Curled up on the sofa with my two Spaniels, I had my first Hitchcock experience this weekend.
There's something naughty about watching a film on a sunny, Saturday afternoon with the blinds down and your pyjamas on.
It was the perfect way to delve in to a wealth of classic film I've so far missed.
Having started the book three times and not finished it, I was ignorant of the plot and having never seen a Hitchcock film, I was ignorant of his style.
Rebecca is the story of a young woman, who is in Monte Carlo as a "lady's companion" which basically means she gets paid to be with this annoying, rich woman, who no one would spend time with.
The annoying woman gets a cold giving her "companion" (whose name we never discover) the chance to go on jaunts with Maxim De Winter - a rich, mysterious widower played by Laurence Olivier. He is beautiful and even though he's a bit of a divi - telling her to "stop biting her nails" and "never get older than 36" - I'm whole-heartedly in love with him.
He proposes and whisks her off to his huge house where things get a bit weird. The bonkers house keeper puts all Maxim's former wife's things around the house for the new bride to find. Everywhere she looks there's something with Rebecca's initials on it. 
Finally, when she's at her wit's end, the house keeper goads her in to killing herself but just as she's leaning out of the window, contemplating jumping - there's a discovery. Surprises follow with a satisfactory ending.
Although I enjoyed the film, I was disappointed. Hitchcock films are so parodied, I chortled when I'm sure I was supposed to be struck dumb.
Whether it was the sinster house keeper gliding from behind curtains or eerie violin music foreboding disaster, it wasn't having Hitchcock's desired effect on me.
The double edged-sword is: any old film worth watching is going to have influenced the industry and you are probably going to watch its spawn before "it."
I guess a modern day example would be the Matrix. I remember watching it for the first time and it felt new. Anyone watching it on a sunny Saturday afternoon now would laugh at the stunts having probably seen the numerous mickey-takes, including Scary Movie.
Oscar Wilde suggested imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, but unfortunately the imitation seems to lessen the experience of the original. The irony is: the thing that makes it great and makes people want to copy it, ends up being the thing which is damaged by the copy.
(As a side note - the last time I felt I was watching something new and felt "this film will influence more films" was Cloverfield.)
One thing, which cannot be spoiled from Rebecca, is my favourite line. The new Mrs de Winter has just told her brother-in-law she like to sketch and he responds with: "Not this modern stuff, I hope. You know, portrait of a lamp shade upside-down...represents a soul in torment."
Brilliant.
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