Screen Time: Rebecca (1940)

he like asked her to marry him. In the book, even though what he's saying is like really condescending and mean, I like infused it with a softness and like an ironic romantic nous. Where in the this movie he like is like shouting at her while he's getting in the shower and like asking me while he's in the other room. Yeah, he's rushing his teeth and he says, I'm asking you to marry an you idiot. Okay. Welcome back to Popcorn

Book Club. I'm Danish schwar joined as always by Jennifer Wright, Coaramadanqua Tantran and Melissa Hunter, and this week we are on screen time. That doesn't really roll off the tongue, but I'm committed to it. Uh, we're screen timing. I can't turn back. I'll have to figure out what the

verb form of that is. We are doing end screen time about the nineties and forties Alfred Hitchcock adaptation of Rebecca in anticipation of the new Netflix adaptation, so we can be the intelligent people going into the Netflix adaptation comparing it both to the film and the Hitchcock version. I don't want to say you're unintelligent. If you didn't watch the other movie and also read the book, I think that you just don't have time for that. Yes,

there were dinner parties. Right now, we would be the very obnoxious person. It's like, well, did you read the book and also did you watch the nine film. I would only have a dinner party that everyone did that. I'm sorry. If you didn't, you would not be invited to. You have to do a quiz to get him. You have a freshman year reading comprehension quiz swirling wine. Jennifer, you were the one who sort of was a proponent of this book to begin with. Have you seen the

original movie? I had seen me retinal movie. I had not seen it for many, many years, so I had forgotten that the movie diverges from the book in one very important regard, which is he does not shoot Rebecca in the movie. He pushes her and she like slits and dies. She hit her head very much not the

same as shooting someone. It's like the Staircase documentary. Yeah, I think I read on Wikipedia, so who knows the sources that that was like a Hollywood produmption standard code thing, one of those things where it's like, well, he can't have shot his wife and gotten away with it, so he must have just covered up her accidental death and gotten way. That doesn't happen, especially not in the forties. Um, I think you lose a lot of the impact of

the second missis de Winter's loyalty. Though if she doesn't stand with him when he is clearly committed cold blooded murder, it sort of makes it more of a love story if you can sort of get on board with this, like he was wrongfully. It's still bad what he did, but the movie tries to make it see much more like gone Girl, Like it was still bad, but yeah, he didn't murder her In cold blood when thinking she was fucking pregnant. Like, that's a little bit different and

it all. Yeah, and like Jennifer said, it also changes the color of the way the unnamed woman or second Missus de Winter stands by her man, you know, like doing it in that way is a bit more understandable and understandable for me. Seeing it on screen made me hate Maxim a lot more. Yeah, I found him weird, even though even though in the book he committed a murder. Just like, fundamentally, I found him more likable in this book then in the show. In the movie where he's

played by Laurence, Yeah, that's wild. I had never seen Laurence Olivier out of black face before, so this is an experience for me. I'm joking. Obviously I have, but I just wanted to get that in there. I think my impression is I found him very unlikable because he's very mean and very snappy, and he sounds even snappier in a Transatlantic accent. He's like you that, what are

you doing? Get over here? I thought he was perfect, Like from the book, I'm like, Maxim is a total asshole and speaks condescendingly and patronizing lee to the second Mrs de Winter, And when I saw how he was playing it Laurence Olivia, I was like, Okay, this is exactly how I pictured him. And he's even like more, he's not deady murdered baby anymore, not murder, he's not murder daddy's any um. But I actually I really liked

the way he played it. So I'm like looking forward to seeing how you know, Armie Hammer does because I just don't think I can Can Army do a British accent? Do we think? I mean, I could think he's he's a dedicated actor. He's going to do the work to do the best British accent that he is capable of doing. I think we also overestimate like British actors are Americans constantly and then it's like an American doing a British accent.

How But yeah, he's so charming that and warm he is such a warmth to him as an actor, and that I feel like it'll be interesting. I agree, but I agreed to and I feel like we're talking about this in the book episode that you know it is really interesting that like that it isn't a love story it's like the this young woman who is just like believes that she's in love, but it's against this very

cold figure. And I liked seeing that cold figure personified because you're reminded it's so easy to like put a character onto maxim or like a personality or like a someone you fell in love with when you're young that was wrong, and I feel like seeing it, it's like, oh, no, girl, run. Yeah. Like I think when he like asked her to marry him in the book, I imagined it with like even though what he's saying is like really condescending and mean, I like infused it with a softness and like an

ironic romantic nous. Where in the this movie, he like is like shouting at her while he's getting in the shower and like asks her to marry while he's in the other room. Yeah, he's brushing his teeth and he says, I'm asking you to marry an you idiot. And I love how she just collapsed, like it's like, oh, the most romantic thing. I was very much into the denotation.

I was like, these are the words he's saying, And I think for me, it's easier to look at it in a negative light and be like, no, this is bad in the writing um in the movie, obviously, it was also very objectively bad that I expected it to be that, because that's how I read it on the page. I was like, nobody should talk to somebody that they love this way. Although he never said that he loved her, He was just like, do you want to come here?

You want to go there? And yet in the trailer for the Army Hammer one that line which is in the trailer, he's like lifting up her chin and gazing in her eyes. And here's what I hope happens in the movie. And this is just me being like, this

is what I would do with it? Is it could be a real analog for for like an abusive relationship where at the beginning is love bombing and it is him saying I love you, I love you and being perfect and asking her to marry him very suddenly, Like that is all like really love bomby behavior from an abuser, And so I feel like that would be really interesting if it's all perfect on the trip and then when they get back he's this cold asshole who yells at

her from the bathroom. That would be the vision, Like, yeah, I would I would be interested in seeing that version because that feels like the modern reason why you would do it to be like that. Mm hmm. I would be very interested in seeing how they frame the new movie, because I found the framing of this nineties one versus the book really interesting. We didn't get those first two chapters that I hated. We didn't get those at all, um which I actually was like, man, Jen was right.

I kind of wish that I had that scene of seeing, like what happens after Mandalai's burned down, so j just like board and trapped in the media, just trapped in mediocre hotel for the rest of your lives. I wanted to see that at the end, though not at the beginning. I still wanted that, but I wanted to see, Oh yeah,

they're not happy and Mrs dampers fucking one. But Karama, what if in the modern one, she's very unhappy and she it's a freeze frame and then it's a narrator, the narrator sing you're probably wondering how I got into the situation, and it cuts back with you like that that Melissa, that's that is screenwriter record scratching around. I

think everything should star that way. Yeah, the other you see Rose on the door and she's like, you're probably wondering, okay, but actually and ironically, yes, I would actually love that. I would love to see Kate Winslett narrating the whole movie with the Titanic has only just sunk, so she's just she's only backtracking from like the last several days. While flow on the door, she's going insane, like from from being frozen in the water so cold, trying to

figure out how this happened. The thing that concerns me about the new one that I liked about the nineties forties one is the age difference. Like Laurence Olivier looked much older than Joan Fonte, who like looked like a little wisp of a of a girl. She was very good. Yeah, she's really good at it. I mean. One of the things that worries me about the new ones is Lily James is so beautiful and she's five. They're both like five,

they're the same age, and they're both in their mid thirties. Yea, Joe Fontaine at least seems like she is genuinely very insecure when she wears that dress that is just it looks really good in the picture in the magazine, but

it does not look good on her, like human being. Um, it just feels like such a sweet, relatable moment, like you feel like, oh that poor Ladys would look good in a potato set, Like yeah, and then being the same age just disrupts, like one of the power differentials among which was I feel much more noticeable, like I was getting big Leonardo DiCaprio vibes when she was like, I wish I was thirty six, dressed in black satin and wearing a string of pearls, and he was like

if I don't want I don't want that. He's like, don't ever grow up young, forever push you down the stairs. Yeah. I like that. That is like Hollywood's version of a less tragic version of how the First Wife dies. It's like, yeah, he pushed her, so that's better, right. He blacked out raged and then she he woke up and she was dead. She's still siling, you know, I mean, just black out sometimes in rage and then someone across from you is dead.

You can't imagine. Yeah. I love the classic mean girl move that that Beatrice does when she's like I'm paraphrasing, but she says something like, I just love how you don't care how you look. He's great, just like I don't care how you look, it's great. I think she specifically said, I can tell by the way that you dressed that you don't care quit about what you wear. Good in Atlantic, Kama, Yeah, that was good. This is like the thing that I do for fun when I'm

alone in my room. So I'm glad the whole world knows this now, Like I just love doing like mid Atlantic accents for fun. And one of my favorite things in the last season of BoJack Horsemen was Paget Brewster playing that pig that worked for the news and just was like always like oh and then this, and then we're gonna go here and we're gonna do that all

of that. That's how great would it be if Army and Lily did mid Atlantic for this movie, just like without any like full commitment, that would be Harris shows up. It would be kind of dream of Katherine. Harris showed us Mrs Danvers, Mrs dan Verse, and the actor who played Mrs Danverse. She was amazing. She was Judith Anderson,

Francis Margaret Anderson. I still I love the vibe. She didn't seem old, but she did sort of have that vibe of like in old times when you're now at your job, you're like sixteen, you're like, this is your job. You're now an old house mistress. That's her job forever. Like I think people just aged differently. And Jen, I think you were. I think you were the one that said that, like the lesbian vibes of movie get like really pumped up, get really pumped up in the book,

and I was like excited for that. And it's that moment where she like makes the second Mrs de Winter look through the silk closet, yeah fingers, yeah, you know, the whole like room in the West Wing scene, I literally wrote, I think I wrote Mrs Danver's for coat gayest ships a moment where she holds the fur coat up to her up to her face and rubs it on her cheek, and I was like, whoa, oh, yeah, there's no question had sex many times. Yeah yeah, yeah,

that room was crazy nice though. West wing, yeah beautiful, way better than the East Wing room objectively, and better than the West Wing of the White House. Yeah. Yeah, Like structurally, this is a great time for us to take a break. I think we should take a break right here. So we're back with Popcorn Book Club for My Heart Radio. I do wonder if having this version for he just accidentally blacks out a number. Beca's dad takes away some of Mrs Danfrew's victory at the end.

Like in the book, it really does feel like a victory of you killed this woman who was my daughter, slash lover. Now I will burn your house to the ground. Um. It feels a little more incomprehensible to me in the movie because they've just gotten through a big trial. Everybody's established well, nice, sweasy innocent, and it doesn't feel as it does to me in the book, like this a white man got away with murdering his wife, but Mrs

Danverse handled that and she enacted justice. Because the movie sort of hedges it and makes you believe that he kind of didn't kill his wife. Yeah. Yeah, Because I was watching and remember reading the book, I was like, oh, he killed his wife, Like very early as I was watching the movie, I was like, it's interesting, how I don't get that same vibe here. And then we got to the editor was like, oh, that's why. Because They literally don't want you to think he killed his wife.

They just they're like, Nope, he didn't do it. He okay, I looked it up. Mrs Danvers at the time was played by Judith Anderson at age forty two at the time of shooting, so definitely more of a lover than a mom vibe one. I don't know. I did read

that like David O. Selznick. It was so it was the first American movie that Hitchcock made, and um, and that he's like the first three of Hitgecock's movies were under David O. Selznick and they're kind of like known to be his weakest films and and it's because they fought a lot. And and one of the things that David O. Selznick wanted was at the end for the smoke to spell an R in the in the s and he was like, no, that's too that's too much by burning are the like linen or whatever. That's like

the last American audiences are dumb. You got sell American audience. I'm here for it. Yes, yeah, I would have liked that spooky are I would have been I like, I like the Mitchell and Webb sketch who are British comedians where they have a fake Sealsnick and he's like, Hitchcock came to me with this book called Rebecca and I said, great, who do you want as Rebecca? And then they explained it. He's like I told him, if in America, if you have a movie called Rebecca, audiences are gonna want to

see a dame called Rebecca. And then like fake movie is that. She's like, she's Rebecca and he's like, uh no, that's what the second Mrs de Winter will wear. I just flit. I love that, And you know what, I do wish I actually kind of do wish we could see Rebecca because the thing about film is that we

have this third person perspective. We're not inside the second Mrs de Winter's head, and I would have loved to have actually been privy to the scene between them in the sex check by the beach and seen that fight and seeing like seeing Mrs de Winter coming down the stairs. And it's supposed to be that she's haunting this place, so I would love to see what it looked like when she was in there. And I hope that the new one takes advantage of that maybe that's a Nixmas

and that's one of the reasons. What about a Crimson ghost? What if we got a Crimson Peak style Rebecca. I mean, so when I was in college, that's when I saw Rebecca for the first time. And it's because I was on this play called Mrs Prudential, which this um guy from at school wrote Dennis Webber, very funny, writer, director, very talented. You know Dennis from Chicago. Yes, saying so he listened since he's your friends. Yeah, yeah, I mean maybe of course we Yeah, we make all of our

friends listen. Um. So, anyway, it was called it was based on it was inspired by Rebecca, and it was called Mrs Prudential and Mr Prudential. I was Mrs Prudential number two, and there were five Mrs Prudentials and each one he murders and puts in the closet and at the end they all come back as ghosts and kill him and I and I remember reading that and be like, oh, Rebecca is going to be so fun. It's going to be about ghosts. And then it wasn't any any ghosts.

Not one goes there's not a ghost in sight. And she asked, like, do you believe in ghosts. And she's like no, and then she's like, I want a party and I want to address and I am in charge now, and I'm like, where is the ghost? I wanted the ghost? There? There were so many like billow curtains and shadow moments. I was like, she's gonna pop up up, She's gonna pop up and give me that goes, give me that guy. Um.

I don't know. I feel like it's really important that you never see Rebecca because no matter what, it's not going to live up to this vision that the Seconds to Winter has in her head. He was a beautiful, perfect woman who nobody can ever be as pretty as I don't know you can get Rihanna. I know, Yeah, I just want more. I would like more of a film Rebecca, just so like I want to see who they think Hollywood like, I want to see that casting. It's not it's more like a it's more of like

a personal Hollywood casting moment that I would like. I think it would be really fun if there are just one picture in the modern movie and it's just like Angelina Jolie and everyone's like, oh, Angelina Jolie is gonna come and and then she never does. It's just they just licensed that one photo. I got hundred dollars off of Getty Images and then that was it. Just like Meryl Streep and Mama Mia too. Yeah, I sort of my my dream Rebecca. It's sort of like Angelina Jolie

meets Rihanna. What was I saying? Oh Um? I like that change in the movie to the TV show that she sort of like impetuously wanted the party to prove she wants to kind of prove herself. We're in the book she sort of passively like hadn't rest upon her where in this I did like that little action moment where she's like, I could have a party. I could be as good as Rebecca. And it was a good party and she did it all by herself. So proud of her. I hate her, but she did a really

good job. And I was like, Okay, I could have one beer with you. Not to but we're making progress because book, Mrs de Winter, I was like, I don't want to just go eat your cold ham and Daria. She matures a lot faster in the movie than she does in the book, like she very quickly comes into her own and is able to make a sort of

statements and kind of talks to the butler. Is so she is a lady of the manner when her husband is being dragged away for maybe murder um where she gives She gives the butler like very reassuring things about like m Mr Winter will appreciate that, thank you for your service. Birth uh. And it's very much like the behavior of like a thirty year old woman who has been running a house for a while. Yeah, she gets

on board pretty quick. Yeah, which I didn't. I mean, I know, it's like movie magic and things needed to be collapsed in like we lost. We lost that like moment of him being terrible at the party to her for a very long time, and like the boat happening right away. I miss all of that him being terrible to her essentially, so that like the end, you're like, why does why is she still with him? Like why

the police? Yeah, why doesn't she? So Like I feel like you kind of missed some of that as well of just like the extended, prolonged lack of confidence from her and like extended prolonged moments of him being a total asshole to her. I also missed those moments of tension when one after he shuns her from the party, Like I felt that in a gut punch in the book, and maybe because I already knew what was going to happen,

I didn't feel the same way in the movie. And then those like a weird ride or die moments where they're like together and he's talking to her for the first time and you're like, oh, it's these two people on board. Like in the book, I I kind of understood why it was like being writer or did even though it was fucked up. I was like, this is weird. It's not a love story, but you aren't committed to each other, where I think trying to turn it into

a traditional love story flattened it. Yeah, and you that gut punch of that party too, because I feel like, I don't know if you have all experiences, but like throwing a party that doesn't when you're fighting with your partner is like the worst fucking thing. Like to try to try my ex girlfriend and I we had like an event, she gotten, we gotten a fight and like the rest of the party is just the absolute To be in a fight at a party is like the

ultimate like public couple bullshit thing. That you're trying to like push through and I miss that too, Like I really I really need to see that. And I also feel that feels very common because it's like you're both stressed trying to put something together and you have different expectations of it, and then all of a sudden you get into a fight right before the right does the guess is walking in. You're like, and then you have to I have a question because as we all know,

I didn't finish the book blah blah blah. So the guy that was at the sex shock Ben, I think, yeah, was he in the book? Yeah? Yes, yeah, okay, oh yeah, I didn't recall him in the person I read in the book Jack Come it thinks he's his ace in the hole, and he's like, hey'll tell you that they were at the shed and like they go and get Ben and then yeah, Ben's like no, not what, No, I don't remember because I told him that she will institutionalize hit me. He ever goes around telling people that

she has her lovers over to the shed. That was hard to watch, like classic old movie Hitchcock, Like using Ben as like a spooky scary element is so able as it's like I was like, oh god, this is hard to watch. I didn't get that sense from him in the book really like he's not spooky, he's not scary. He just like he's he's down by the shore. And second Mrs de Winter talks to him and he shares some of these things, but like they in the first couple of times you meet him, I mean, Hitchcock really

is like this person is scary. I think what I actually, I think the nuance in the book was interesting to me, where it was like the Mrs de Winter wasn't afraid of of him, but the men Frank and Mr de Winter were like, oh, don't be scared of him, Like he I know he's scary, but don't be scared. Like they thought she would be scared of him, and they put that sort of prejudice onto him, but she wasn't frightened,

and so it felt like a differentiation between them. M I like that, Yeah, that she just like because she's not he's like elitist person. She just likes he's a firstman as a person. Yeah, I I think you're tan. Going back to like party moment, there is so much awkward and comedic potential in that, especially because Mr de Winter Maxim doesn't dress up for the costume party, which is a peak asshole move, such a good detail. Well,

I love the ash don't dress up. He's like, oh, I get to do this because I'm the host, and I'm like, you didn't do shit. Literally, you did nothing. It's at your house that you share with your wife. If you were too mysteriously disappear, as I think he should, then she would get the house, so it's her house too. But like he just decides, I don't want to wear a costume, which okay, fine, but don't require everyone else

to wear a costume. Make it costume optional. It's a little fun costume party, or don't throw it costumes the costume party, just have a black tie dinner party. Yeah, it's really interesting for you to refer to it as his hestity shares with his wife that she would definitely inherent if something happened to him. Is there ever a version of this where the second Mr Winter could have just teamed up with Mrs Dancer. That's what I was just. Yeah, I thought that because in the movie he disappears when

the ship comes in and she's like, oh where are you? Oh, Maxim where are you, Maxim? Maxim, Oh, I've lost him? And then um, I'm like, what if you stop looking down in my notes? I'm like, you don't look for him,

stop looking baby at the house. I had the very wrong prediction when reading it that that's what would happen, or that she would end up alone with the house and having to be like the lady of the house as as a widow, sort of like almost becoming the new Maxim to Winter like she now is like the the mysterious widow. That's what I would want. I love

a mysterious widow. I know that miss Havisham is kind of like not a widow technically, but like I want like a crazy old lady that's wearing the same dress, has a rotting that nobody gets to eat. I love it. I just want a version of this where she goes to Mrs Dancrews and says, hey, So it turns out Maximum murdered Rebecca. You liked her, right, you too, seem close. So I was thinking maybe he should go to jail and you can keep running the house. But for me

in Rebecca's memory, so we're friends now. Yeah, it looks like a very happy ending to me, keep running the house beautiful though I Rebecca would have wanted it. I'll just hang out with the dogs and the painting Rebecca in the foy. It'll be a nice little momento. Maybe Mrs the Second Mrs de Winter falls in love with Mrs dan Verse vice versa, and they run this beautiful list together. Oh, I turned into a bed breakfast with a Myer's kitchen. Have any of you seen the film

The Handmaiden. I don't want to spoil anything because there are plot twists, but there are. There are is like sort of made to countess love affair things going on. It's based on a really good book called Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, and it's very fun and very gay. Okay, I might add that actually I haven't picked my book yet. There it is, I would. I mean, I love the movie. I would love to read. I've never read the book. The movie is spectacular, Okay, I'm excited, Okay, excellent. I'm

like kind of very blah about this movie. I also don't like a lot of old films from like pre nineteen seventy. I have very little interest in a lot of black and white films from the classic film era, and I've seen like my fair amount of Hitchcock. I've seen the Birds, I've seen Rear Window, I've seen Marnie, which is like one of those deep cuts for a lot of people. I think Marnie was super weird, and

that's the one I think I liked the most. But um, yeah, I just kind of was like, this is not even the book in a way that makes sense to me, And they took out all of the really interesting things, like because we are seeing it from this third person perspective and we're not inside of her head, we're missing so much And um, I really missed kind of the weird symbiotic relationship that she had with Mrs van Hopper, who is probably my favorite character. I love Miss van Hopper.

So she was also right. She was I can't wait for the and out Mrs van Hopper of every fiber of my being. I agree. I'm I am a big Hitchcock fan, like but I do. I watched it in college. I didn't really remember Rebecca. I feel like I wanted to like it so much because I was in college and I was like, oh, Hitchcock, you know. But now

when I watched the second time, it just doesn't. It's his first American film, it's one of his early films, and I feel like he just his later films get really into the character's heads so much more and get so much more intimate, which this the book and why I loved it was it did feel so you did feel so intimate with the protagonist or with Mrs de Winter, and and you get really in her head and you see why she's doing the things she does, even if

you don't agree with them. And this just felt so cold, you know, it didn't feel very connected in that way. Isn't you kind of weird? Sorry? I was just saying, isn't it weird that it won Best Picture? I didn't really the Academy Award for Let's See. I'm sorry that like was super shady, but like I just it did. I mean, there were fewer people making fewer films back then, but it just doesn't feel remarkable to me. Here here

are the nomineesh Best Picture nominees. Rebecca one Um, The Grapes of Oh, A Lot of Movies, The Grapes of Wrath, Foreign Correspondent, All This and Heaven to Our Town, The Long Voyage Home, Philadelphia Story, The Great Dictator. No, the Philadelphia Story, The Great Dictator, Kitty Foyle and the letter Wait the Great Dictator came out that you were didn't Wait,

Yeah I really should have won. Yeah that's crazy. This yeah, this is I was watching it knowing that it won Best Picture and I was like, really, it's not that impressive. It's it's good, like I like the Performer, but as it's a little film, it didn't like me. I want.

I also wonder if, like it is Hitchcock's first American film, and maybe it is that like we've seen as a fan, like I've seen his older stuff and then going back to this, I'm like, oh, this isn't that great, but maybe it has some of the specialness of him as a director that you kind of when you're comparing against a person. I don't know, like you see the Academy. It was like maybe the Academy was like, oh my god, it's his first one here to give him a good

that he feels good. Yeah. Also, Laurence Olivier, I assume was a big deal. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Joan Joan Fontane I'm reading now was the little sister of Olivia de Haveland. Oh. I think also as we know, the Academy Awards now always get it right. So you know it is Ruin's favorite film from Crash. You know what though, I was a Crash defender for a very long time, and then I watched it again like two years ago, and I was like, oh, this is garbage. Somebody should

have slapped me. It's real bad. It's not good. It's sort of but didn't feel racism. I thought that was the year. Yeah, yeah, we're done. Now we did it. It's all over, it's all good. I just got a note from how I Would producer David o' sales Nick, and he says, we have to do an ad break right now. Nice, nice, nice, Okay, we're back with Popcorn

book Club. Okay. One of the things that I think it was really likable about the main character, the second Misses de Winter, is that she's very funny, like she's a quiet humor and she's not making jokes with anybody, but of when you get to be pretty to her in her world, she's a very very funny person and you do not get any of that in the moment.

She's a wet paper towel. She will she she is a little bit she's very timid, and then suddenly she's good at running the house, and that's nice for her, But you never see any of the right observations that you get in the book, and it makes it really hard to relate to her. I have a question for all of you. I posted a link to the poster in the chat, so if you could click the poster, is that supposed to be Rebecca? To the bottom left? Do we think? Isn't that weird? She looks like a

statue also porcelain doll. Concerning why Mrs de Winter's head is coming out of a book? Like, is that supposed to be Daphne Dumourrier's book? Rebecca? Like? What the book? Rebecca? It's to remind you that this is a book you liked and now it's a movie. If it were the Great Gatsby, I'll be like, the book represents the American dream, the book represents the British upper class, the landed gentry of England. Oh, speaking of books, I really did miss the fact that he was like, oh, do you want

this book? And she got to like get to know Rebecca's handwriting, And I think that that was supposed to be hinted at because when she was like stalling for time and trying to get Maxim on the phone, she was like, Oh, I'm going to go into my room and see if I've left my book there. Uh, just I'll call down to the desk to give them a forwarding address in case someone finds my book. And I was just like, wait, is this the book that he gave you in the car that never happened on screen?

So we're just like, why are you fucking crazy crazy about this book? And I very much just was disappointed in her, like not being haunted by the physical details of Rebecca still being at the house, like the letter boxes, Like there are tons of like little details that I not to be like male filmmaker men aren't good at making movies. They aren't aren't either. There's so many people

that aren't making movies. But there isn't there something like about being a woman and like feeling threatened by your spouses are sechnficant other's X and like they're those physical details like the handkerchief in the pocket and the handwriting and the letters, and like I didn't get that she was haunted by him when she was like, you don't have to love me. It's fine. I was like, whoa girl? Where are you having this? She gets from zero to

sixty very quickly. Yeah, he's also major crying basically every scene she's seen. It's it's a very terrible relationship in the movie, maybe worse so than the book, because at least in the books you can kind of put some of it off on her being paranoid, like she's convinced that everybody in the village is talking about her very badly and speculating about like why did he marry this woman?

And in the movie they actually are like Beatrice and her husband are actually saying, I bet she's a showgirl from the south of France. But you're you're totally right,

like not to be like male filmmakers. But what is interesting is that Rebecca, the first Mrs de Winter and second Mrs de Winter are these like very full characters, and they feel really flattened out in this book in this movie adaptation, like like you don't get those hints of her first Mrs de Winter and how she's what she's what Rebecca is like, and like how how how like much of a huge person she was in this

house that you get in the book. So, yeah, no, I agree with you on that that you miss all of those like very small moments that are actually huge and I do, but and I do think it is of the era too, of like there, It's really I feel like back in the forties filmmaking was kind of like Gone with the Wind and all of these big epics, and I feel like they really struggled with having kind

of the language of intimate internal feelings and details. And you know, we have so many devices now in filmmaking that we use that just not not technical devices, but like film storytelling devices that just didn't exist back then. Um, yeah, why can't movies from eighty years ago be as good as movies today? Why doesn't Winter have a Twitter feed? So I know how anxious she feels actually more like Emily in Paris? Yet should I watch me? Okay? Watch it.

It's not good. It's everything. I watched all of it in the course of one week. I watched it one single day. It is awful. It is indefensible, and I can't wait for season two. Okay, back to Jennifer, what you were saying that moment of the maids being snippy

to her, You're totally right under. I didn't even realize at the time because she's being paranoid, like everyone probably hates me, and it's like, oh ship, they do hate you, and where it is so much more powerful if she's so insecure and everyone's just like yeah, whatever, because that's kind of what real life is like most of the times, where you're like everyone hates me, Oh my god, everyone's just like, oh yeah, would you have for lunch? Like

no one really can. It's the whole therapy thing of like no one is thinking about you as much as you are thinking about you, and so these like imagined. I loved the imagined conversations in the book. It felt and she it goes so far like she spends it. Sometimes I'm like, wait, is this really happening, And then I have to go back to pages of being like, oh no, she's still imagining this scenario. Um. And I think that is so relatable to like being a young

person that's insecure and having a lot of anxiety. And I really hope that the new movie really digs into that. I also think that a way that if I were picking this up, I would have there's this great detail that they opened the house to the villagers once a week,

every week, and we never see that happen. And I think that that's such a great opportunity to have people be talking about her and have her be able to build on this sort of like oh God, like I don't know what I'm doing situation, like to have people be like, oh, this isn't what it used to be, like you know, and I just feel like there's that really great detail and I think it is right for like, inviting people into your home is not a thing that most of us do, Like strangers straight up people can

just walk into your house like it's a museum. And I would love to see how that affects her and

how that affects her like sanity. I'm disappointed that it didn't feel in the book running a major estate seemed very, very hard, and I'm mad that like the details like the food, like all the food and the waste, and like, I don't know, there's so many little things that now I obviously movies, you know, you have to cut for time, but like, yeah, there were a lot of little things that I missed that weren't replaced by like new visual details to you know what. I'm sorry it does very

well like it feels. It just sort of reminded me of a modern pieces The Great. Have you guys watched

The Great? I love it so much, and it is it does have kind of a Rebecca feel where it's this young woman that gets married off to the Czar of Russia and she goes in not knowing how to do anything, and it does feel like they show the excess and the gluttony and all of I mean, obviously it's a very different tone, but it I do feel like Danny, You're right, is missing And it was such a fun exploration of that sort of thing because it was a job, I mean, like running a man or house,

just like that's a real fucking thing even now, and I do feel like it is such a relatable feeling of being out of your depths, whether it's you know, okay, I was like having to run a giant manner. I hate having to run a giant manner. So exhausting when

I marry a mysterious widow every time. No, but of just like going into a circumstance where a like you're, you know, with a bunch of wealthy people and you don't know how you're supposed to act or talk or like in a new job that you and have no idea how to do, Like I feel like it is such a feeling that I really connected to in the book, and it ye didn't feel like it was there in this movie that Grandma besides spontane being just so anxious,

the Grandma wasn't there being like where's Rebecca? I love Rebecca. Oh yeah, Grandma, I forgot about Grandma. That was funny. You were all right, though, Favel. It was hotter than I had pictured him. He's super hot and not that drunk. Yeah, it was totally tim this movie version of him. I was like, he seems okay, and he said, I got it. Rebecca would do that. Yeah. Might be cousins, but they both can get it, you know, but but made of California,

it is legal to marry your first cousin. Okay. You wanted him to be you want him to be hot, and then looked like he spent the last eight months drunk out of his mind. And this guy was just kind of hot. He was just hot. There was there was no he was like grief missed. There was like no grief roughness to him, which I wanted. If we really want Madman, Don Draper drunk. That's what I feel like.

George Saunders is terrible casting for fulfill And I'm saying that as someone who was only allowed to watch black and white movies growing up. So George Sanders was one of my childhood crushes. I have follow up questions. One what to why my parents really hated cartoons? But all old movies are g rated and they wouldn't like sit and watch I don't know what cartoons are, like Porky the Porcupine. Um, well it was a good and we all agree on that. But but everything on Turner Classic

Louis is de rated because of the HASE codes. So they would just watch like an in definite series of old black and white movies with me. So I love George Sanders. He's amazing, He's great, But a lot of his term is that he's like this why cosmopolitan man who like is always making Martini's and uh wants to engage in like some banter with young women. Um, and I think that's true in this as well. Like GEAREDE. Sanders seems like himself, he seems like he'd be fun.

He does not seem like the dissipated alcoholic, like former president of his fraternity. The Rebecca was having sex was frank play. When I think of that, I think of Ernie Hammrick, like make his eyes bloodshot and like let him gain twenty pounds and he's he's Favel. The important thing with Favel in the plot of the book is the police chief is on Maxim side because Favel represents a different part of society where even the second Mr Winter,

who like is not accustomed to high society. It's like, it's weird that Rebecca would have been friends with a guy like that. And then the police chief when he comes is like Max, you and me, we get it, We're not. This guy is right, but he's crazy, you know, like you know who I am? Yeah for modern casting is what's his name? The brother from Got Out, Caleb l Andrew Jones perfect very greasy, like dirty, and he just looks like a little slam it. Yeah, he's greasy,

you get it. But you're like, he's greasy and he would leave a film if you had sex with And it's like you're a little scared of him. He's but it's fine. Yeah, I feel like in more ways than one he would leave a film if you had sex with him, like he would have filmed me without your consent, And I don't I see that. I see the potential of that in him. I'm not saying it's a good thing. I'm just saying that's the vibe, and I'm sure it's a lovely person casting vibe fifteen casting. Thank you so much?

Are we He's good. I'm looking at his face right now and he's he's creeping me out. Just make another remak of Rebecca. It seems like we have to. I feel like we should make a modern remake. There are still rich people modern yet you can still cast him. He has have a lot more options. I think that's one of the ways Rebecca would be really really different if it happened some Yeah, I think women in this class have a lot of options that are not but you have to get married and orphans orphans who are

working is like personal assistance to very rich women. I still be fine. She doesn't have to marry somebody who's a murderer, but it's still feels an emotional draw in that feels real. And also, you know, if she's a gig worker, minimum way just still seven fifty an hour. You know, and you meet like a you know, text magnet, you meet like whose really means you? Women date men like that without the money, right, Like you're doing it right now. I have too loving parents, and I have

fallen in love with people who treat me very badly. Yea, and yeah they're not they don't have a manner and aren't the like talk of the town. Yeah, I've done it for a way uglier, way worse real estate. Hey we all learn, you know, Yeah, only only some people are judging you. I'm joking. Day, just like the young second Mrs de Winter, you grow up and then you wear a black dress and pearls. Yeah, she never gets a to do that because she has to take care

of her decaying husband to murderer forever. Most people, most people do get to do that. Yeah, I do love that, a bitter sweet, tragic ending where both people kind of get what they deserve, and they deserve to be in a mediocre hotel room reading about wildfowl forever. Yeah, that's basically what the guys on Supernatural do. Like, that's what they do for fifteen seasons. They're in shitty motels and

like reading. Okay, so that has a TV show adaptation that follows the end of the book where they're in their hotel rooms and someone comes back, like, you know what we should read and watch? I know what you did last summer book. I did not know that. I've read the book. Actually read a lot of books by the author too. I went through a weird phase. Who's the author? Twenty nine years um, I can't remember her name off the top of my head. I'll look it up.

I was saying, did you see those photos today? It's a woman though of the New Shonda Rhymes, Yeah, Lois Duncan. She has a bunch of books. There's like one where a bunch of kids like kill their English teacher by accident and she just does like a lot of like murdering. Was it detected into teaching? Mrs Tingle? Oh these covers? Because what did you say? Young young adult books from like the thirties, right from the thirties. I was like reading. I was like, yeah, this is fun. Sorry, Oh I

didn't read the date, but still seven and three. Then I was looking at I looked at the first day I saw was when she was born, and I was like, there's one that ero called Daughters of Eve, and I have no idea what it's about, but the cover is in Yeah, I love Lows, Duncan. I'm down to read. I know what you did last summer, and I don't think a lot of people know that was a buck. It's like really low key. Um. This one is about a group of young women who become convinced to punish

their fathers by a charismatic feminist teacher. That fun was, Duncan, is the reason I am the way I am. That sounds awesome, and you just murder him It's fine? Yeah, I call the police on your husband and take his money. Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry. Yes, Well doesn't the second my sister Winter do that. I know, because she's a love. But but the thing is, Jennifer, you're not any better because you said that if Dan killed somebody, you wouldn't call the police on him and take his money. Yeah. Yeah,

the coveya was that? Like, you know, if only you had been dating for like three four yeah, yeah, dating and married for a long time, if you many years, if you and Daniel had only been married and yeah for three months, for half of that he was mean to you, and he was so mean to me. I'm just crying all the time on the suicide because this marriage was going so badly, I would probably feel very differently.

Um yeah, I mean a lot of my um and I cannot reiterate and enough the fact that I will be helping Daniel escape the country when he does, he's inefftable murdering a lot of that his face. Yeah, this is gonna be like evidence is going to be in evidence for a court case. For a court case. It becomes like a Netflix true crime moment, like this audio will be like and there will be a man and like a tweet jacket talking about how like his wife was constantly saying she would help him escape when he

murdered someone. And if you've met Daniel, you know he is just a moment away from murder. No, but it's it's based upon the fact that I have known him for so long and I know that he is such a kind, loving, giving person. That have you guys known each other or when did you start? For six years? Yeah, we've been heard for three years. We've known each other for six so you know that. Yeah, but you know

the murder would be justified at anybody. So I assume if he murdered someone, they probably really had it coming right right again, a thing that will be used at the court case Againstumation. I will I'm going to play the fifth th just okay, quick change of subject. So I'm looking at the Rebecca film Wikipedia page and there's a line about production and one of them is the

Breen Office. Hollywood Censorship Board specifically prohibited prohibited any outright hint of a lesbian infatuation or relationship between Mrs Danvers and Rebecca, though the film clearly does dwell on Danver's obsessed with memories for late mistress. Yeah, they not stop everybody from reading matt lesbian relationship. Yeah no, so that would be that the minimum game they could do. That was like my biggoted, like my biggest Grandma's coming over

the Thanksgiving Keep it low key. Yeah, we're gonna have to do some major reshoots. This is the least gay we can get it in the attit. Yeah yeah, I love it. I love thinking like the the studio having that last sigh. It feels a little tood we linger on the sheer fabric on her hand for just wants to feel again, she just likes fabric for your hand.

I mean they say that that she that the author Daphne de Maurier, like there's questions about her sexuality, that she had affairs with women, and that she was quote a tomboy, which and that she wanted to wish that she had been born a boy. They say that she was like maybe bisexual, but this is all speculation. Oh wait, she also wrote a memoir like she's been pretty proud

about the fact that. Here's my thing about all of the I feel like a lot of people born in like the late eighteen hundreds, in early nineteen hundred, people are like, oh, and you know, she wished that she were born a man, And I'm like, why wouldn't you, right, Yeah, Like, that's not a signifier of gainus. That's a signifier of wanting basic human decency. Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting that the way that Daphne more is described is

the way Rebecca is described in the book. That people are always talking about how Rebecca should have been born a boy. She was fearless, she was fucking her cousin, which again Daphne to Maria was doing and wrote in her memoir that she loved fucking her cousin us. So yeah, clearly they're both fine with it, and again, in the state of California, people still do it. Consent, Yeah, but a lot. It seems like it would make for like really awkward Thanksgiving dinners the family at the very least.

But yeah, I think it's interesting to read this book assuming that Daphne to Murray did not necessarily see herself as the second Missister Winter, she might very well have seen herself as Rebecca. Mm hmm, yeah I was. That's why it's called Rebecca. I love that move. I think that's such like a modern baller touched to name your book Rebecca and to not have Rebecca in it, and

then to never give your main character a name. Yeah, I just like, oh, what an idea that's like, I'm that makes me mad, how smart it is and how cool. Though I'm very much though a fan of that sketch where it's like American audiences are gonna want to see a damn named Rebecca, because I feel like that's so true, Like wait, is she Rebecca? Like when I read it, I was like, wait, no one is named Rebeccah, Okay,

I got it. I am there now, And like I feel like I'm a fairly hair you died, you know, like well read well like open minded personels, So like, why isn't this Basin and Rebetta? I mean, okay, does does daph need more? Then? Have contempt for this character because she never gets to establish an identity outside of her husband, like and she really never does. Like it does not end with her inheriting this beautiful mansion. It ends with her reading to him in a city hotel

and I imagine me in a wheelchair. I know he's not, but it seems like he's heading in the direction where she's going to be pushing him around the ground. I think she has empathy for her. I think there would be no way to write this character like as funny and relatable as it is, or she didn't have empathy for her. But I also think that like she is

doomed to her own small little life. Yeah, I feel sorry, Well I do feel like i've there are there They are such extremes, right, But I do think there are people who start as an unnamed Mrs de Winter and become a Rebecca. So maybe maybe Daphne was as at nineteen more like the current Mrs de Winter and then became the Rebecca. So the second will never get to do that though. She doesn't get to be thirty six and wear a black dress. Now she doesn't, well maybe

at his funeral. Um, So go on a journey with me for a second. Right, you know the musical by canderin Ebb Cabaret right of course, about a nightclub. Nazis all sorts of fun things. Um. So I'm not saying Nazis are fun. That was ironic. I just I feel like just with the world where I have to say

I don't think Nazis are fun. But anyway, there's that whole song where she sings the titular song cabaret um, and she talks about her friend Elsie and how everybody was like, oh Elsie's a how and you know, but when she was laid out, when she died, she was the happiest court she'd ever seen. I feel that is like Rebecca, And this story is a look Rebecca died, she got murdered by somebody who couldn't handle her ship.

But look at the woman who can handle this guy's ship, Like, don't be that woman, Rebecca, Like, don't don't let somebody steal your shine. And also it's very much like at the end of that song Cabaret. She's like, I made my mind up back in Chelsea when I go, I'm going like Elsie and I feel like Daphne de Morier is like I am sucking my cousin and no one can stop me, and that's okay. And Rebecca, Rebecca had cancer.

She did not want to die a slow death, and she died on her terms, and she made her husband miserable. In a funny break at the end, I like that you regret this is a funny PreK was she classic George Frank with a smile on her face, right, because she's like Frank you she was about to say Franked alright. Final final thoughts before we dip out of the nineteen forties black and white Transatlantic Rebecca, Well, I just think

it's a swell film. I really wish that they had written not just the R but Rebecca her actual full name. I really wish it was the full name. I am haunting you. This is my away from my house, replace my porcelain angel. Bit that the Ava Lingoria film Over My Dead Body is a modern day remake of Rebecca. I like that movie. It's better than this for me. Who is the man in that movie unimportant. I don't

even know the movie you're talking about. People Longoria is a ghost who haunts her ex fiance as he's starting to date a new woman. It's hilarious, it's amazing, incredible, it's better than this copy. Oh my god, you'll never get I mean you will, yeah, wow, Okay, oh my god. What a Casto was a different time, so less Rebecca's more Over My Bodies. That's my final thought. Well, actually,

just in a real like actual coaching thought. I think that there is humor in the book and I did think that I liked the book better than this movie, which is funny because I was like, I hate this book, but it made me appreciate the book more and it made me appreciate the perspective that Daphnew Dumourier had more.

And I think that one of the reasons I like Over My Dead Body so much more than Rebecca is because it is funny and it is a similar concept in terms of the haunting, although this it is quite literally is a ghost. You can see the ghost, but

there's a lot of humor. And I think that one of the things for me that makes horror so great is a balance between horror and humor, which is why I really like movies like Cabin in the Woods and I really like Scream and I really like to get out because you kind of have to laugh so you're not terrified. And I think that this is one of those situations where if you laugh, it makes you less terrified that you're with this totally abusive man. Maybe you

should have gone to New York. This maide is is like obsessed with his ex wife who is disappeared and drowned, even though she was super good at sailing. Everything's a little sketchy, so it's just kind of like people are talking about me. I guess I'm gonna throw a mask ball. I think I would like to see a sequel. Yeah, I would love to see a sequel about Mrs dan Cruise. That's that's my entire final thought. I hope she's okay. Um.

I hope she feels scared about her actions um. And I hope she's happily employed someplace else where she doesn't constantly have to be reminded of her dead love her a slash child figure. At the very least, we know Mrs Danvers is really good at her job, so good yeah. Yeah. Also, burning down a house that big would take a lot of work. She's effective's yeah, she's good at she knows how to do stuff. Yeah, you know how you burn down a house that big? Little fires everywhere. Okay, I

think that's a good place to stand it. That's our show for the week. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Danis Schwartz and you can find me on Twitter at Danish Wart with three z's. You can follow Jennifer Wright at jen Ashley Wright Karama, Donqua is at Karama Drama, Melissa Hunter is at Melissa f tw and Tian Tran is smart enough to have gotten off Twitter, but she is on Insta at Hank Tina. Our executive producer is Christopher Hessiotes and were produced and edited by Mike John's

Special thanks to David Wasserman. Next week, we are jumping into the present. Well, it's still a period piece, but the Netflix adaptation of Rebecca with Armie Hammer and Lily James. Oh, we have thoughts. Stay tuned. Popcorn book Club is a production of I Heart Radio