Matchup of the Day: Leave Her to Heaven VS Rebecca
Today we have two recent inductees into the National Film Registry that were based on novels and won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. Leave Her to Heaven is about a possessive woman who marries an unsuspecting man after a whirlwind romance. Rebecca involves a tormented aristocrat who marries an unsuspecting woman, also after a whirlwind romance. In both films, a deceased loved one factors into the story. Heaven begins after the death of Ellen (Gene Tierney)’s father, for whom she had an unhealthy affection. She meets Richard (Cornel Wilde) on a train and is immediately stricken by his resemblance to her dead parent. Before long, she has called off her engagement to district attorney Russell (Vincent Price), and proposes to Richard without him having much time to understand what’s going on. She immediately becomes jealous toward Richard. Even when her family members come to visit she is angry at not having Richard all to herself. Matters are further strained when Richard’s handicapped brother comes to stay with the couple. Ellen schemes to get rid of him, eventually allowing him to drown. Seeing that Richard is becoming aloof, Ellen opts to bear him a child. Her enthusiasm for carrying the baby diminishes quickly, however, and she throws herself down a flight of stairs. The baby does not survive.
In Rebecca, Joan Fontaine‘s character (she is not given a name in the film) plays the new bride of Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier), a wealthy widower whose wife died in a boating accident. Fontaine is completely out of her element as the wife of an aristocrat and stumbles about trying to fit in. Maxim is often distracted and melancholy. The woman who oversees the day to day running of the house, Mrs. Danvers, was especially fond of Maxim’s first wife and behaves coldly toward Fontaine. In one scene, Danvers gives Fontaine a tour of the deceased Mrs. de Winter’s meticulously maintained budoir, even going so far as to show her the dead wife’s underwear. Danvers later tries to sabotage the marriage, at one point attempting to coax Fontaine to commit suicide.
Things get complicated at this juncture. Both films turn into murder investigations. In Rebecca, the deceased woman of the title’s boat is found in the ocean, leading to a coroner’s inquest. Maxim reveals to Fontaine that Rebecca was actually a rather unpleasant woman and that she was accidentally killed during an argument. He put the body in the boat, sinking it to make it look as though she died at sea. Though the authorities are ready to rule it a suicide, Rebecca’s lover Jack shows up to blackmail Maxim with a letter proving she wasn’t suicidal. However, when they talk to Rebecca’s doctor, he tells them that she had cancer and was dying. Maxim and Fontaine are then free to live their lives happily together. Danvers, on the other hand, is distraught that Fontaine will replace Rebecca, and decides to burn down Maxim’s manor with herself inside. Ellen, in Heaven, actually does commit suicide so she can frame Richard for murder. Overwhelmed by jealousy, Ellen poisons herself, but not before sending her former beau, Russell, a letter incriminating Richard. At the trial, Russell grills Richard relentlessly, but Richard prevails. At the end of the film, Richard lives happily ever after with Ellen’s much more stable cousin. Nothing burns down.
Flickchart Stats
Rebecca
- Global rank: 160
- Wins 50% of matchups
- 4770 users have ranked it
- 11 have it at #1
- 191 have it in their top 20
Leave Her to Heaven
- Global rank: 1500
- Wins 47% of matchups
- 4952 users have ranked it
- 0 have it at #1
- 8 have it in their top 20