This screening will be introduced by Dr. Dervila Layden, UCD Film Studies.

Du Maurier hated Jamaica Inn but loved Rebecca – hardly surprising, since Rebecca is far more faithful to her book. It was producer David O. Selznick who insisted on this faithfulness; Hitchcock resented his interference in this and other aspects of the film, and claimed never to have thought of it as being a fully personal work, but it did give him a crash course on the difference between Hollywood and British methods and resources – and its success with critics, public, and the Academy, who awarded it the Oscar for Best Picture, gave a spectacular launch to his American career.

Rebecca retains all its old power for a modern audience as a classic fable, hypnotically staged, of a young and famously un-named woman growing up into a world of romance and anxiety, fantasy and nightmare.

This event is part of The Genius of Alfred Hitchcock: Part Four, the final part of our complete retrospective of Hitchcock’s 52 surviving films (March 2nd – 31st).