. George Sanders is on hand to play an utter cad, as he was so good at doing. By the film’s spectacular ending, we and the protagonist have been through the wringer.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Bank Dick.

NFR Project: 'Young Mr. Lincoln' (1939)

 

NFR Project: ‘Young Mr. Lincoln’

Dir: John Ford

Scr: Lamar Trotti

Pho: Bert Glennon

Ed: Walter Thompson

Premiere: June 9, 1939

100 min.

The life of Abraham Lincoln has proved fascinating for generations of Americans. Books, plays, movies, and even musical compositions have made him their subject.

John Ford was a director who loved America, and who examined the secular myths and legends of American history. This he did with Young Mr. Lincoln.

He chose one of America’s most iconic actors, Henry Fonda, to play him. Using makeup and prosthetics, Fonda was transformed into a reasonable facsimile of the great future President.

The story itself is mostly bushwa, an unconvincing collections of details about Lincoln’s early life turned into a screen story. Some basic facts are represented truly, but the bulk of the film is taken up with a made-up murder trial Lincoln is supposed to have served as a defense attorney. Lincoln is presented as an amiable, soft-spoken, thoughtful young man, awkward in the company of women.

Fonda makes a powerful impression of the title character, and he is surrounded by Ford’s usual cast of regulars, playing his friends and neighbors. The cinematography is excellent. One particular scene, in which the smoke from a pistol rises over a body like a soul departing, is memorable. Ford knew how to create myth on screen.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Rebecca.

NFR Project: 'Wuthering Heights' (1939)

 

NFR Project: ‘Wuthering Heights’

Dir: William Wyler

Scr: Charles MacArthur, Ben Hecht, John Huston

Pho: Gregg Toland

Ed: Daniel Mandell

Premiere: March 24, 1939

103 min.

The moody, romantic 1847 novel by Charlotte Bronte serves as the source for this 1939 adaptation. It’s the story of star-crossed lovers, and the cruelties the hopeless inflict on themselves and each other.

Screenwriters Hecht and MacArthur adapt only the first half of the novel, concentrating on the doomed romance of Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff, her adopted brother. Set in the wilds of Yorkshire, it opens with a traveler seeking shelter from a blizzard at Wuthering Heights, where he is received by the dark and forbidding Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier). In the night, the visitor hears aa woman crying out for Heathcliff. An impassioned Heathcliff dashes out into the storm.

The traveler asks for details from the house’s servant Ellen. Her story outlines the growing to adulthood of Cathy (Merle Oberon) and Hindley Earnshaw, who are joined at their manor of Wuthering Heights by Heathcliff, a poor beggar boy their father has taken off the streets and brought home to raise as his own.

Hindley resents Heathcliff, and when their father dies unexpectedly, he treats him like a servant. Heathcliff grows up moody, brusque, and surly, but there is a deep attachment between him and Cathy.

When they’re grown, Heathcliff and Carthy climb the wall of their neighbor the Linton’s estate, and eagerly peer in at the ball taking place there. The family’s dogs attack Cathy, wounding her severely. She is taken in by the Lintons and immediately takes to their refined ways. Edgar Linton (David Niven) falls in love with Cathy and proposes. Cathy returns to Wuthering Heights and reports the news. Heathcliff, hearing this, runs away – before he can overhear Cathy declaring her undying love for and identification with him (“I am Heathcliff,” she memorably states.)

Years later, the Lintons are a married couple. Heathcliff returns from America a rich and somewhat more cultured man, and buys up Wuthering Heights and pays for Hindley’s excessive drinking and gambling, turning him into a hopeless pawn. He scorns a regretful Cathy, and marries Edgar’s sister Isabella, rapidly making her life miserable.

Cathy becomes ill, and Heathcliff barges into her house, taking her in his arms and holding her as she dies. He pleads with her to haunt him for the rest of his life. The story returns to the present, and Heathcliff is found dead on the moors. In a complete departure from the book, the spirits of Cathy and Heathcliff are united again.

The story is dark and gloomy, and Gregg Toland’s cinematography really captures the spirit of the piece. Wyler focuses a kind of restrained frenzy into the faces of the leading players, who are all resolutely miserable.

Who is the hero of the story? Cathy dies because she can’t reconcile her love for Heathcliff with the realities of her situation. Heathcliff goomily hangs on to his obsession with Cathy until death takes him as well. It’s a somber piece, quite in keeping with the spirit of the original. There are few Golden Age Hollywood adaptations better than this.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Young Mr. Lincoln.