Rebecca (film)

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden with supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me. The drive wound away in front of me, twisting and turning as it had always done. But as I advanced, I was aware that a change had come upon it. Nature had come into her own again and little by little had encroached upon the drive with long tenacious fingers, on and on the poor thread that had once been our drive. And finally, there was Manderley, Manderley, secretive and silent. Time could not mar the perfect symmetry of those walls. Moonlight can play odd tricks upon the fancy, and suddenly it seemed to me that light came from the windows. And then a cloud came upon the moon and hovered an instant like a dark hand before a face. The illusion went with it. I looked upon a desolate shell, with no whisper of a past about its staring walls. We can never go back to Manderley again. That much is certain. But sometimes, in my dreams, I do go back to the strange days of my life which began for me in the south of France..."

"[to the 2nd Mrs. de Winter] Do you remember that cliff where you first saw me in Monte Carlo?... That was where I found out about her... She stood there laughing, her black hair blowing in the wind, and told me all about herself — everything. Things I'll never tell a living soul. I wanted to kill her. It would have been so easy. Remember the precipice? I frightened you, didn't I? You thought I was mad. Perhaps I was. Perhaps I am mad. It wouldn't make for sanity, would it, living with the devil. "I'll make a bargain with you," she said. "You'd look rather foolish trying to divorce me now after four days of marriage. So I'll play the part of a devoted wife, mistress of your precious Manderley. I'll make it the most famous showplace in England, if you like. Then people will visit us and envy us and say we're the luckiest, happiest, couple in the country. What a grand show it will be! What a triumph!" I should never have accepted her dirty bargain, but I did."

"[to the 2nd Mrs. de Winter] But you. I can't forget what it has done to you. I was looking at you, thinking of nothing else all through lunch. It's gone forever, that funny, young, lost look that I loved. It won't come back again. i killed that too, when I told you about Rebecca. ...It's gone, in twenty four hours. You are so much older..."

"I'd like to have your advice on how to live comfortably without hard work."

"[to the 2nd Mrs. de Winter] So this is what's been happening during my illness! Tennis lessons, my foot! I suppose I have to hand it to you for a fast worker. How did you manage it? Still waters certainly run deep. Tell me, have you been doing anything you shouldn't?... But you certainly have your work cut out as mistress of Manderley. To be perfectly frank with you, my dear, I can't see you doing it. You haven't the experience. You haven't the faintest idea of what it means to be a great lady. Of course, you know why he's marrying you, don't you? You haven't flattered yourself that he's in love with you? The fact is that empty house got on his nerves to such an extent, he nearly went off his head. He just couldn't go on living alone... Hmmph, Mrs. de Winter! Goodbye, my dear, and good luck."

"[to the 2nd Mrs. de Winter] Why don't you go? Why don't you leave Manderley? He doesn't need you. He's got his memories. He doesn't love you. He wants to be alone again with her. You've nothing to stay for. You've nothing to live for really, have you? Look down there. It's easy, isn't it? Why don't you? Why don't you? Go on. Go on. Don't be afraid!"

"The shadow of this woman darkened their love."

"The most glamorous woman of all time!"

"A lonely man, a lovely girl... struggling against the secret of Manderley"

"The shadow of a remembered woman came between their lips... but these two had the courage to hope... and to live their love!"

"Laurence Olivier - George Fortescu Maximillian 'Maxim' de Winter"

"Joan Fontaine - The Second Mrs. de Winter"

"George Sanders - Jack Favell"

"Judith Anderson - Mrs. Danvers"

"Nigel Bruce - Major Giles Lacy"

"Reginald Denny - Frank Crawley"

"C. Aubrey Smith - Colonel Julyan"

"Gladys Cooper - Beatrice Lacy"

"Florence Bates - Mrs. Edythe Van Hopper"

"Melville Cooper - Coroner"

"Leo G. Carroll - Dr. Baker"

"Rebecca is a film about abusive relationships, and the way power might shift within them – and, most unusually, even for its time – its hero is the worst of the abusers. The romantic might view Laurence Olivier's as someone haunted by his past; the realist would see him as someone haunted only by his inability to control his past, specifically his titular deceased wife, and so he alights upon 's gauche, clumsy (and nameless) gentlewoman's companion as a wife who will give him no trouble. ... Rebecca was one of three films Hitchcock adapted from stories by Daphne du Maurier, and much the most successful. Du Maurier had been distressed by the liberties he took with ; ' suffered in being transformed from a perfect, ever-tightening noose of a short story set in Cornwall into an expansive movie set on the California coast. Rebeccas near fidelity is owed to , who was "shocked and disappointed beyond words" at Hitchcock's first treatment of the story and told the director: "We bought and we intend to make Rebecca.""