She's always turning up silently behind the second Mrs. de Winter, offering her a whiff of her dead mistress's still-fragrant undergarments. Du Maurier scholars believe that the writer based Maxim on her own adored, formidable father, Gerald, who was an actor, theater company manager and ladies' man. He was my secret property. The book is a mystery about self-discovery, and the discovery of others' true natures. But while this guy might make you think, he sure doesn't give you any ideas.
Dance is bland, hawk-eyed and conveys zero erotic charge.
And it isn't just that Dance is thoroughly unappealing, he also looks vastly older than his co-star, the gifted ingenue Emilia Fox. Which makes you wonder why they've gone to the trouble of remaking it at all. More puzzling, Arthur Hopcraft's script preserves some dialogue and scenes from the novel intact, but invents and embellishes a lot more in the service of hot, gritty postmodernism. She despised all men. She was above all that.