My one quibble with Rebecca and Suspicion...

Joan Fontaine was absolutely beautiful and incredibly under-rated.

Couple of comments on this thread.

Joan Fontaine in Suspicion. This is really a subject for the board for that film, but for this film, I think there is a singular distinction between the two characters. Lena in Suspicion is very early in the film seen in an unattractive outfit, with glasses hiding her face, and an awful hat that also was covering her. This was during her first meeting with Carey Grant's character, Johnnie. The second time we see Joan Fontaine without any hindrances to her appearance, and she is literally dazzling, this being where she is riding on a horse. One could argue there has never been a more dazzling actress shown on screen than in that shot.

Johnnie says to himself "That can't be the same girl!" But of course what he really means is she is the same one. So that imo greatly differentiates the two films and their respective portrayals of Joan's characters.

Maxim's view of Joan's Character v. the stated views of others. While it is true specifically in the boathouse scene that Maxim refers to Rebecca as beautiful, it is also true that he never says she was more beautiful than the second Mrs. de Winter. He does however strongly imply that his second wife's manner of dress, hairstyle and makeup is preferable to him. Of course this is to a great deal because after many years he has no doubt had it with the kind of pampered and glammed up look that his first wife used. But he is also I think quite happy to have found Joan's character as she was, and is amused by her lack of self confidence. But he is not confused by such lack, and at no point I think is there a single shred of evidence that HE sees her as plain or less than beautiful.

Who then gives the viewer the impression that Rebecca was so beautiful? Early on we get that info from Edythe van Hopper, but we also note that she is generally impressed by "personalities" of the sort the de Winters certainly were. I do not mean to suggest Mrs. van Hopper is in this respect an unreliable source so much as that any comparison between Rebecca and Joan's character is not one she would be inclined to make in the first place, and certainly not fairly if she was so inclined, in any event.

The most overt expression of someone speaking from personal knowledge about Rebecca's appearnce comes from Frank Crawley, and of course we must acknowledge he makes quite an overt testimonial in that regard. I even find the scene a bit odd, even if he believes every word he says. Can't he see and hear his own words how he is running down the second Mrs. de Winter to her face, at least in comparing Rebecca to her?

Perhaps Frank, unlike Maxim, was still dazzled by Rebecca's glamour. As someone mentioned above, that period was one where the ideal look was only slowly moving away from the highly made up and elaborately hairstyled looks that were ascendant in the twenties into the thirties. Joan Fontaine herself had pictures that can be found around the internet showing her with that glamorous look. But in the context of the film, perhaps we are to understand that Maxim has in effect seen through the artifice and all the effort, in terms of clothes, hairstyle, makeup, and Frank has not. Frank has not seen that Joan's character is merely shy, and her natural look is not what he expects.

I have elsewhere noted that there is a class element here as well. The highly stylized look took a certain amount of money among other things. Time and money. Rebecca had both, and she used them to her as they used to say advantage. Perhaps we are meant to see Frank as still under the sway of that kind of conventional perception.

Ironically Jack Favell seems to find the second Mrs. de Winter quite attractive, although we can't be sure whether he would pay attention to any if you will merely pretty woman. But I think he certainly finds her attractive, on balance.

In other words it is not all that clear that in the end we are really meant to literally believe that Rebecca was more attractive than Joan Fontaine.

And yes, ftr I agree with those who say Joan Fontaine was exceptionally beautiful. She has even aged extremely well. Count me a huge fan. But perhaps you all might also catch her in Jane Eyre, where much was in fact done with makeup, hair and lighting to make her less than the great beauty she was. But still many feel she was far too pretty for that role as well. oh well...