It Could Have Been Grace Kelly (Marnie (DVD))

Member Name: anonymili

Product:	Marnie (DVD)
Date:	14/08/06 (211 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: one of Hitchcock's most intriguing films

Disadvantages: some of the background scenes are blatantly faked

Marnie is one of my favourite Hitchcock movies. It stars the beautiful Tippi Hedren as Marnie Edgar and the gorgeous Sean Connery as Mark Rutland, with support from Diane Baker as Lil and Louise Latham as Bernice Edgar, and was released in 1964. The script was written by Jay Presson Allen and the book (of the same name) from which it was inspired was written by Winston Graham. Alan Napier appears as Mark’s father (remember him? He was Alfred in the original TV series of Batman!)

The film runs for 130 minutes and is certified 15 due to some adult and violent scenes. The original (and extremely atmospheric) music for the film was by Bernard Herrmann.


PLOT
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Marnie is a compulsive thief moving from company to company working in clerical roles and biding her time till she can access company safes and steal money. With a large part of the money she buys expensive gifts for her mother, Bernice, who doesn’t seem to like her very much. Marnie gets a job at Rutland & Co unaware that the boss, an eligible widower, Mark Rutland was a customer of a previous victim of hers and has hired her deliberately to keep an eye on her. They start dating casually, she meets his family; including his charming father and spoilt sister-in-law and she eventually steals money from the safe, as expected. Mark Rutland catches her and blackmails her into marrying him or he’ll turn her over to the police. She marries him out of fear but he doesn’t realise she’s frigid until after they’re married.

Why does Marnie seem to hate men so much? Why is she so afraid of thunder, lightning and the colour red? Why is Mark so obsessed with possessing her mind and spirit?


MY THOUGHTS
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Marnie is a very suspenseful film and you don’t find out till the very last scene why Marnie is the way she is, although there are some clues dropped in during the film. The whole film is highly atmospheric with good use of dramatic background music for an even better all round aura of suspense.

I was surprised to read that this film was one of Hitchcock’s failures, maybe so at the time of release, but I’ve seen it numerous times on TV and liked it so much that I bought the DVD.

I was intrigued by Rutland’s obsession with Marnie right from the start. His character had studied zoology before taking over the ailing family business and seemed intent on digging into Marnie’s mind wanting to continually psycho-analyse her. He seems to love her a great deal but he also wants to possess her which was slightly creepy. But I have to admit it’s almost impossible to find Sean Connery creepy in this film; he really did look his best, with charisma oozing from every pore! The one greatest act of love that stands out at the start of their marriage is when he comes home with her beloved horse, Foreo, which seems to be the only thing in her life she shows any passion about. The look of love on his face is evident as she throws off her high heeled shoes and rides off bareback on her horse.

The character of Diane Baker, who plays the spoilt sister-in-law with an obvious crush on Connery’s character was well cast. She portrayed to perfection a pampered heiress who openly covets her dead sister’s husband. When he leaves for his honeymoon with his new bride, she plants a full on kiss on his lips whilst Marnie looks on unmoved by the scene. It’s amusing that Connery’s character affectionately treats her like a naughty spoilt younger sister and doesn’t really scold her for trying to cause Marnie misery.

One of the plot flaws which stood out a lot for me was Marnie’s fear of the colour red, except she had no issues with wearing bright red lipstick. You see shots of her freaking out when she sees red flowers at her mother’s house and a red shirt on a jockey and the screen goes completely red with Marnie on screen. These were cleverly done and the effect was to make the audience feel what Marnie was feeling and it worked! We all see red too! Tippi Hedren was well cast for the role, although Grace Kelly was to have played the role originally, I can’t quite imagine anyone else as effective in the role as Hedren was for me.

Other flaws which stood out greatly were when Marnie was riding her horse in several scenes, it’s obvious the background is false and it really is very noticeable. It wouldn’t happen in today’s films I guess but it stood out like a sore thumb in an otherwise quite cleverly filmed movie.

How many of you know that Tippi Hedren’s famous daughter from her first of four marriages to Peter Griffith is Melanie Griffiths? And did you know that Hitchcock fell out with Hedren towards the end of the filming of Marnie and basically stopped her career from progressing further as she did not wish to act with this hugely controlling personality?


DVD EXTRAS
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There’s a film commentary lasting about an hour in which we hear about how Hitchcock originally wanted Grace Kelly to play Marnie but as it was to be her comeback film after marrying royalty the people of Monaco did not fancy the idea of her playing a kleptomaniac. Tippi Hedren was starring in Hitchcock’s The Birds with Rod Taylor so he asked her instead and she agreed.

Jay Presson Allen wrote the script for the film after the original script writer wasn’t available due to the delay in starting the film due to the lack of a leading lady and the 2nd script writer refused to write the script the way Hitchcock wanted. I can’t really say what the specific part of the script was he refused to write as it would give away more of the plot but it meant that Sean Connery’s character would be seen in a bad light and this wasn’t a good idea for the audience to see the leading man portraying this negative behaviour. Jay Presson Allen readily wrote the script the way Hitchcock wanted and that particular scene although shocking (even though mostly implied as opposed to shown) didn’t leave too bad a taste in one’s mouth.

There’s quite an amusing bit in the commentary when Tippi Hedren quotes a conversation she had with Hitchcock about her character having to be frigid and having to work with the stunning Sean Connery - Hitchcock said to her “Yes my dear, it’s called acting!”

Diane Baker talks about her role in the film and that comparisons were made with her looks and Grace Kelly, she said she didn’t mind being compared to Grace Kelly. I didn’t quite see the similarities myself, Baker is striking but with black hair and quite cat-like eyes, I couldn’t see it myself. There’s an interesting bit when Baker tells of how Hitchcock physically showed her the facial expression he wanted for a scene when she’s eavesdropping on Mark and Marnie from an upstairs window, she said Hitchcock actually moulded her face with his fingers to make just the right expression he needed. She says “he simply shaped my face”.

There’s lots of narrative from various people involved in the making of this film and those who starting working on the film but never did. I was rather disappointed not to have seen Sean Connery in the documentary discussing his character as you see Tippi Hedren, Diane Baker and Louise Latham.

As well as the commentary I’ve discussed above, in the DVD extras there’s subtitle selections as well as production photographs, an extensive library of publicity shots; some really glamourous shots of Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery and the rest of the cast as well as publicity posters.

There’s also a film trailer which starts with Hitchcock saying in his unique bland way “How do you do? I’m Alfred Hitchcock and I’d like to tell you about my latest motion picture Marnie which will be coming to this theatre soon.” A line that really made me laugh is when Marnie screams at the office after hearing thunder and lightning, Hitchcock says “… what would account for this strange behaviour? Has she just realised she has forgotten her umbrella?”


WHERE TO GET IT
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You can pick up the DVD of Marnie from Amazon for £6.97 or from selectcheaper.com for £6.04 or from dvdsource.co.uk for £6.99 or try renting it from your usual DVD rental source.


OVERALL
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Whatever the critics said when this was released, Marnie remains one of my favourite Hitchcock movies and it gets a strong 9 out of 10 for me. As I mentioned already, I’ve watched it numerous times on TV and liked it well enough to buy the DVD so I can watch it when I want and not have to wait till it’s repeated on terrestrial TV again!


YES, I do recommend this film.

Summary: A "suspenseful sex drama" as Hitchcock called it himself!