Review of Marnie (1964) by Robert H — 13 Aug 2015

This is the point at which I feel Hitchcock begins to lose his touch a bit, at least for the films I seen so far. MARNIE is somewhat of a departure in the type of film he had made his name doing, but even so, it contains themes that resonated through his body of work.

The story is about Marnie (Tippi Hedren), a compulsive thief and liar who ends up marrying a man she robs. This was an intriguing premise, to say the least, and provided the opportunity for Tippi Hedren to play a more complex character than she had in THE BIRDS, but I don't think she was quite up to the task.

Sean Connery was appropriately dashing in his role as Mark, the man she ends up falling for, but he didn't really have that much chemistry with Hedren, in my opinion. For me, there were individual moments or flashes of brilliance that worked rather than the film as a whole.

In particular, the opening sequence where we are introduced to Marnie was well-done, and the scene where she robs Mark's company was the closest the film ever came to capturing the suspense for which Hitchcock is so well-known.

The rest of it was a mixed bag. Some of the psychological elements were interesting by themselves, and in a few scenes, were well-utilized. However, the sledgehammer approach to Freudian themes and associations removed a lot of the mystique.

It also didn't help that the explanation for Marnie's particular idiosyncrasies at the end was rather unsatisfying. Still, there were a number of things I did like. Tippi Hedren played cold and calculating rather well.

Bernard Herrmann's score and main theme was very romantic and fit the character of Marnie. The film was also handsomely photographed, had great sets and costumes, and made good use of color. Overall, though, I feel like MARNIE has some poor pacing, is a little too long, and has as much trouble identifying what it wants to be as Marnie herself.

Before I watched this, I took a look at the theatrical trailer, and even Hitchcock had difficulty (it seems) really pinning down what the film was (settling on 'sex mystery'). Certainly one of Hitchcock's lesser efforts, it still has some interesting parts despite the unevenness of it all.