376 Rebecca

First  viewed :  January  1979

I  think  we  saw  more  of  this  when  repeated  on  BBC1  the  following  year  but  I  remember  catching  some  of   it  the  first  time  round  on  BBC2.

This  of  course  was  an  adaptation  of  Daphne  Du  Maurier's  novel  , a  perennial  favourite  of  schoolgirls  everywhere  if  not  of  critics. I  recall  later  in  the  year  an  English  class  where  we  had  to  read  a  passage  from  a  book  of  our  own  choice. Two  girls  independently  went  for  Rebecca  but  after  the  first  reading  our  acerbic  English  teacher  Mr  McInerny  declared  "I  think  we've  had  enough  Rebecca"  and  sent  the  luckless  second  girl  off  to  find  something  else. She  fared  better  than  another  guy  who  was  told  his  Alistair  McLean  novel  was  "ludicrous". I  escaped  without  censure  after  reading  the  twist  ending  of  Brian  Aldiss's  short  story  Intangibles  Inc . That  class  also  contained  a  special  young  lady  called  Rebecca  but  sadly  I  can't  recall  what  she  read.

This  adaptation  had  Jeremy  Brett  as  Maxim  De  Winter, Joanna  David  as  his  mousey  unnamed  new  bride,  the  bird-faced  Anna  Massey ( Brett's  former  wife )  as  the  psychopathic  housekeeper  Mrs  Danvers  and  the  always  reliable  Julian  Holloway  as  blackmailing  cad  Jack  Favell. It  dragged  slightly at  first  but  hotted  up  considerably  when  the  plot  thickened. How  that  compares  with  the  novel  I  wouldn't  know  but  I  don't  remember  my  Mum  uttering  her  usual  protests  when  they  got  something  wrong.