by Moe Zilla

Created on: February 11, 2008

"Marnie" is a 1964 Alfred Hitchcock movie starring Sean Connery and Tippi Hendren. The film's crooks encounter other crooks in a tricky plot, starting with thievery that leads to blackmail, and climaxing with a grisly murder. But is this movie TOO disturbing?

Tippi Hendren plays a crooked accountant who steals money from her employer, then disappears (moving on to another employer). But she tries this trick once too often, as the next employer she tries to rob recognizes her. Played by Sean Connery, Mark Rutland blackmails Marnie into marrying him. ("You don't love me," the movie's tagline promised. "I'm just some kind of wild animal you've trapped.")

The part was originally offered to Grace Kelly, who declined it. (Having married into the royal family of Monaco, it was considered inappropriate for her to play a character who's obviously emotionally disturbed.) Marnie loves horses and her mother, but she suffered a childhood trauma which to this day makes her hate the of men. (Another promotional slogan for the movie said of Connery's character that "On Marnie's wedding night he discovered every secret about her...except one!") The secret in Marnie's past is ultimately re-enacted in a flashback with Bruce Dern. The actor plays a sailor visiting a prostitute - Marnie's mother - and six-year-old Marnie is frightened by a storm. Dern tries to comfort the little girl. The mother mistakes this for her being molested, and attacks him. Dern defends himself, and they struggle to the death.

Hitchcock defended the long scene, saying he'd wanted to draw out the horror in trying to kill someone. But the horrific scene has scarred Marnie's personality. Throughout the movie she's shown as terrified by thunderstorms - and by the color red. On her blackmailed honeymoon, Marnie even attempts to kill herself the night after Sean Connery fiercely invades her bedroom. While the story of psychological descent sounds might be intriguing, it leads to several moments which are uncomfortably dark.

Hitchcock had wanted to cast Cary Grant as Marnie's affectionate husband, but instead ended up with tough guy Sean Connery. Several critics interpret the crucial honeymoon scene as a rape, eliminating all sympathy for Connery's character. And this was only Tippi Hendren's second film, so she didn't have the range to convey her own character's complex mixed emotions. She comes off as a perennially damaged and victimized - and in her own way, just as unsympathetic. (When the title character is an embezzler who's blackmailed into marriage - who exactly is the good guy?)

There's a legend that hangs over this film about Alfred Hitchcock's own interest in Hendren and her career. (When Hendren refused to work with Hitchcock again, he refused to release her from her contract.) It's an eerie parallel to the film's forced marriage. But even without that, the story has far too many ugly implications to be overlooked by a modern viewer. "Marnie" shows many things which are truly disturbing - but the movie's plot ultimately addresses only some of them.

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