Review: Rebecca

“What was the secret of Manderley?”

This was written on posters along the streets in 1940 when Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller Rebecca premiered.

It was his first Hollywood film and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The film was based on the novel of the same name published two years earlier by Hitchcock’s compatriot, the writer Daphne du Maurier . Dame set the story in her beloved Cornwall, where she herself lived and wrote. In the novel, Manderley has a mansion there.

Now the book and film have been turned into an international hit musical, which will soon also be performed at the Helsinki City Theatre with Finnish actors. The premiere of the melodrama on the big stage is on August 28.

The musical has the interesting feature that Rebecca, mentioned in the title, does not appear on stage once. She is the hero’s previous wife, who died young, and the new young man compares himself to perfection.

It is a pure-blooded gothic story. Entertainment novels that mix romance and suspense were still the most popular reading among American housewives in the last millennium. So what makes Rebecca’s story gothic? Well, it has all the key features: a dark, mysterious mansion; forbidden room; a young, beautiful and naïve heroine; and a more experienced, handsome and wealthy hero. The hero, who is older than his spouse, has a somewhat murky past, and he makes the heroine’s heart beat with both love and fear. Like straight out of the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tale Bluebeard!