Marnie

Rating:
Summary: Marnie, an Alfred Hitchcock Delight
Review: Marnie is an excellent movie with stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery (who was at a peak in popularity at the time). Marnie is an excellent suspense story with a shattering climax that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Marnie is about a frigid women who is in fear of bright red colors and thunderstorms.She works at a company for a while and then steals money from the company safe. Her sheme goes well until she comes upon a man who relizes she is a theif (played by Sean Connery). She gives her a choice of marriage or going to jail. She accepts the marriage and during their honeymoon cruse her fridgity almost makes Mark Rutland (who is Sean Connery) rape her. The next day she trys to commit succicide by drowning herself into the pool. When they come back many things occur. Mark Rutland is trying to figure out why Marnie is acting the way she is.Marnie is still constantly in fear in bright red colors and when a bright red color on a mans coat during a hunt causes her horse to go into a dangerous gallop she is followed by Mr. Rutlands sister in law. Her horse is finally stopped when the horse cannot make it over a brick wall. Marnie is forced to kill it with a gun. After the sad loss she trys to rob the safe, but she can't because Mark has caught her. She takes her to her mother's house where she reviews her childhood occurence of when she killed a sailor (played by Bruce Dern). When it was first released the movie was a misfire, but now it is one of best Hitchcock movies ever. The acting is excellent and the Supporting Actors and Actresses. Watch for Hitchcock's Cameo at the very beginning of the movie. This is an excellent movie and it was made by no other then Alfred Hitchcock.

Rating:
Summary: A Romantic Gem by Hitchcock with Herrmann's Lush Score.
Review: Most film historians and composers would agree that Alfred Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann were synonymous with the American Cinema. There is no contemporary team that comes close, except for Steven Spielberg and John Williams. This classic Hitchcock movie with Herrmann's score is so expressive and romantic, you will forget what time period it was filmed. The overall story and relationship between the title character (played by 'Tipp' Hedren), a theif with a disturbed childhood, and Mark (played by Sean Connery), a charming but blackmailing businessman who is bursting with raw sexual energy that is timeless.

Since "Marnie" was made in the early 60's, when movie love themes became increasingly popular, Universal Pictures requested Bernard Herrmann's magnificent score be transformed and adapted into a "pop" love song (though never included in the film). However, a new - lush orchestral vocal rendition exists from Pop, Cabaret recording artist, Michael Poss. The recording is available on SILVER SCREEN SERENADES and has been faithfully arranged and adapted to Herrmann's magnificent original score.

I still believe this film contains the most erotic and classic cinematic kiss between Sean Connery and 'Tippi' Hedren. In a recent interview, 'Tippi' Hedren thought the major reason why Marnie failed at the box office in 1964 was because the subject matter was considered too controversial and way ahead of it's time. Ms. Hedren's portrayal of the "mysteriously cool, icy, calculating blonde" has been studied, even emulated by film acting students around the world. This movie's is a treat to watch!

Rating:
Summary: Given the problems, it's still fascinating.
Review: The only thing wrong with this movie was that Hitchcock was losing it, and Hedren was the victim. Once he knew for sure he could not control her personally, he lost interest in the movie, and even went out of his way to sabotage the movie and Hedren's career. In the 10-12 years after this movie, she only made one other. Just read at least one of the biographies on Hitchcock to get the whole story of this movie. Actually, to fully experience the movie, you need to read the behind the scenes material as a companion piece.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling Mishmash
Review: Jumping in to share my impressions of MARNIE, I initially wondered if I was qualified, as I haven't seen the film for several years. And yet, maybe a movie should only be judged by the impact it had on a viewer in that first, 120 minute experience. If multiple viewings are required to appreciate a film's "greatness", maybe it isn't really that great after all...

Here's the scoop: the aging and temperamental filmmaker first had years of trouble adapting Winston Graham's tricky novel, going through a multitude of writers and one hoped-for leading player in the form of the retired Grace Kelly. (Aside from THE TURNING POINT, an early draft of which would have paired her with Audrey Hepburn in the 1970's, MARNIE is the only film that Kelly seriously considered accepting after marrying.) Hitchcock then gave up on investing himself in the actual filming of MARNIE after his eventual star rebuffed his sexual advances on the set. He wasn't going to do anything to further Tippi Hedren's career after that, including giving her a solid showcase.

Like Hitchcock's other, post NORTH BY NORTHWEST films, MARNIE has a heavy air of artificiality. This feeling worked for me in PSYCHO because the jangly, disassociated quality underscored the descent into Norman Bates' skewed and diseased mind....but in MARNIE and THE BIRDS, it's hard for me to swallow that this is a story involving real people. Hence I, as a -- I'd hope -- real person feel detached and shut out. The world of the film simply feels strained and underpopulated.

As the heroine, the slightly starchy Tippi Hedren is perfectly cast. (Note how she's credited as 'Tippi' Hedren in the credits, an annoying display of the director's perverse possessiveness.) But in the more vulnerable scenes -- breaking down in tears with her mother, for instance -- she lacks the fluid technique of say, an Ingrid Bergman, who could have made such naked moments work.

Sean Connery is, I agree, the sexiest and most immediate of Hitchcock's leading men, who can tend toward having a passive persona -- Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Anthony Perkins, Cary Grant, et al. Prurient viewers may want to carefully rewatch the scene where Connery gets up from a cafe table after drinking a cup of coffee with Marnie. (I believe this falls somewhere in the racetrack sequence?) It appears that the actor isn't wearing underwear!

This film gets four stars from me because it is made by my favorite director, and even a flawed work of his is better than much of what is delivered by lesser filmmakers. And yet aside from the very affecting theme of emotional yearning that runs through the film, (involving Marnie, Mark and Lil), the element that has stayed with me most strongly is Bernard Herrmann's luscious and lovely score.

If Hitchcock fans have not already read it, I think the finest analysis of this great director's work is found in Robin Wood's brilliant and meticulous HITCHCOCK'S FILMS, which was the second book in the "International Film Guide Series".

Rating:
Summary: One of Hitchcock's Greatest Films
Review: This radical, unusual, compelling film is one of The Master's finest...The influenece of German Expressionism on the young Hitchcock has never been more keenly displayed--the red suffusions and stagy storms and zoom shots all reflect outwardly the roiling interior world of the troubled, frigid Marnie--her frigidity being the trouble for the film, of course. No other film of Hitchcock's so passionately deconstructs the need to dominate the beautiful object of one's desires--and no Hitchcock film more bravely explores the pain of the desired subject. A worthy successor to Vertigo, Marnie completes what is often referred to as the Trilogy of Despair, which began with Psycho and the Birds. Dramatically involving score by Bernard Herrmann, typically rich cinematography by Robert Burks, and two superb performances--Tippi Hedren in the title role, Louis Latham as her mother--deepen the power of this film. Interesting to compare it to De Palma's first unqualified masterpiece, CARRIE--MARNIE is a thematic precursor.

Rating:
Summary: Another Side of Connery in "Marnie"
Review: I've gotta say, this is one of my all time favorite Hitchcock movies. I thought the chemistry between Sean and Tippi was wonderful. I think I liked Sean more in this role than in any of his James Bond films.And he looks beautiful and virile and shows that he has an acting range beyond what the Bond films were demanding of him at the time. I've never quite understood why this film never got the respect that other Hitchcock films got. But, no matter. I still love it.

Rating:
Summary: Sean Connery is the sexiest Hitchcock leading man. . .ever
Review: Marnie has a few flaws, but I generally find it to be a fascinating film. Not the least because of a young Sean Connery as Hitchcock's sexiest leading man ever. . .not even Cary Grant comes close. I was never into the old Bond films and am generally used to seeing Connery as an older, engaging character actor. Thus, I was always puzzled at the "Sean Connery is a sex bomb" commentary I used to hear on a regular basis. Well, guess what? After seeing Marnie I GET IT NOW! Connery's dark sexual magnetism is a hugely entertaining contrast to Tippi Hedren's chilly blonde....See this film because it is indeed one of Hitchcock's "under-rated classics", but also see it (if you're female) because Connery is a total babe. . .

Rating:
Summary: Haunting performance by Tippi Hedren
Review: The cheesy backdrops offend the contemporary eye. The score is obtrusive, even, at times, dictatorial. Miss Hedren on horseback for the most part isn't, both in the sense that the stunt person is clearly not her, and in the sense that sometimes we can't help but notice that she is in studio with the background moving behind her. And, as others have pointed out, the red of bloody remembrance that offends Marnie's eyes is a trite and obvious device, not worthy of Hitchcock at his best. Furthermore, some of the scenes are stagy almost to the point of naivete (but Hitchcock never worried about that as long as his effect was clear). The scene with the children outside the Baltimore apartment--done twice, actually to set up a third scene in which the children are quiet and stare--comes to mind, as does the scene in front of the Rutland residence as the newly weds are about to depart for their bizarre honeymoon. Perhaps "artificial" is a better word than "stagy." The overall psychology is strictly "Freudian for the Millions," but with a certain plausibility, while the story itself is far from convincing, regardless of whether you see it from Marnie's viewpoint or from that of Mark Rutland.

Nonetheless this uneven psychodrama is an interesting and enjoyable movie, clearly within the hallowed Hitchcock canon, in part due to a haunting performance by Tippi Hedren that will not soon leave my mind. It is clear that Hitchcock could not take his eyes off of her and neither could I. This is not to say Miss Hedren was brilliant. She was not. But in a sense, because her performance was striking and ordinary by turns, somehow it became--at least for me--indelibly real and entirely believable. It is to Hedren's credit that, in a movie in which the plot strains credibility at times, she is strikingly real. She plays the sociopathic office girl from the wrong side of the tracks with intelligence and vulnerability. Add her great beauty and one can almost believe that the rich, ultra-eligible Mark Rutland would actually to moved to marry her out of obsession and a desire to save her.

Alfred Hitchcock's signature technique, in which the plot elements are made childishly clear to even the most inexperienced viewer through audio and visual repetition, camera focus, silence and/or a surging score, is perhaps a bit too much on display here. Yet, once in motion, the plot plays out very well and we are comfortably ensconced in the world of small business America at mid-century. Sean Connery, who plays Mark Rutland, gives a fairly convincing performance in an unlikely role. I was thinking how much more tension might have been created had Rutland been played by somebody less attractive and more menacing. But Hitchcock rightly insisted on glamour and box office appeal in his leading characters, and sought to win the feminine side of the audience at all costs (therefore only attractive leading men!). And he was right in following this formula. One can imagine a remake of Marnie with, say, Nicole Kidman and John Malkovich, both excellent actors; but what would be lost? And would the movie be as interesting? We would lose some glamour and charisma--mainstays of the Hitchcock oeuvre--and the result would probably not be as engaging. Incidentally, Nicole Kidman did play a sociopathic little sickie in To Die For (1995), an underrated film that I recommend. Comparing performances I have to say that while Nicole was good, Tippi was mesmerizing.

The sharp and convincing response of Marnie to the forced marriage in which her frigidity is made manifest owes a lot to Hitchcock's passionate direction. I have to say though, that this is, in part, a little Hitchcockian joke on his audience. After all, how many poor little office girls would not delight in being "forced" to marry such a rich and handsome man whose wedding presents include a six and a half caret diamond ring? In other words, the staples of women's romance--the big house with servants, wealth, and a strong, handsome man who adores the central character and proves it--are very much in evidence amidst the psycho dynamics. All those who would imitate Hitchcock should keep this point in mind.

The script (adapting the novel by Winston Graham) by Jay Presson Allen, who has The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and Cabaret (1972) among his credits, contains some attractive dialogue, especially in some of the exchanges between the stars. An example is Sean Connery's reassuring line to Marnie, "Dad goes by scent. If you smell anything like a horse, you're in."

Initially, I didn't care for the character of Marnie's mother, played strangely by Louise Latham, but upon reflection she is off beat enough to be real. The scene (with a cameo of Bruce Dern as a sailor) revealing why Marnie became a pathological liar, a thief and frigid was plausible but not entirely convincing. The frigidity was understandable given her mother's hatred of men and what happened to her as a little girl, but why she became a sociopath fixated on trying to win her mother's love above all else seemed inconsistent. The ending is nicely ambiguous, allowing one to draw his or her own conclusion about the effect that such insights will have on Marnie's character.

It was nice to see Diane Baker as the girl who doesn't get the guy, and Mariette Hartley as a gossipy secretary.

Rating:
Summary: Hitchcock?
Review: Could've been better. I loved Tippi Hedren in the Birds. Not so, in Marnie. I think the role was just beyond her range as an actress. What could've been a great psychological thriller deteriorated into high melodrama. Tippi isn't only to blame. I thought the dialogue was unlikely and in some scenes, ridiculous. I'll admit Sean Connery pulled his character off pretty well, even though he had a lot of bad lines to deliver too.

The movie is interesting from a psychological perspective. Hitchcock seems to suggest some sort of horribly abusive sexual relationship between mother and daughter. There is also the bit about Tippi Hedren freaking out whever she sees the color red. Reminiscent of the raking lines that upset Gregory Peck so much in Spellbound. I can't help but wonder if Armistead Maupin borrowed from Hitch (as he admitted to doing for the Tales of the City miniseries) when he wrote More Tales of the City, as a character there has a bad reaction to roses.

Also lots of unintended humor. I guess it's a sign of the times that Sean Connery asks his secretary (Tippi) to work alone with him on a Saturday. So naturally she agrees and then he kisses her when they are alone in his office. She barely reacts, whereas today we'd have a very different plot involving a lawsuit perhaps?

Definitely a picture for Hitchcock diehards, like me.

Rating:
Summary: Expressive Beyond Belief
Review: I am not one who was grew up in the sixties- I'm growing up in this world right now, a young adult of the new millennium. A person my age would think, how could a movie from 1964 have any depth? Any romance? Any suspense? Yet "Marnie" will prove them all wrong. This classic Hitchcock movie is so expressive and romantic, you will forget what time period it was filmed. The overall story and relationship between Marnie (Hedren), a theif who had a traumatic childhood, and Mark, a charming but blackmailing businessman (Connery) is universal and timeless. It covers many emotions that most people feel- fear, emptiness, the need to be loved. You will feel the impact of "Marnie" time after time you watch it.