JOAN FONTAINE ♥ SCREEN TEST FOR REBECCA ♥

[@megramseywebseries5706]

Her quiet desperation in this role is astounding. RIP dear Joan!

[@sandykelsay8344]

Joan was without a doubt the best choice.

[@baltoman24]

Fontaine is so superb - truly the outstanding test. Vivien Leigh was simply too famous having just portrayed Scarlett O'Hara. and as Hitchcock said, Leigh was the living image of Rebecca de Winter- too beautiful! Margaret Sullivan, another very good actress comes across as too self assured . Fontaine is perfect! thank you for posting this.

[@hardsam68]

Joan also was no slouch in the looks department

[@duang3972]

Leigh seem Rebecca she look hot confidential and flight, not Mrs.de Winter the second.

[@elizabethcsicsery-ronay1633]

@@duang3972What does that mean?

[@pozitiv2979]

She is angel .. Joan Fontaine is the most adorable actress of all time .

[@stephaniestanley8041]

This test is so detailed. Every nuance defined. ❤

[@princepeterwolf]

As much as I love Vivien, Joan was as perfect for this role as Vivien was for Scarlett, I can't really picture anyone else in this role apart from Joan

[@anairenemartinez165]

Her sister Olivia could have been a contender.

[@elizabethcsicsery-ronay1633]

I agree.

[@MarieDeWitt-e8c]

If we ever sat Rebecca, Vivian would be perfect. Here, Joan looks like sister Olivia

[@soapwonder2284]

I have to say outstanding screen test! She was magnificent! I watched Rebecca the other day on Blu-Ray! It’s one of my fave classics! I can’t imagine anyone else in that role! 👍🏻

[@DAVEJJR]

Perfect casting, and perfect acting = Joan Fontaine in "Rebecca"....

[@TheRealBillychic]

So, so brilliant. Her work is an inspiration for any actress.

[@cheriecollins3848]

She is also a natural beauty

[@FourKaiju]

RIP Joan Fontaine, So glad I saw Rebecca before her passing.

[@Mark-nw7pn]

I was so pleased to be a friend of Joan's for over 50 years' I worked with her in Fayetteville NY in Summer stock when I was 16 and we became instant friends. If you want to know what Joan was really like watch her movie," Maids Night Out" a movie that shows the Joan before they turned her into the sophisticated glamour woman. That is the Joan we knew, fun and funny and very smart. She was a special part of my life and she will be missed.

[@kathaystack]

How incredibly fortunate that you were a friend to such a great lady. Joan Fontaine has always been one of my favorite actresses. This was one of her best roles. She conveyed the character's insecurities and fears to perfection. Plus she won the role amidst tough competition and a different kind of hollywood. A remarkable actress.

[@chandrikakamath2707]

You were blessed to have known her..is this movie available on youtube?

[@sabinowilliam2735]

I saw that movie. She helped as a milk-woman. She was down-to-earth.

[@mickirving6779]

Loved her as an actress. Especially in Rebecca she would be well over 100 years old if she was still alive I would think!!

[@mickirving6779]

@@chandrikakamath2707 if you haven't seen it already it's available to watch for free at the moment!! I Googled the movie and went to videos. Can't wait to watch it;!

[@monjiaitaly]

Indeed she was the best choice.

[@redcan5254]

One of the Greatest Movies ever made ...

[@ceciliaflorencenapier4595]

Joan Fontaine was perfect. Have seen this film many times, each time her portrayal is outstanding. Thank you!

[@missthunderstormable]

had he chosen vivien leigh he would have made a terrible mistake. joan is so natural

[@0pensourcegamer]

Vivien is a real life Rebecca, I can't imagine her as second Mrs. De Winter. Joan played the role perfectly, will always have a piece of my heart.

[@helenalldridge1145]

I simply adore Rebecca and Joan Fontaine... My favourite film ever ever xxxxx

[@jefferyedwards]

Rest in peace, Joan Fontaine

[@cynthiahawkins2389]

I just saw Joan in A CERTAIN SMILE. And ISLAND IN THE SUN. In her later career, Miss Fontaine played sharp, cynical heiresses with such skill and, almost an intuitive understanding. Really, she was a much better actress than she was often given credit for. And I think we all loved the way she 'frumps out' in Rebecca, with just the right touch of the sweet, befuddled girl, who at first seems so out of her league, trying to understand the haunted Max, and live under the shadow of Rebecca - who, although never seen, exerts a powerful hold...even from her grave!!

[@patstocker3658]

Yes, that’s the skill of Du Maurier. One doesn’t get to see Rebecca, and we never learn the name of the heroine. I saw a documentary of her, think it was done in 1977, not sure though. What I am sure about though she/it was,sadly, very boring. I thought that it would be interesting, riveting stuff, but sadly a lot of content, but not no matter in. Ave you seen it perchance?

[@anairenemartinez165]

Yes, I watched A certain smile recently, last watched about maybe 56 years ago! I did not remember Joan in it.

[@baltoman24]

Thank you for this wonderful video; two great actresses- Vivien Leigh and Margaret Sullavan both tested for the part, and though good, both were too self assured when compared with Fontaine. The first of a series of great performances from her during the 1940's.

[@duang3972]

The first time I saw Joan In Rebecca 1940 I was stunned at her beauty. At that time she was the most beautiful actress. Rebecca was a part-time novel when I was in high school. Glad to see Rebecca in the 1940's onKZbin movie, the best version

[@sabinowilliam2735]

She was special!Even though I never met her, we corresponded for many years.

[@slayeroftruth6436]

Thanks for posting. Joan is such talented actresses. One of my favorites for acting and beauty.

[@denisegreen5351]

One of my favourite films, Joan Fontaine was brilliant

[@louisemiller2774]

......I just loved her.....she had such a sweet face.

[@shelovezcandy2852]

You can see why she was chosen for the lead.

[@Pie2]

Very, very great video to share! Thank you! You know, it does suck that she felt like everyone hated her while making this movie but it helped bring out the characters emotions so well. If I could possess 1% of her talent!

[@alef_19]

yeah, laurence olivier itself too, that shocked me, i always imagine him as a truly gentleman

[@mickirving6779]

Absolute masterpiece!! Gets better and better!

[@sweetbitter2]

Great, great actress. Saw Rebecca today and now I'm a fan of Joan. RIP. ❤

[@VTMCompany]

Amazing how she does so much by raising and lowering while sitting in the chair.

[@valerieskilling2952]

she was perfect

[@heavenknows13]

This is wonderful to see,a great treasure. Thank you for sharing! I agree, it was if the role was written for her.

[@gulmerton2394]

She sure was the right choice!

[@tklogan111809]

loved her RIP

[@stevehinnenkamp5625]

She proved herself and I doubt anyone could be more persuasive in what is, or could have been a passive role. Miss Joan Fonteyn simply commands the screen despite famous, actors bidding for the limelight. She portrays honesty, thus we root for her. A unique performance seldom allowed today.

[@manuellarodrigues]

Nobody could be able to make it better than Joan! She is the perfect Rebecca. I love her whole career and the quality of her performance is indisputable: true, natural, warm, intense and beautiful! She was so underrated... one of my favorites of all time! Love her!

[@HelenChiou1216]

For the record, Rebecca is not the name of Joan's character, Rebecca is the name of the dead wife that haunted the entire story.

[@manuellarodrigues]

Helen Chiou I know!

[@blackiesun]

@@manuellarodrigues then why did you say she was the perfect Rebecca when she wasn't playing the part of Rebecca but the second wife?

[@manuellarodrigues]

@@blackiesun 🙄🙄🙄🙄 I know it, right.

[@suelyfernandes4555]

I love Rebecca. Brasil 2019

[@pmajudge]

AAAAHHHH!! SUPERB INDEED!! PERFECT STUFF!! "TIMID" HMMMMM!!! I HAVE SEEN VIVIEN LEIGH'S SCREEN TEST AND COULD'NT FORGET "SCARLETT O ' HARA"!!!!!!!!! NICE ONE JOAN FONTAINE!!!-R.I.P. FROM(U.K.).

[@insightfloww]

Rip wonderful Miss... you were the very best

[@talosgb8037]

Forget Rebecca. Give me Joan Fontaine at that age any time.

[@dreamquesttv]

RIP M'Lady.

[@aml519]

She was the perfect actress for that part. So much of that, that tacky hammy era of the 30s40s50seven60s, was so dishonest and glamorous but Joan Fontaine did something truly transcendent in this part and THAT is a wonderful audition. Brava. #nobedofroses #joanfontaine #nicolekidman #juliannemoore #merylstreep #stephendaldry #thehours #homeland #clairedanes #juliettelewis #always #stillalice #kristenstewart

[@wms72]

Why do you call Hollywood's Golden Age "that tacky hammy era"?

[@paullemon5154]

Joan was much hotter than Olivia back in the day!

[@heavenknows13]

God Bless Her! Beautiful Actress! #RipJoanFontaine

[@eddyrenzooreramirez5872]

I love you Joan Fontaine

[@disobey1584]

This is Hitchcock,s Best movie.

[@silkegehtyoutubegarnichtsa892]

Well, imo, it does make the top 10, only just. Which does speak volumes for Hitchcock's portfolio, right.

[@wms72]

Hitchcock worked with Selznick?

[@mickirving6779]

Rebecca and psycho for me. As the top 2!! Then the Ingrid Bergman ones

[@wms72]

Joan is one of my favorite actresses. RIP +

[@oannamirella3457]

She is amassing! .....Perfect for the role!

[@blueeyedbehr]

requiescat in pace, miss fontaine.

[@chrishintz1077]

Olivier played Maxim to perfection. I especially like the Monte Carlo scenes. He is sad, jaded, but with such elan. He really puts Florence bates’ character in her place. ;), elegantly.

[@indhuskitchenandvlogs]

If we had some flashback scenes of the first wife ,Vivien would have made the best of it .she and Mrs Danvers would have driven the audience crazy!

[@indhuskitchenandvlogs]

She nailed it!

[@Mark-nw7pn]

.Just to add a note. Joan always felt her best performance was in the movie " The Constant Nymph " She said the studio never had a good feeling for the film and shot it all in studio.

[@1313Siemens]

Joan Fontaine had the dissallusioned, nervous, fragile disposition that the part required. Vivien Leigh, although always brilliant, was too self~ possessed & worldly to play such a retiring, unsure character. Fontaine was just perfect for it.

[@richardlee8495]

Joan Fontaine was the right choice for the part, though many actresses coveted it, including Vivien Leigh, but George Cukor was persuasive in helping Selznick make the right call. Oscar winner the next year, for Hitchcock's Suspicion, opposite Cary Grant, Fontaine went on to have an interesting, and very varied movie career, opposite all the major leading men (Welles, Boyer, Taylor, Crosby, Hope, Lund, Milland, Cotton, Lanza, Ryan, Mason, Belafonte, Brazzi, etc. except Gable and Tracy) . Olivia who?

[@pablocabrera2217]

Bella Actriz y muy Talentosa!

[@fascistseatdonuts]

RIP Joan Fontaine.

[@ameem8791]

There’s a new Rebecca movie that stars Lily James. She ruined my childhood memories for me when she portrayed Cinderella. I hope she won’t ruin my favourite Hitchcock movie 😭.

[@bdarci]

Don’t spoil your memories. Lily James is adequate, but Armie Hammer is a complete disaster.

[@tommoncrieff1154]

It’s rubbish. She swears and drives, two aspects that are 109% out of character and out of period.

[@arnepianocanada]

A shock how the generally superb Leigh could have been so BAD in her reading for the part! She hadn't one-tenth the depth and insight that Joan brought to the role even at this preliminary stage before its full development. Leigh was also far too stunning to play the early nondescript girl; Joan was equally right to be both bland and beautiful.

[@bdarci]

Joan and her sister were both very attractive women who could play dowdy without having to resort to weird makeup or prosthetics. They were so talented.

[@daytonahandful]

That short performance was hypnotic

[@ginnylorenz5265]

Wonderful. Thank you.

[@karaamundson3964]

Wow! She really nailed it

[@indhuskitchenandvlogs]

Vivien is in no way dull and quiet! Joan is naturally insecure and innocent.

[@oiooi6460]

She was so good that one can't visualise anyone else in the role,

[@andrewmiller4885]

Joan's was most definitely the better performance . Miss Leigh did not portray the same sense of fear or vulnerability that Joan Fontaine brought to this scene . I loved Vivien Leigh she too was a great actress however for this scene Vivien was completely wrong for the part . There is a combative and defiant quality about her personality that comes across the camera . This particular role in this film would not have been right for Miss Leigh .

[@anairenemartinez165]

She was so insignificant we never knew her name, only The new Mrs De Winter as REBECCA was never seen but ate up everything

[@jondupshaw433]

Everything about this Strory is pure masterpiece; The way the characters had to be brought to life -- through the screen...and ultimately by words, inspired theses great minds to show us how magic really happens; Did a little digging...and The Husband in the book...(the real actor -- Laurence Oliver) His wife didn't get the role: So in the midst of filming, L.O. tormented and challenged Fontaine on and off the screen, (which eventually woke her up about her own marriage long term) shit had to tense on set!! The new Rebecca and the Original Rebecca(Novel too) Can't wait to get these Ideas out to you folks! The gears always turning! #GOHard # FactCheck #StopSleeping #Research #Fire #ConcreteDesire2021

[@flaggerify]

That's not Olivier who is it?

[@LoveYouKareena]

RIP joan the best Jane Eyes i have ever seen despite that she was too beautiful for the original jane coz she was plain

[@barbarabrown7974]

Jane Eyre

[@jaengen]

I actually think she would have been a great choice over her sister for the part of Melanie in GWTW. She does vulnerable like no other actress at that time, and to me is closer to M Mitchell’s vision as described in the book.

[@valkyriesardo278]

I gather the only two people who preferred Vivian to Joan were Larry and Vivien. I think that is why someone else ought to have been chosen for Max. Olivier did not succeed in convincing me that Max ever loved his second wife. Marriage as a means to distract yourself from past mistakes is selfish. Max felt like a helpless victim in his marriage with the duplicitous Rebecca so his newlywed klutz gave him great peace of mind. He had precious little sympathy or patience for how his new bride felt about her awkwardness.

[@mauricioexenberger6225]

Plagiarism - The story of "Rebecca" (from English Daphne Du Maurier) was released four years after the novel "A Sucessora/ The successor" (1934), by Brazilian writer Carolina Nabuco (1890-1981). According to Carolina herself, she translated "The Successor" into English hoping to see it published in the United States, and sent it to a literary agency in New York, with the request that she also make contact with agents in England. As soon as he read Rebecca, he wrote to the New York agent asking about the English contact, but the answer was that he had found none. Later, the New York Times Book Review publishes an article highlighting the similarities between the two novels. Television adaptation (1978), Alice = Rebecca ... kzbin.info/www/bejne/haeYgmp9qs-SlcU

[@CarlosGonzalez-yv1tg]

Genius

[@chrishintz1077]

Is that Reginald Denny pitching in reading maxim’s lines?

[@yvonneheald3616]

Joan Fontaine was far better in the role of Rebecca than Vivien Leigh. A much better actress.

[@VONOBER]

Actually, Joan Fontaine portrayed the second Mrs de Winter, not Rebecca.

[@teajarbiscuits]

Fun fact: selznick, Hitchcock and Olivier thought that Joan was a terrible actress and they kept reminding her that she was not wanted there on set, she was rather isolated by all the actors and Hitchcock himself.

[@donaldcasey3990]

I think she aced the screen test.

[@donaldcasey9204]

Let's face it Joan,owned the role. Just as Vivian Leigh owned Scarlett.

[@donaldcasey3990]

For such a good and strong actress, she seemed to play timid roles. But a good actress she was. I have to also say in Her timid character some times got on nerves The scene when she was wearing the ex Mrs the winter's dress for the costume party, the way her husband scolded her in front of people, I wish her character have more strength to take him head on. And as far as Mrs Danvers she acted and seemed totally oblivious to this woman who was her servant. But still Joan Fontaine remains one of my favorite silver screen actresses.

[@britannia5370]

She was indeed the right choice for this film, Leighton would have been right for the part of Rebecca. This film is still a true masterpiece!

[@anamariagutierrez2019]

I prefer Joan Fontaine Rendition as well, she is just more serene, more in control of her Emotions & as Lawrence Olivier had a bit of Haunting Actitud to their Roles, that the movie wants to Convey.

[@raniavassiliou9909]

Yes she was perfect for the role… and no matter what Olivier felt about the choice … even he sounds more convincing, a better version of Maxim, against her Rebecca.. Leigh seemed to bring out a more “aggressive” version of him in her screen test, not at all the Maxim you know from the book…

[@phaasch]

Dies anyone know who is reading The part of Max? It's nit Olivier for sure

[@secretariatgirl4249]

theasc.com/magazine/july97/rebecca/pg2.htm Selznick wanted Hitchcock's former protégé from England, Nova Pilbeam, for the part. Hitchcock, who preferred an American star, finally talked Selznick out of it. Hitchcock, John Cromwell and Anthony Mann were directing tests of about 30 other actresses, with contract actor Alan Marshall standing in as de Winter. Some were impressive, particularly established stars Margaret Sullavan and Loretta Young, and a very young New York actress, Anne Baxter. George Cukor suggested Joan Fontaine, whose previous film roles had been unimpressive, and she made several tests.

[@chrishintz1077]

She is only known as the second mrs deWinter, I do believe. Not Rebecca, nor R.

[@gulmerton2758]

Vivien Leigh was more of a Rebecca. Stunningly beautiful and who could be tough.

[@NonInflatable]

infinitely better for this role than the great Vivien Leigh.

[@sabinowilliam2735]

She makes me glad I'm a man.

[@MrTkzepeda]

Joan Fontaine is wonderful in Rebecca but I for one would have been interested in seeing Vivien Leigh in this role - even an audition tape like this. VL was a gifted actress with the training, talent and temperament for playing anything.

[@peggymcneely1768]

Joan Fontaine was born to be Rebecca. She was always second class and belittled by her Mother and older sister Olivia. Joan played second rate and naive better than anyone. She was a great actress, however, Joan Fontaine was a miserable person in her real life. Her’s was one of three autobiographies I could not finish. Joan was simply a bland boring person who found fault with everyone. Shocking that’s my view on Miss Fontaine because she was one of my favorite actresses and a much better actress than Olivia. I believe Joan’s mother and sister set her up to be an extremely dismal person.

[@ellyreginald6546]

She was really an airy, jittery person. I wonder if she might have been the better choice for the Snake Pit.

[@sandrashevey8252]

Not great but Hitchcock calmed her down...

[@KathyMaKB]

Joan's screen test is spot on. However, she did not do this good in the movie.... In the movie she over did the weepiness.

[@donaldcasey3990]

I think she aced the screen test.