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Romantic melodrama adapted from Daphne du Maurier's best-seller. The story opens in the South of France, where Maxim de Winter has gone to forget the death of his beautiful wife Rebecca. He meets a timid, bullied, badly dressed companion-secretary who falls in love with him. He asks her to marry him, and she accepts, though horrified at the thought of becoming mistress of Manderley. And well she may be. The dead Rebecca pervades the whole house, while a jealous and sinister-looking housekeeper makes life intolerable for the shy and frightened girl. Rebecca is supposed to have been drowned while sailing in a storm. After another storm a diver discovers her boat with a body in it, and the boat has been scuttled. Maxim confesses to his wife that he had hated Rebecca, who was heartless, cruel and unfaithful. He struck her and killed her, and sank the boat to make it seem like an accident. Last-minute evidence shows that Rebecca had just heard she had cancer. This results in a verdict of accidental death. Maxim returns to his wife to find Manderley in flames, and they are thus enabled to start life afresh.

Admittedly this story belongs to an artificial world more akin to Victorian melodrama than to the present day, but it is none the less holding and interesting, with suspense, dramatic situations and an unexpected and effective climax. There are few characteristically Hitchcock touches in the direction. He has been content to unfold the plot clearly and straightforwardly, creating successfully an eerie atmosphere. The acting of a practically all-star cast is admirable. Laurence Olivier is excellent as the sardonic Maxim, and makes him credible and not unsympathetic. Joan Fontaine gives a brilliant performance. She is content to forgo a permanent wave and to have straggling, untidy hair, while her clothes are deplorable and exactly right. She is shy and pathetically helpless, but shows when roused that she has spirit and courage to fight for the man she loves. It would be invidious to single out individuals in so competent a supporting company who all give of their best.

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