Wolff rating: EXCELLENT
Plot summary: Romantic potboiler with Fontaine falling in love with a troubled, brooding Olivier; both end up obsessed with the spectre of Olivier's ex-wife.
Biased, pithy comments: This isn't a ghost story, but the story of two people held apart by a memory. It's quite good, with Olivier and Fontaine convincingly in love, Sanders wandering in to stir things up, and Andersen as the haunted housekeeper. This is at times a schoolgirl fantasy (marry a British noble) and then becomes a Hitchcockian thriller. It's still a little melodramatic (lots of hidden secrets), but it's masterfully written to increase tension---you really worry about all these people! See it.
Other Notes: Won best picture of 1940, up against another Hitchcock film.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson.
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock