Rebecca - 1940

Rebecca, Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine on Belgian Poster Art, 1940 Giclee Print
9 in. x 12 in.
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Mounted


Rebecca (1940) is the classic Hitchcock gothic thriller and a compelling mystery (and haunting ghost story) about a tortured romance. An expensively-produced film by David O. Selznick (following his recent success with Gone With The Wind (1939)), it was Hitchcock's first American/Hollywood film, although it retained distinctly British characteristics from his earlier murder mysteries. The somber film's screenplay (by Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison) was based on a literal translation of Daphne du Maurier's 1938 gothic novel of the same name, in the tradition of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. One of the film's posters asks the intriguing question: "What was the secret of Manderley?"

The film creates a brooding atmosphere surrounding the tragic courtship, marriage and relationship of a naive, plain and innocent young woman (Joan Fontaine) to a brooding and overburdened widower - an aristocratic, moody patriarch (Laurence Olivier) who lives in an estate named Manderley. The pathetic, bewildered and shy bride experiences fear, pain and guilt when psychologically dominated by the 'presence' (and memories) of the deceased first wife (named Rebecca but never seen on screen), and when she is tormented by Rebecca's blindly adoring, sinister and loyal housekeeper's (Judith Anderson) recollections of the dead woman.

Only by film's end, with the flaming destruction of the estate, do the real character and secrets of Rebecca's death become clear. Many well-known actresses tested for the part of the young woman - Loretta Young, Margaret Sullavan, Anne Baxter and Vivien Leigh (her role in Gone With the Wind (1939) made her participation impossible), and Ronald Colman was also considered for the male lead role.

Letter From an Unknown Woman - 1948

Letter from an Unknown Woman, Joan Fontaine, 1948 Photographic Print
18 in. x 24 in.
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Letter From an Unknown Woman (1948) is the classic romantic film - a lush tearjerker par excellence - of the bittersweet theme of unrequited, lost love (it's considered a quintessential "woman's picture"). Legendary European director Max Ophuls' deeply-moving, timeless film, considered his greatest and most successful American film but a film unlike most Hollywood films. [The director's name was given an alternate American spelling, OPULS, in the credits, as in his other American films of the 40s.] It demonstrates his lyrical, gliding camera movements, long tracking shots, atmospheric melancholy and romantic dialogue, the recreated flavor of turn-of-the century Vienna, and the exquisite acting talents of its delicate blonde heroine - portrayed by 31 year-old actress Joan Fontaine.
The film's literate screenplay was written by previous Academy Award winner Howard Koch (screenwriter for Casablanca (1942)), and adapted from a 1922 short story by Stefan Zweig. Fontaine's own production company produced the film. John Houseman, Orson Welles' former partner and the uncredited co-author of Citizen Kane (1941), was the film's producer, through Rampart Productions (a company owned by William Dozier and his wife, actress Joan Fontaine).

Although the film was not a commercial success upon its release and criticized as sentimental soap-opera, it has attained well-deserved status as one of the greatest films of its kind. Its cyclically-told tale of romantic yearning and pining for love is about an imaginary romance, embodied in the doomed, delusional (and illusory) relationship of the two romantic leads: a young neighbor girl's (Fontaine) steadfast, sacrificial love for a self-absorbed, frivolous dilettante concert pianist (Jourdan). A seduction leads to an unexpected pregnancy, and then to marriage to another. Both face an inextricable impasse and experience numerous missed opportunities over a span of twenty years - and ultimately fail to attain true romance. The heart-breaking tale of their relationship is communicated through flashbacks and the night-time reading of the deathbed letter written by the dying woman - she is the wife of the man the pianist must duel at the coming dawn.