Marnie is a 1964 American psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock from a screenplay by Jay Presson Allen, based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery.
Marnie became a milestone for several reasons. It was the last time a "Hitchcock blonde" would have a central role in one of his films. It also marked the end of Hitchcock's collaborations with cinematographer Robert Burks, who died in 1968; editor George Tomasini, who died soon after Marnie release; and composer Bernard Herrmann, who was fired during Hitchcock's next film, Torn Curtain (1966), when Hitchcock and Universal studio executives wanted a pop-and-jazz-influenced score for the film.
The film received mixed reviews upon its release, but over the years it has been given a positive reevaluation among critics.
Plot Margaret "Marnie" Edgar, posing under the identity Marion Holland, flees with nearly $10,000 that she stole from the company safe of her employer, Sidney Strutt. Strutt is the head of a tax consulting company, where Marnie had worked after charming him into hiring her without references. Mark Rutland, a wealthy widower who owns a publishing company in Philadelphia, meets with Strutt on business; he learns about the theft and recalls Marnie from a previous visit.
Marnie travels to Virginia, where she stables a horse named Forio. She then visits her invalid mother, Bernice, whom she supports financially, in Baltimore. Marnie suffers from recurring nightmares and has an intense aversion to the color red, which triggers her hysteria.
Some months later, Marnie, posing as Mary Taylor, applies for a job at Mark's company. Although recognizing her, Mark hires her, cryptically telling his co-worker who questions hiring an applicant without references that he is an "interested spectator." While working weekend overtime with Mark, Marnie has a panic attack during a thunderstorm. Mark comforts, then kisses her. As they begin dating Mark discusses his background in zoology, particularly showing a fascination with predatory behavior. During a date at a racetrack, Mark fends off a persistent man who approaches Marnie, addressing her by another name, who Marnie insists she does not know.
Soon afterwards, Marnie steals money from Mark's company and flees again. Based on Marnie's comments on horses, Mark tracks her to the stable where she keeps Forio. Under threat of disclosure, Mark blackmails Marnie into marrying him, much to the chagrin of Lil, Mark's late wife's sister, who is in love with him.
On their honeymoon cruise, Marnie resists Mark's desire for physical intimacy, revealing that she finds sex repellent. Initially respecting her wishes, Mark tries to woo her, but after a few nights, they quarrel over Marnie's aloofness; Mark persists in physical advances while she freezes without consent. The next morning, Marnie attempts to drown herself in the ship's swimming pool, but Mark saves her.
After overhearing Marnie on a phone call, Lil tips off Mark that Marnie's mother is not dead, as Marnie claimed. Mark hires a private detective to investigate. Meanwhile, Lil overhears Mark telling Marnie he has "paid off Strutt" on her behalf. Lil mischievously invites Strutt and his wife to a party at the Rutland mansion. Strutt recognizes Marnie, but Mark pressures him into doing nothing. When Marnie later admits to additional robberies, Mark works to reimburse her victims to drop charges.
Mark brings Forio to their estate, pleasing Marnie. During a fox hunt, the red riding coat worn by one of the hunters triggers another of Marnie's fits and Forio bolts, misses a jump, injures its legs, and is left lying on the ground screaming in pain. Marnie frantically runs to a nearby house, obtains a gun, and euthanizes her horse. Overcome with grief, Marnie goes home, where she takes the key to Mark's office. She goes to the office and opens the safe, but finds herself unable to take the money. Mark arrives and "urges" her to take the money, testing her new reluctance to theft, but Marnie resists.
Mark takes Marnie to Baltimore to confront her mother and uncover the truth about Marnie's past. They arrive in a thunderstorm. As it is revealed that Bernice was a prostitute, Marnie's long-suppressed memories resurface. When Marnie was a small child, Bernice's sailor client tried to calm a frightened Marnie during a thunderstorm. Seeing him touch Marnie and believing he was trying to molest her, Bernice attacked him. As the sailor fended her off, Bernice fell and injured her leg, leaving her disabled. Frightened and attempting to protect her mother, Marnie fatally struck the man in the head with a fireplace poker. The sight of streaming blood caused her aversion to the color red, the thunderstorm that night caused her fear of them, and the connection of the deadly event to sex caused her revulsion at physical intimacy. To protect Marnie, Bernice told police that Bernice killed the man and prayed Marnie would forget the event. Understanding the reason behind her behavior, Marnie asks for Mark's help. They leave holding each other closely.
Cast
Tippi Hedren as Margaret "Marnie" Edgar Sean Connery as Mark Rutland Diane Baker as Lil Mainwaring, Mark's former sister-in-law Martin Gabel as Sidney Strutt, Marnie's ex-boss Louise Latham as Bernice Edgar, Marnie's mother Bob Sweeney as Mark's Cousin Bob Milton Selzer as man at track Mariette Hartley as Susan Clabon, Marnie's co-worker Alan Napier as Mr. Rutland, Mark's father Bruce Dern as the sailor from Marnie's childhood Henry Beckman as the first detective S. John Launer as Sam Ward Edith Evanson as Rita Meg Wyllie as Mrs. Turpin Kimberly Beck as Jessica "Jessie" Cotton, whom Bernice babysits (uncredited) Melody Thomas Scott as young Marnie (uncredited)
In addition, Alfred Hitchcock's cameo can be seen five minutes into the film, entering from the left of a hotel corridor after Marnie passes by.
Production Development and writing Alfred Hitchcock began developing the film adaptation of Winston Graham's novel Marnie in 1961. He commissioned Joseph Stefano, the screenwriter of Hitchcock's recently released Psycho, to work on the script. Stefano made extensive notes and wrote a 161-page treatment. The director's first choice to play the title role, Grace Kelly, by then Princess Grace of Monaco, withdrew from the project when the citizens of Monaco objected to her appearing in a film, especially as a sexually disturbed thief. Also, when Kelly married Prince Rainier in 1956, she had not fulfilled her contract with MGM, which could have prevented her from working for another studio. As a consequence of Kelly's departure from the film, Hitchcock put it aside to work on The Birds (1963).
After completing The Birds, Hitchcock returned to the Winston Graham adaptation. Stefano dropped out of the project due to his commitments to the ABC television series The Outer Limits. Evan Hunter, who had written the screenplay for The Birds, developed Marnie with Hitchcock, and wrote several drafts. Hunter was unhappy with the rape scene in the original novel, as he felt the audience would lose sympathy for the male lead. The director, however, was enthusiastic about the scene, describing to Hunter how he intended to film it:
Hitch held up his hands the way directors do when they're framing a shot. Palms out, fingers together, thumbs extended and touching to form a perfect square. Moving his hands toward my face, like a camera coming in for a close shot, he said, "Evan, when he sticks it in her, I want that camera right on her face".
Hunter wrote a draft containing the rape scene but also wrote an additional, substitute sequence, which he pleaded with Hitchcock to use instead. Hunter was dismissed from the project on 1 May 1963. His replacement, Jay Presson Allen, later told him that "you just got bothered by the scene that was his reason for making the movie. You just wrote your ticket back to New York". Just as Hunter had been unaware of Stefano's earlier work on Marnie, Presson Allen was not informed that she was the third writer to work on the adaptation.
Casting According to royal biographer Craig Brown, Hitchcock offered Princess Grace the title role in March 1962, and she accepted; but in Monaco, the reaction to the announcement was categorically negative. As he wrote: "Monegasques did not like the idea of their princess being filmed kissing another man. Little did they know that Hitchcock also had plans for him to rape her". The film was also being developed during a tense period of France–Monaco relations in which France threatened to revoke Monaco's special status, leaving the ruling Grimaldi dynasty anxious to preserve the country's public image. Grace's announcement that she would donate her $800,000 fee to Monaco charities did nothing to appease the critics, and she dropped out of the project in June 1962.
Following the news of Kelly's unavailability, Marilyn Monroe sought the role of Marnie. Asked about this in an interview with Variety Army Archerd, Hitchcock replied evasively that it was "an interesting idea". In his book Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie, Tony Lee Moral revealed that a studio executive at Paramount Pictures suggested actress Lee Remick to Hitchcock for the title role. Hitchcock also considered two other actresses who were, like Hedren, under his personal contract, Vera Miles and Claire Griswold, wife of director/actor Sydney Pollack. Eva Marie Saint, star of Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959), and Susan Hampshire unsuccessfully pursued the role as well. In the end, Hitchcock opted to use Tippi Hedren, a one-time model he had seen in a commercial for a diet drink in 1961, then cast successfully in The Birds. According to Hedren, he offered her the role of Marnie during filming of 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, Hedren declared in an interview that Marnie was her favorite of the two films that she made with Hitchcock, because of the intriguing, complex, challenging character that she played.
Male lead Sean Connery had been worried that 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 that Eon offered him. When asked what he wanted to do, Connery replied that he wanted to work with Alfred Hitchcock, which Eon arranged through their contacts. Connery also shocked many people at the time by asking to see a script, something that Connery did because he was worried about being typecast as a spy and he did not want to do a variation of North by Northwest or Notorious, spy-themed movies directed by Hitchcock starring Cary Grant. When told by Hitchcock's agent that Grant did not ask to see even one of Hitchcock's scripts Connery replied, "I'm not Cary Grant". Hitchcock and Connery got on well during filming. Connery also said that he was happy with the film "with certain reservations".
Hedren has claimed that Hitchcock made sexual overtures to her during the making of The Birds, and that while making Marnie, he "pressured her sexually all the more blatantly, crudely, and cruelly." Hedren did not yield to his advances. She asked to be released from her contract, but he refused.
Filming In a making-of documentary for the DVD release, unit manager Hilton A. Green explains that shooting had been scheduled to begin on November 25, 1963, at Universal City Studios in California but had to be postponed because the nation was in mourning for John F. Kennedy, who had been assassinated three days before. Filming concluded on March 14, 1964.
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