#1940s cinema

In Italy, Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) was released as La Prima Moglie (The First Wife). That’s a compelling title, especially when presented alongside images of Judith Anderson’s intimidating Mrs Danvers and Joan Fontaine’s naive young woman. If you weren’t familiar with the story when you saw a cinema lobby card like the one above, you could quite easily assume that the woman in black was the first wife herself. That draws Danny and her beloved mistress even closer together in the imagination. The unhinged housekeeper isn’t just ‘standing in’ for Rebecca anymore. She is Rebecca.

“We pull a couple of tugs out of our ship’s hold, just like that” (1944)