Rebecca is a 1997 British/German miniseries directed by Jim O'Brien. The teleplay by Arthur Hopcraft is based on the 1938 novel of the same name by Daphne du Maurier. The miniseries was filmed for Carlton Television by Portman Productions in association with WGBH and Tele München. It was broadcast in the United States as a presentation of Masterpiece Theatre on PBS. While vacationing in Monte Carlo in 1927, Maxim de Winter meets the young and somewhat naive British companion of Mrs. Van Hopper, a typical Ugly American whose bout of influenza frees the girl - who, as in the original... novel, is never identified by name - to spend time with the wealthy widower. When Mrs. Van Hopper announces plans to return to New York City, Max proposes to the girl and brings her to his Cornwall coast estate known as Manderley. There a large household staff is supervised by Mrs Danvers, who was devoted to Max's first wife Rebecca, the victim of a sailing accident some ten months before, whose battered body was discovered forty miles up the coast and identified by her distraught husband.
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