Rebecca

In a flashback, the heroine is working as a traveling companion to a wealthy American named Mrs. Van Hopper. Also in her flashback, Maxim is staying at the same hotel as the heroine and her employer, and after knowing her for only a few weeks, he proposes marriage. She accepts, and he marries her and takes her back to Manderley. But, there seems to be something strange about Manderley. Maxim’s first wife, Rebecca, drowned in a cove near Manderley the year before, and her ghost haunts the newlyweds’ home. Rebecca’s devoted housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, is still in charge of Manderley, and she intimidates her new mistress. The new heroine struggles in her new life at Manderley and feels she can never compare to Rebecca, who was beautiful, talented, and brilliant or that’s what everyone says.

Manderley hosts a costume ball each year, and it is soon time for it to take place and the heroine’s sprits begin to revive. But, the ball ends in disaster. On Mrs. Danver’s suggestion, she wears a costume that turns out to be the same dress that Rebecca wore at the last ball and Maxim was horrified. The heroine is convinced that he will never love her and that he is still devoted to Rebecca. The following day, Mrs. Danvers almost convinces her to kill herself, and the only reason she snaps out of the old woman spell is when rockets go off over the cove, signaling that a ship has arrived. When the divers swim near the ship, they find the wreckage of Rebecca’s sailboat, with Rebecca’s dead body in the hold. This forces Maxim to tell the heroine the truth.

Rebecca was a wicked woman, who lived a secret life and was having multiple affairs, including one with her cousin, jack Favell. On the night of her death, Maxim had demanded a divorce, and she refused, and told him that she was pregnant with Favell’s child. Furious, he got a gun and shot her, and then sailed out to