The Stupid Reason Why Alfred Hitchcock Had To Change Rebecca’s Ending

Alfred Hitchcock’s version ofRebecca wasn’t able to keep the book’s ending for a ridiculous reason. In 1938, Daphne du Maurier wrote Rebecca, a novel about a young woman who gets married and finds out that her new husband – as well as the people around him – are strangely obsessed with his late wife. In 1940, Hitchcock, one of the most celebrated directors of all-time, adapted Rebecca to the big screen. The film was such a success that it won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Netflix has now released a new take on the original Rebecca novel that inspired the Hitchcock classic.

In the original 1940 movie, the legendary Laurence Olivier plays Maxim, a widower who marries a young woman played by Oscar-winning actress Joan Fontaine. Throughout the movie, Fontaine’s character, Mrs. de Winter, finds that she can’t escape the shadow of Maxim’s dead wife, Rebecca. Adding to the conflict she experiences is the mystery surrounding what really happened to Rebecca. It’s eventually discovered that Rebecca, who was unfaithful to Maxim, died when she fell and hit her head after taunting Maxim about her infidelity. Later on Maxim is accused of murdering her, but at the end of the movie it comes out that Rebecca was secretly dying of cancer, and was actually trying to trick Maxim into killing her so that his life and career would be destroyed – giving her the final victory.

In the original story, Rebecca’s scheme to goad Maxim into killing her worked. He shot and killed her, and eventually confessed his actions to the second Mrs. de Winter, who was relieved to find out that Maxim never really loved Rebecca. What makes this change so important is that the 1940 movie takes away Maxim’s guilt; Maxim being directly responsible for her death is an incredibly huge reveal, but the film erases that from the story. As for why Alfred Hitchcock would take out a moment that packs such an emotional punch, the change can be explained by the rules that were enforced on movies at the time.

The Motion Picture Production Code (or the Hays Code), first instituted in 1934, imposed a large number of restrictions on what could be shown in the movies. One such rule was that crime couldn’t be shown in a positive light and that anyone who committed murder would have to be punished for their actions. Because of this rule, the book’s twist about Maxim shooting Rebecca would only have worked for Hitchcock’s adaptation if Maxim was killed or sent to prison at the end.

Since modern movies aren’t subject to the rules of the Production Code that limited filmmakers between the 1930s and the 1950s, Netflix’s Rebecca was able to use the original ending without there being any problems. It’s a shame that Hitchcock couldn’t have enjoyed the same amount of freedom with Rebecca, but there were hundreds of movies made during this era that suffered from similar restrictions. Fortunately, though, some filmmakers found ways to make these rules work and create critically-acclaimed, cinematic masterpieces, just like Hitchcock did with Rebecca.

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