Rebecca (Criterion) Blu-ray (Rental)

Romance becomes psychodrama in Alfred Hitchcock s elegantly crafted Rebecca, his first foray into Hollywood filmmaking. A dreamlike adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel, the film stars the enchanting Joan Fontaine as a young woman who believes she has found her heart's desire when she marries the dashing aristocratic widower Maxim de Winter (played with cunning vulnerability by Laurence Olivier). But upon moving to Manderley her groom s baroque ancestral mansion she soon learns that his deceased wife haunts not only the home but the temperamental, brooding Maxim as well. The start of Hitchcock's legendary collaboration with producer David O. Selznick, this elegiac gothic vision, captured in stunning black and white by George Barnes, took home the Academy Awards for best picture and best cinematography. TWO-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES - New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack - Audio commentary from 1990 featuring film scholar Leonard J. Leff - Isolated music and effects track - New conversation between film critic and author Molly Haskell and scholar Patricia White - New interview with special effects historian Craig Barron on the visual effects in Rebecca - Documentary from 2007 on the making of Rebecca - Screen, hair, makeup, and costume tests including actors Joan Fontaine, Anne Baxter, Vivien Leigh, Margaret Sullavan, and Loretta Young - Casting gallery annotated by director Alfred Hitchcock and producer David O. Selznick - Television interviews with Hitchcock and Fontaine from 1973 and 1980 - Audio interviews from 1986 with actor Judith Anderson and Fontaine - Three radio adaptations of Rebecca, from 1938, 1941, and 1950, including Orson Welles s version for the Mercury Theatre - Theatrical rerelease trailer - PLUS: An essay by critic and Selznick biographer David Thomson and selected production correspondence, including letters between Hitchcock and Selznick.