Rebecca PennyBlack on holmesian.net writes: It runs for approximately |  |
- Approximately ten actors were tested for the role of Maxim de Winter, which eventually went to Jeremy Brett. Curiously his good friends Robert Stephens and Gary Bond were both considered at some point, as was Terence Hardiman who ended up playing Frank Crawley.
Joanna David played the second Mrs de Winter. In the version of Rebecca more easily available the part was played by her daughter, Emilia Fox.
Mrs Danvers was played by the former Mrs Brett, Anna Massey. Due to a disagreement over Jeremy buying their young son a motorbike, the pair did not speak throughout the entire period of filming except when required to before the camera.
Jeremy and Anna's son David makes a fleeting on-screen appearance in this programme.
- The part of Jack Favell was played by Julian Holloway, whose father Stanley had played Eliza's father in the film of My Fair Lady, which of course featured Jeremy as Freddy. Incidentally Holloway is Sophie Dahl's father.
 | On to the programme itself. To me it is far closer to the book than the later Charles Dance/Emilia Fox version. Maxim can be read as one of the great Gothic heroes in the mould of Rochester or Rhett Butler, but he is also possessive, selfish and damaged by the past. Jeremy does put this across very well, and even makes the line 'I'm asking you to marry me, you little fool' sound attractive. Joanna David's unworldly innocent starts as a flower bewildered by the attentions of this rich and attractive man, but once installed at the vast estate Manderley after a whirlwind courtship and early marriage, she has to contend with the lasting presence of the mysterious and beloved dead Rebecca, and the thinly-veiled hate of the weird housekeeper, Mrs Danvers. |
Location
shooting makes the isolation of the estate and the cruelty of the sea
all the more central to the story. However as a heightened romance
teamed with a murder mystery, this 'Rebecca' succeeds where others have
not. The film with Jeremy's mentor Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine
is too similar to the Orson Welles Jane Eyre, while the Dance version,
although he is a decent Max, has a weak female lead and is only really
worth watching for Diana Rigg's overtly lesbian Danvers.
Max
de Winter is Jeremy's second greatest role for the screen after Holmes
- he is superb, whether pining for the past, rising in anger against
those who meddle in his affairs, or developing a believable attention
for his new young friend.
From the book, Mystery! A Celebration by Ron Miller:
Rebecca is the story of an introverted and unsophisticated 19-year-old (Joanna David) who's employed as a traveling companion to an elderly American woman. While stopping in Monte Carlo, they meet wealthy English widower Max de Winter (Jeremy Brett), who's attracted to the honest, uncomplicated woman, whose name we never learn. After a whirlwind courtship, Max proposes marriage. She accepts and returns with him to the de Winter family home, Manderley, a brooding mansion on the Cornish coast.
Almost immediately, the young bride realizes she'll be living in the long shadow of Rebecca de Winter, Max's first wife, a great beauty who died in a tragic boating accident the year before. The new Mrs. de Winter is constantly reminded of her own inadequacies by Mrs. Danvers [Jeremy's first wife, Anna Massey], the embittered housekeeper who was devoted to Rebecca. ... As the weeks go by, the new Mrs. de Winter begins to learn startling things about her husband's first wife and the nature of their marital relationship. then discovers a number of suspicious circumstances that suggest Rebecca's death may not have been an accident.
The Mystery! book further states: "Though no one seriously believes the Mystery! version of Rebeccais superior to the Hitchcock film, it was distinctive enough to trigger widespread praise, including a firm endorsement from Daphne du Maurier. ... The Mystery! version had one major asset the Hitchcock film lacked: length. Hitchcock had to tell the story in 130 minutes, which the BBC's director, Simon Langton, had nearly four hours."
Of Brett, the book says:
The Mystery! version starred Jeremy Brett at the peak of his romantic leading man period. ... Brett saw Max as a self-centered man who was thinking only of himself when he married such a young, inexperienced bride. But Brett loved the "dark, sad, and angry" character and felt he became quite sympathetic as he finally began to cope with the past.
Initially, Brett rebelled when told he'd have to grow a mustache for the part. He felt that would make viewers immediately think of Olivier, who wore a mustache in Rebecca. He finally relented.
Furthermore, in a sidebar, the book writes of the Olivier-Brett relationship:
The first Max de Winter, Sir Laurence Olivier, had served as a mentor to Jeremy Brett in the theater, and Brett was the godfather to Olivier's daughter Julia. They had worked together in plays at the National Theatre, and Brett had been directed by Olivier on stage. When Olivier hear his friend had been cast in one of his most famous roles, he called Brett and kidded him, saying, "You might have waited until I was dead!"
BFI ScreenOnline praised Jeremy's take on Maxim de Winter, saying that he "proved much better at puncturing the character's gruff exterior than Laurence Olivier had been in the Hitchcock version.