Marnie: The Black Sheep of Hitchcock’s Filmography
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
“You don’t love me. I’m just something you’ve caught! You think I’m some sort of animal you’ve trapped!”
Marnie
A far cry from the light-hearted and sappy movies produced during the golden-age of Hollywood, Marnie is the black-sheep of motion film for its time. Not well received at its release in 1964, this psychological thriller was considered one of Alfred Hitchcock’s failures. The tale of Marnie followed the duplicitous Margaret “Marnie” Edgar, played by Tippi Hedren, who consistently took on false identities to scam companies out of money. Marnie’s thievery comes to light underneath the management of Mark Rutland, acted by Sean Connery. This wealthy widower prevents Marnie from running off with his money with a little bit of blackmail as he forces her to marry him – much to the chagrin of Marnie and Mark’s sister-in-law Lil who seemed to harbor affection for him.
The film itself is unique in its approach of exploring such dark themes given the era of heavy censorship in film. The exploration of stigmatized topics regarding sexual relationships and trauma seemed outlandish and probably daring for its time. Evidently, Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual theories wormed its way into the film, seeing as Mark seemed to connect Marnie’s aversion to physical intimacy with a traumatic event experienced during her childhood. Regarding storytelling, Hitchcock deployed masterful direction as he made various artistic choices to aid in a visual storytelling – minus some challenged special effects i.e. the horse or the massive red block. His absence of sound to create a charged atmosphere is genius, seeing as a lot of times real life situations are. Moreover, creative choices like the use of various colors to indicate the feelings of the characters and to create a beautifully stunning film. There were some scenes that dragged on for some time and could have been trimmed.
Regarding the actors, Tippi Hedren’s behavior seemed to be too hysterical up until the cause of her behavior had fully unraveled and her crash out was validated. It was an interesting choice to see Marnie regress when she was reminded about her childhood trauma. She was no longer the polished, calculated thief at the onslaught of the film. She had become a broken little girl reliving a traumatic memory. Sean Connery’s acting was superb but struggled notably with his accent that could only be described as Scottish with a flare of Americana. He proved to be a good match as a handsome widower with a sort of predatory behavior when it came to a very vulnerable, prey-like character like Marnie. Diane Baker also did an amazing job as Lil Mainwaring, and it would have been good to see more use of her character in the final act. Louise Latham as Marnie’s Mother had a solid performance throughout and an even stellar final performance. She did a wonderful job of conveying the emotion needed to close out such an impactful scene.
Opposingly, the film is considered questionable because of its distressing themes and misogynistic qualities. However, this is where I think the film succeeds because of its verisimilitude and reflection of the realities of relationships. Biases often find their way in films, but these films are also a retelling of the human condition.
Overall, Marnie is an enjoyable film that deserves a re-watch, if only for the masterful direction of Hitchcock. All the characters gave strong and memorable performances. Despite its backlash, I do believe Marnie deserves consideration among Hitchcock’s other highly praised work.
The Island Cinephile 
