Marnie (film)
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| Marnie | |
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 Original film poster for Marnie |
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| Directed by | Alfred Hitchcock |
| Produced by | Alfred Hitchcock (uncredited) |
| Written by | Jay Presson Allen |
| Starring | Tippi Hedren Sean Connery Diane Baker Martin Gabel Louise Latham Bob Sweeney Bruce Dern Alan Napier |
| Music by | Bernard Herrmann |
| Cinematography | Robert Burks |
| Editing by | George Tomasini |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) |  July 22, 1964 |
| Running time | 130 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | US$3,000,000 |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.
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[edit] Plot
Marnie Edgar (Hedren) is a troubled young woman who has an unnatural fear and mistrust of men, thunderstorms, and the color red. She is also a compulsive thief. She uses her charms on Sidney Strutt (Martin Gabel) to get a job without references. Then late one night, she steals the contents of the company safe and disappears.
Mark Rutland (Connery), a widower who owns a large printing company, is a good customer of Strutt's. He learns about the theft from the victim, and remembers the woman. So when Marnie applies for a job at his company, he is intrigued. He is robbed too, but unlike Strutt, Mark manages to track Marnie down. Instead of handing her over to the police, he blackmails her into marrying him.
On their honeymoon, he finds out about her frigidity. At first, he respects her wishes, but her undisguised hostility to him incites him to rape her. The next morning, she tries to commit suicide, but Mark finds her in time.
He attempts to discover the reasons behind Marnie's behavior. In the end, Marnie and Mark learn that her mother, Bernice (Louise Latham), had been a prostitute. When Marnie was six years old, one of her mother's clients (a sailor played by Bruce Dern) had tried to calm her after she became frightened by a storm. Bernice thought he was trying to molest her daughter and began attacking him. Seeing her mother struggling with the man, Marnie struck him with a fireplace poker, killing him. The bloodshed led to her fear of the color red. Once the origin of her fears is revealed, Marnie decides she wants to try to make her marriage work.
[edit] Responses
The movie was not as successful in theatres as other Hitchcock productions, although it did turn a profit in the UK and Italy.[citation needed]
Leonard Maltin has argued that Marnie was ahead of its time,[citation needed] while in his biography The Dark Side of Genius, Donald Spoto describes it as Hitchcock's last masterpiece.
The film's special effects are often criticized as unconvincing, with critics noting such things as obvious matte paintings and back projection.[citation needed] However, in a making-of documentary on the DVD, Robin Wood, author of Hitchcock's Films Revisited, argues that they can be defended if one notes the roots of the film in German Expressionism:
[Hitchcock] worked in German studios at first, in the silent period. Very early on when he started making films, he saw Fritz Lang's German silent movies; he was enormously influenced by that, and Marnie is basically an expressionist film in many ways. Things like scarlet suffusions over the screen, back-projection and backdrops, artificial-looking thunderstorms – these are expressionist devices and one has to accept them. If one doesn't accept them then one doesn't understand and can't possibly like Hitchcock.
Wood, a passionate defender of the film, went on to argue later in the documentary(precisely the final words) that, "I'm going to say something provocative...If you don't like Marnie you don't like Hitchcock. I'll go further and say that if you don't like Marnie, you don't like cinema."
Hitchcock biographer Spoto said something very similar in his book The Films of Alfred Hitchcock. He changed his story in his later biography of the filmmaker, however, claiming that the film was technically sloppy not because Hitchcock was going for an elaborate, quasi-Expressionistic feel, but because after his advances to Hedren had been rebuffed, he lost all interest in the film. In an August 2006 article in The Guardian, Hedren, while not confirming this story, said that when she told Hitchcock that she wanted to be released from her contract, he replied, "Well, I'll ruin your career."[1]
However Patrick McGilligan in his recent biography, Alfred Hitchcock : A Life in Darkness and Light has called into question several of Donald Spoto's claims regarding Hitchcock in general and Marnie in particular. McGilligan based his research on the several hours of available audio tapes Hitchcock used as personal research on all his productions after The Birds(he got the idea from Francois Truffaut's use of tapes in their joint interview) where Hitchcock dicussed the character of Marnie with Hedren extensively down to the last detail. McGilligan argued that Hitchcock's manipulative behaviour on the set of Marnie stemmed out of his desire to help his inexperienced leading lady through a complex role rather than any personal infatuation. More importantly he points out that such behaviour on the part of Hitchcock was not altogether unique citing his experiences with Joan Fontaine on Rebecca. He also cites Tony Lee Moral's recent research on the production of the film to refute Spoto's claim that Hitchcock lost interest in the film. Pointing out that the falling-out between Hitchcock and Hedren happened only in the last quarter of production during which Hitchcock indeed communicated to his actress through a go-between but as Hitchcock often did with other difficult productions, he marched on and completed the film as per his original vision.
The reason for the fall-out according to McGilligan's research was that in January 1964, Tippi Hedren asked to be excused for a few days to travel to New York to pick up the Photoplay award in New York City. Hitchcock refused, believing it would upset the atmosphere and concentration necessary for her performance. Hedren, irritated by Hitchcock's obsession with her on the set, insulted him in front of the entire crew upon which Hitchcock, equally incensed threatened to ruin her career as he still kept her under contract. Hitchcock after Marnie, tried to patch up with his actress but to little avail and in fact considered her for his never produced film of J. M. Barrie's Mary Rose and kept her on salary until the end of her contract. Hedren, regardless of their differences, attended both the American Film Institute tribute to Hitchcock and his funeral.
[edit] Cast
- Tippi Hedren as Marnie Edgar
- Sean Connery as Mark Rutland
- Diane Baker as Lil Mainwaring, Mark's sister-in-law
- Louise Latham as Bernice Edgar
- Martin Gabel as Sidney Strutt, one of Marnie's victims
- Bruce Dern as the sailor who traumatizes Marnie
- Alan Napier as Mr. Rutland, Mark's father
- Bob Sweeney as Cousin Bob
- Alfred Hitchcock's cameo is a signature occurrence in most of his films. He can be seen five minutes into the film, entering from the left of a hotel corridor after Marnie passes by.
[edit] Production
Alfred Hitchcock had discovered leading lady Tippi Hedren in a television commercial (shown during The Today Show for diet drink Sego) in 1961 and signed her to a personal contract. He trained her and then cast her in The Birds (1963). For Marnie, he originally offered the title role to his former leading lady Grace Kelly, by then Princess Grace of Monaco, and she agreed. However, residents of Monaco objected to her appearing in a film, especially as a disturbed kleptomaniac. Also, when Kelly married Prince Rainier in 1956, she had not fulfilled her MGM contract, thus MGM could have prevented her appearance in any feature film unless she fulfilled her contract to MGM first. So she regretfully turned down the film. Immediately, it became a sought-after role in Hollywood. In the book Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie, Tony Lee Moral revealed that a studio executive at Paramount suggested actress Lee Remick to Hitchcock for the title role. Eva Marie Saint, star of Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959), and Susan Hampshire unsuccessfully pursued the role. Hitchcock also considered two other actresses who were, like Hedren, under personal contract to him, Vera Miles and Claire Griswold, wife of director/actor Sydney Pollack. Finally, he offered the role to Hedren, while they were filming The Birds. Hedren told writer Moral that she was "amazed" that Hitchcock would offer her this "incredible role", calling it a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity".
In 2005, more than 40 years after the film's release, she would declare in an interview that Marnie is the favorite of her two films for Hitchcock, because of the intriguing, complex, challenging character that she played.[2] Marnie continues to have its admirers, as actress Catherine Deneuve indicated that she would have loved to have played Marnie.[3] Actress Naomi Watts dressed up as Hedren's Marnie for the March 2008 issue of Vanity Fair magazine.[4] Future soap opera actress Melody Thomas played the uncredited role of Marnie as a child in the flashbacks.
Sean Connery had been worried that his being under contract to Eon Productions for both James Bond and non Bond films would limit his career, and turned down every non-Bond film Eon offered him. When asked what he wanted to do, Connery replied that he wanted to work with Alfred Hitchcock, and Eon arranged that through their contacts.[5] Connery also shocked many people at the time by asking to see a script; some regarded that as an affront to Hitchcock. But Connery was worried about being typecast as a spy and thus he didn't want to do a variation of North by Northwest or Notorious. When told by Hitchcock's agent that Cary Grant didn't ask to see even one of Hitchcock's scripts, Connery replied "I'm not Cary Grant".[6] However, Hitchcock and Connery got on well during filming.
Marnie became a milestone for several reasons: It was the last time that a "Hitchcock blonde" would have a central role in his films. It was also the final time that he would work with his key team members, who had figured so prominently in his films: Director of Photography Robert Burks who died in 1968; editor George Tomasini, who soon died after Marnie's release; and music composer Bernard Herrmann was fired during Hitchcock's next film, Torn Curtain (1965), when Hitchcock and Universal studio executives wanted a more contemporary "pop" tune for the film. Also, Hitchcock had noticed a strong similarity between Herrmann's score for Joy in the Morning and Marnie and believed Hermann was repeating himself. [7]. Hermann's music for Marnie included excerpts in his special album for Decca Records, also lyrics were written to Herrmann's theme that was performed by Nat King Cole.
In a making-of documentary on the DVD release, unit manager Hilton A. Green explains that shooting had been scheduled to begin on November 25, 1963, but had to be postponed because the nation was in mourning for John F. Kennedy, who was shot three days before.
[edit] Play Adaption
In 2001, Sean O'Connor adapted Marnie to the stage and reverted the setting back to England, as it was in the Winston Graham novel that the film was originally based on.[8]
[edit] Pop culture reference(s)
The band The Violets released a single titled "Foreo" in February 2007; the title refers to Marnie's horse. (Although the song refers to Marnie, the music video contains images inspired by the opening credits to Vertigo).[9]
[edit] References
- ^ Edemariam, Aida (August 9, 2006). The star who said no to Hitchcock. Guardian. Retrieved on 2007-10-04.
- ^ Leon Worden. SCV NEWSMAKER OF THE WEEK: Tippi Hedren. Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society. Retrieved on 2005-03-05.
- ^ Andrew, Geoff (September 21, 2005). Catherine Deneuve. Guardian.
- ^ http://www.cinematical.com/media/2008/02/hitch12-(2).jpg
- ^ Broccoli, Albert R. & Zec, Donald When the Snow Melts: The Autobiography of Albert R. Broccoli Trans-Atlantic Publications 1999
- ^ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,875552,00.html?promoid=googlep
- ^ p. 268 Smith, Steven C. A Heart at Fire's Centre: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann University of California Press 1991
- ^ Marnie | | guardian.co.uk Arts
- ^ Kharas, Kev (February 12, 2007). Our reviews. www.drownedinsound.com.
[edit] External links
- Marnie at the Internet Movie Database
- Marnie at Allmovie
- DVD Review of Marnie
- 2005 interview with Tippi Hedren, commenting on working with Hitchcock on The Birds and Marnie
- Complete list of actors who were considered for roles
- Marnie Eyegate Gallery
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