Episode 157: REBECCA (1940) VS REBECCA (2020)

The Wages of Cinema

Is it at all possible to come to the suspenseful and gothic heights of what Alfred Hitchcock and producer David O. Selznick achieved with their (Best Picture winning) achievement in 1940? Ben Wheatley, the idiosyncratic and very off-kilter genre director behind such films as Free Fire, A Field in England and Kill List, decided to aim as high as he could with his first Netflix production, and the results.... Well, let's just say Manderley could still use a paint job.... No, seriously, can we be at all kind? With a cast like Armie Hammer and Kristen Scott Thomas? Surely they'll come to bat and hit some grand slams against the Master of Suspense? In other words, we watched Rebecca, starring Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, George Sanders and Judith Anderson, and Rebecca starring Lily James and ::squints:: Sam Riley, and this is our first "Versus" episode in quite a while. Oh, and Spoilers abound for both films so be warned. email us at [e-mail]