Rebecca

Necessarily suffering in comparison to Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 version of Daphne Du Maurier's gothic novel, this 1997 Masterpiece Theatre adaptation is certainly not without its appeal. Not the least of which is the casting of Diana Rigg as the forbidding Mrs. Danvers, the fanatically loyal servant to the departed title character (who died in an apparent boating accident a year before the story opens). Riggs is both less melodramatic and more sympathetic than Judith Anderson's previous embodiment of evil. Charles Dance cuts a dashing figure as estate owner Maxim, who takes the doe-eyed Emilia Fox as the new Mrs. de Winter, an ingénue young enough to be his daughter. While a bit plodding during the first half of this two-parter, the mystery around the death of Rebecca gathers force in the second half of this typically classy, if not quite exemplary, outing of the long-running PBS-aired series. Recommended. (T. Rich)