1940 – Laurence Olivier
Rebecca
Let me start off by saying two things. First, I’m glad Laurence Olivier was nominated for Best Actor. I believe he deserved it. Second, I’m glad he didn’t win. I don’t think he deserved that. This was the second of his ten acting nominations that he earned over the course of his long career, four of which were for Shakespeare films, and one of which was actually a Best Supporting Actor nomination in 1976 for his role in Marathon Man. It was clear that he was a natural in front of the camera, but as I see it, there were two things wrong with his performance that prevented him from taking home the Oscar.
First, Olivier was British, which isn’t a strike against him, but he fell victim to the stoic British attitude, that strongly emotionless style of acting. Yes, I know that if I look under the surface, I would see the intense emotion that was bubbling beneath the calm and flat exterior, but with this movie, I didn’t want to have to look that hard to see what was supposed to there. I wanted some visible passion, some real anger, some of the explosive rage that, according to the script, should have been part of his character. Instead, his fits of rage were too mild, and weren’t very frightening, though they may have been enough to scare the new Mrs. de Winter.
Second, the script failed the actor. From what I have read, the source material radically changed his character. In the book, (Spoiler Alert) Maxim actually did murder Rebecca. How much better might the movie have been if they had kept that in the movie? But I get it. In 1940, the censers wouldn’t have liked it if a murder got away with his crime.
But just imagine how different the ending would have been if Maxim had killed his first wife. Then we would have been so much more afraid for the Second Mrs. de Winter when he confessed his sins to her, knowing that he was capable of anything. Maybe they even could have killed him off in the fire at the end, appeasing the Hayes Code, and giving Maxim his deserved punishment. But I get it. They wanted their happy ending where the loving couple end up together, and they got it. But I suppose they did what they had to, to get the movie made.