Marnie (1964)

Film: Marnie (1964)

Stars: Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery, Diane Baker, Martin Gabel, Louise Latham

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Tippi Hedren-click here to learn more about Ms. Hedren (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

As I mentioned on Monday, we are going to start Hedren's career not with The Birds, which would make her a household name, but with Marnie, as I only watch films I've never seen for this series & I've seen The Birds countless times.  In a year where we have profiled dozens of Hitchcock films, Marnie stands apart as a particularly important one, because depending on who you ask, it is either The Birds or Marnie that would be Hitchcock's last "great" picture.  Contemporary reviews tended to favor the theory that it was the former, but many retrospective reviews have salvaged Marnie's reputation, and as someone who adores The Birds, I was curious to see what would happen when I finally caught this, one of the most important movies in Hitchcock's filmography I hadn't seen prior to 2021.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie plays a bit like a riddle.  The beginning of the film involves Marnie (played by Hedren, she goes by multiple names in the picture but we're going to refer to her as Marnie to help continuity), who has recently stolen $10,000 from her employer Sidney Strutt (Gabel).  In her next job, she meets Mark Rutland (Connery), who recognizes her as the thief from before, but doesn't say anything initially.  He becomes fascinated with the beautiful woman, and curious as to why the color red & thunderstorms are emotional triggers for her.  When she tries to steal again, Mark blackmails her into marrying him, and she agrees despite the protestations of Mark's sister-in-law Lil (Baker), who is clearly in love with Mark.  On their honeymoon, they initially avoid physical intimacy, but at a crucial point Mark rapes Marnie, as he's become obsessed with her.  He slowly works to reimburse her victims to get the charges to go away, but while he's doing this Marnie is hating him more for trapping her.  In the films final moments, Mark decides to do something about the emotional instability of his wife, and he takes her to see her mother Bernice (Latham).  There, during a manic state, Marnie realizes that her mother was a prostitute, and one of her clients, after attempting to molest Marnie, was killed by Bernice, which is why the color red (blood) and thunderstorms (it was raining) are triggers for Marnie.  Afterward, Marnie & Mark decide they can make it work, now knowing where Marnie's troubles stem from.

The movie is marvelously shot & edited.  The opening scene of the film, which includes a raven-haired Hedren clutching a yellow purse (that looks, let's face it, a little bit like a vagina), while walking carefully down a train platform is so fascinating & brilliant, you'd honestly assume that the film wouldn't be able to follow it with anything as terrific, but you'd be wrong.  The first half of Marnie is a mystery, with us at first trying to understand this strange woman who clearly is suffering from psychological trauma, and then at the midpoint we are given a true twist when Mark ends up being a bit of a psychotic, raping Marnie & basically holding her captive, obsessed with finding out the truth about this woman he has basically tricked into marrying him.

The movie's ending feels like a letdown as a result.  For a modern audience (but I suspect considering the many discussions about whether it should be included in the film, contemporary ones as well), it's hard to imagine wanting to cheer on Mark after he assaults Marnie, and the film doesn't really know how to deal with this.  In a modern film, we'd end with Marnie getting revenge on Mark, but neither he nor the audience getting to know her in the process, leaving her a cool, unknowable figure-in that, we'd have gotten a great movie.  Here, we get them trying to rehabilitate Mark's image, and a relatively groundbreaking bit of psychoanalysis that goes nowhere.  Still, this is a brilliantly-acted movie.  Connery is vicious & is giving some of his best work as Mark, a complicated he-man figure who has never been told "no" before Marnie.  Diane Baker is excellent as his scheming, in-the-wings sister-in-law, and Latham stands out in her two big scenes.  And yes, Tippi Hedren can act, and does so wonderfully here, finding rich layers under a sheen of hardened plastic.

Marnie would be Hitchcock's last film with Hedren, and that appears to be more her choice than his.  Hedren has in the years since been quite adamant about how little she liked the director, and his predatory behavior on-set.  According to Hedren, he had her followed, and would tell cast-and-crew not to speak to her on set (her costar Baker would later confirm this to be the case).  He became sexually obsessed with her, making overt requests for sexual favors, and threatening to "ruin her career" if she didn't honor her contract after Marnie (as she said she didn't want to appear in any of his future movies).  As she was under contract, he knew he could bankrupt her because she couldn't support her aging parents or her daughter Melanie without her income from movies.  For three years after Marnie, Hedren did not, indeed, work, and she would never have the career that The Birds and Marnie would've insinuated she would.  As promised on Monday, though, we will take a look at the career she did have in the coming weeks, and next Saturday we'll discuss a film she made with a director who, believe-it-or-not, is as culturally significant as Hitchcock himself.