30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 17- Rebecca (1940)

The task for today's 30 day movie challenge was to watch a film that had won an Oscar at the Academy Awards for best picture and there is so many to choose from considering the first one was handed out in 1927/28 to Wings. Now there are decisions that are made that boggle our minds as far as who they choose, but for today we are checking out the 1940 winner for Best Picture in Rebecca which was directed by Alfred Hitchcock (North By Northwest). The film stars Joan Fontaine (Letter from an Unknown Woman) as a young inexperienced woman who by chance meets an aristocrat who grows to like her enough that he marries her. The only problem is that is that she has quite the legacy to live up to at the estate because the first Mrs. de Winter was quite the woman that just the thought of her intimidates her. The film stars Laurence Olivier (Jesus Of Nazareth) as Maxim de Winter,  Judith Anderson (Star Trek III: The Search For Spock) as Mrs. Danvers, Nigel Bruce (Sherlock Holmes and the Voice Of Terror) as Major Giles Lacy, Reginald Denny (Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House) as Frank Crawley, C. Aubrey Smith (And Then There Were None) as Col. Juylan,  George Sanders (The Picture of Dorian Gray) as Jack Favell, and Leo G. Carroll (Strangers on a Train) as Dr. Baker.

At first I was wondering what direction the film was going in because I was expecting this strange ghost story, but what you end up getting is completely different. It's the story of how one persons impression can still carry a legacy over a place or group of people to the point that the sheer mystery is what haunts you. For Joan Fontaine's character goes through this maddening period throughout the film, but then she finds her footing when a big secret is revealed that concerns the death of Rebecca. Then she becomes sort of strong because Maxim all of a sudden can't hold his himself together. Then I tried to figure out what made this film win Best Picture after beating out The Great Dictator, The Philadelphia Story, and The Grapes Of Wrath to name a few and I can't figure it out. I am not saying that this was a bad film, but it beat out some serious contenders. One of it's strong points is definitely the acting in the film as everyone brought their A game, but man I could not stand Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson) because that woman was pure evil and there is one scene where she's encouraging someone to commit suicide which I thought was messed up. The set design was really good and the overall flow of the film was pretty nice, but the story while it was pretty good was not perfect in my opinion. Being a film studies minor means you get to watch a lot of films and I have already seen so many Bets Picture winners that it was interesting to find one I could watch. I found this one on Youtube and therefore I am going to give the film an B+ for a final grade.