Review of Marnie (1964) by Gabrielle Z — 03 Nov 2008

Marnie is a good film made great by knowing what happened behind the scenes. Many classic movies have behind the scenes stories that are well known to us - the problems plaguing The Godfather, Spielberg being a lost little kid in diapers for Jaws, etc. But Marnie's has stayed relatively hidden and unknown, which is a shame, because this is maybe the only time I know of where a film is greatly improved, and the viewing experience made much more benefitial, by knowing not only all you can about Hitchcock, the director, but also by knowing what went on during the production. So, essentially; film snobs will like it. Everyone else, not so much; proven by the film's very tepid performance in the 60's when it came out, right after The Birds and Psycho. People expected another intense thriller/horror movie like those two - they didn't expect a psychological case study/scientific romance. However, I find Marnie one of Hitch's best films, and indeed there are a couple scenes in the film that not only showcase his great talents at conjuring suspense, but there are also two instances that are just as creepy as anything found in The Birds or maybe even Psycho.

Marnie stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. She's a sexually frigid compulsive thief, he's a man who knows it and uses this information to blackmail her into marriage. And that's the set up, although the elements of Marnie's personality, psychology, and her past all play into the film as well. In terms of story structure, the movie is very flawed. Some scenes drag out forever. Others have no place in the movie at all. The plot is slow burning, with long passages of almost no suspense found. Dialogue is often mediocre, the acting is subpar, usually bordering on over-dramatic hysteria. And the usually pitch-perfect post production is sloppy and unfocused. And yet....not only does the film hold a mysterious charm, but all of these flaws can be attributed to what happened behind the scenes. Before I go into that though (and wind up boring to death anyone who's not a Hitchcock fan), I want to just say that even with all these flaws, Marnie remains a fairly gripping film. Marnie's mother is intense and quite creepy. There's a robbery scene that is pure Hitchcock. There's a rape scene that not only throws the whole film out of whack, but actually makes us dislike Connery - the death knell for audiences at the time, but now, it's very interesting. And the finale is one of the most intense and visually shocking scenes Hitchcock ever filmed - I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

So yes, the film is interesting, suspenseful, but also extremely flawed. So why do I give it 4 stars (4.5 stars before I rewatched it again last week)? 'Cause I know what went on. See, these flaws didn't go unnoticed by Hitchcock. He knew all about them. And he just didn't care. He was like the kid who asks out a girl, gets rejected, and mopes around on the playground the rest of the day. We all know about Hitchcock's obsession with cool blondes. What many people don't know is that he was profoundly in love with a great many of them - remember the last act of Vertigo, where Jimmy Stewart practically forces an ordinary girl to look, dress, and behave exactly as his dream girl? That's what Hitchcock did with half a dozen of his actresses. And Tippi Hedren got the worst of it. Hitch plucked her from obscurity and figured, hey, she's only a star cause of me. So he felt like he owned her. He also fell madly in love with her. And if you've seen Hitch (and I think he was even in his 70's at the time of Marnie), you know he didn't look like Paul Newman.

So things were tense on The Birds. But it got worse on Marnie. He was so obsessive about her that she did everything in her power to avoid confronting him at all, often making people come to her trailer after shooting just so Hitch wouldn't come visit. He wrote her long love letters (even though she was married with a kid), and even had dolls created in her appearance and sent them to her. He would even tell her love dreams he would have of the two of them, much to her discomfort. And then, halfway through making the film, he put it all out there, demanding of her a certain sexual favour that the author of Hitch's biography wouldn't detail (that's where I'm getting all this info, by the way). She refused, he stormed off. So what happened to Marnie? He stopped caring. Hitch was extremely attentive to detail normally, but here, he just no longer gave a rats ass. If you watch the movie and think that the rear projection looks awfully fake, even for a 60's movie, that's because Hitch didn't put in any effort at all to make it look good. I don't think he wanted the movie to even be a remote success, he was so infuriated and heart broken over Hedren.

So now that the history lesson is over, you hopefully understand what I mean when I say that watching the film's flaws, when you know why they're there, is almost as intriguing as the film itself. But even before this personal explosion, the film is incredibly personal to Hitch. Marnie is constantly trying to recieve love and attention from her mom, and anyone who knows Hitch's work knows he had some mother issues. The character of Connery is one of the most representative of Hitch in any of his flicks, including Stewart in Vertigo. The rape scene is completely unnecessary, yes, but think about it - what did Hitch want to do with Hedren? What did he want from all his dream girls that he was too scared to try? Sex, duh. So when Sean Connery, the handsome ol' gent that he is, rapes poor Tippi Hedren in this movie, it's not there because it makes narrative sense - it's because that's exactly what Hitch himself dreamed of doing all the time, but couldn't. And even then, after that, the movie still manages to be strangely romantic and erotic. Look at the first time Hedren and Connery kiss; the camera zooms up so close to their lips, it's almost like watching a porno. Hitch was forcing intimacy to us, because that's what he longed for as well.

Anyways, I find this flick very interesting. Maybe you will to. If you have any interest in film history or Hitchcock, then you should definitely either check this out or watch it again, knowing what went on, and see if your respect for it goes up. I don't think "normal" movie goers will like Marnie much at all - it's too long, too dry, too old-fashioned. But for the rest of us, it's pretty kickass, and shows just how troubled poor Hitch really was.