MARNIE (1964)

A flash of lightning. A drop of crimson ink. Why do these things make Marnie (Tippi Hedren) overcome with fear? Why does she have nightmares plagued by concerns of being cold? And why can’t she bear to be touched by anyone apart from her mother? These are the questions the viewer will almost immediately ask when watching Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie.

We begin with Hitchcock’s archetypal MacGuffin: a large sum of money has been stolen from Crombie & Strutt’s accountancy firm, and our protagonist is the culprit. Our morally ambiguous main character flees to a new location and takes a fresh job, where she is employed by Mark Rutland (Sean Connery). Though he suspects her of the theft, it soon becomes clear that he harbours ulterior motives…

Hitchcock’s lesser-known Marnie is a complex film. Our leading lady has a dark past, with a trauma that lingers so aggressively it utterly debilitates her. Our leading man is an unscrupulous opportunist, who’s depicted as a heroic figure despite his problematic actions. And the director’s behaviour on set has shrouded the entire production in infamy. That Marnie remains a compelling watch makes it all the more interesting a film.

It would perhaps be best described as a thriller, but one of a different order than Hitchcock’s other works in this genre. The thrills feel nothing like those of the auteur’s Rear Window (1954), North by Northwest (1959), or even Psycho (1960). Instead, much of the tension in The Master of Suspense’s 1964 work revolves around the penetrating analysis of one character’s backstory. The unveiling of a troubled woman’s past becomes akin to a classic Hitchcockian murder mystery.

The audience is concerned with what kind of abuse Marnie has suffered. She’s tormented internally, demonstrating an uneven emotional state. We believe we get a hint as to why when Bernice Edgar (Louise Latham), Marnie’s mother, slaps her face with surprising force. Neither reacts with shock, carrying on as if nothing happened; physical abuse seems to be a familiar occurrence in this household. A foreboding sense of catastrophic trauma hangs over these family interactions.

Marnie was heavily promoted with the tagline: ‘From Alfred Hitchcock, with sex and suspense…’ The order of these keywords is revealing: while there is suspense in the film, it primarily revolves around the sexual relationship between Marnie and Mark, along with her deep-seated aversion to physical intimacy. This is rather obviously framed as a tragic irony—as well as a great shame to all men—because Hitchcock’s male gaze depicts Hedren as a sexual object.  

I recently spoke about the male gaze in the terribly sexist (yet catchy) Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), so you can find a more elaborate description of the phenomenon there. Suffice it to say, Hedren is revealed to be something of a celestial entity, whipping up her hair in a subtle homage to Rita Hayworth’s iconic move in Gilda (1946). She is first referred to as “the pretty girl with no references.” This efficiently characterises her both as a very beautiful, yet deeply untrustworthy person, though what made her so devious remains obscure.

Commencing our thriller with carnal appeal, Marnie is also described in crudely sexual terms by the men who know her: her employer is nearly feverish in his rendition of her aesthetic qualities to the police. When Strutt (Martin Gabel) reminds Mark of the suspected woman, asking him to describe her appearance to detectives, he says: “Ah, yes, the brunette with the legs.” Either Strutt’s firm exclusively hires female amputees, making Marnie’s possession of legs an anomalous, distinctive trait, or Mark is referring to Marnie’s beguiling appearance. One imagines it’s the latter.

However, despite her obvious sexual allure, we soon discover that sex is an unapproachable taboo for Marnie. She claims to have never been touched by a man (though there’s no mention of whether she’s ever been touched by a woman, but that’s perhaps beside the point). In his bid to understand how a woman so sultry could be so passionless, Mark undergoes a concerted effort to liberate Marnie from her seemingly oppressive, frigid shell. Of course, his sole motivation appears to be to make her sexually available to him. What a decent chap.

Believing that his reading of books like The Sexual Aberrations of the Criminal Female will reveal Marnie’s burgeoning, appetitive instincts, the story becomes intimately preoccupied with psychology. An interest in psychoanalysis is referenced explicitly on more than one occasion, particularly when Mark questions Marnie about her past directly. In a scornful dig at his attempts to play armchair analyst, she sarcastically remarks: “You Freud, me Jane?”

Though Mark does recommend Carl Jung’s 1957 book The Undiscovered Self to Marnie, the film remains largely Freudian in its approach. In both Marnie’s complex relationship with her mother and the frightening nightmares she experiences, it’s clear that the ideas presented in Freud’s seminal 1899 work, The Interpretation of Dreams, form the foundation for the film’s subtext: Marnie once experienced a traumatic event that now resides in her subconscious. Her compulsion to repeat this trauma manifests in her kleptomania.

This adds a layer of intrigue to the film. Ironically, many of Freud’s theories have been dismissed as sexist by trauma theorists. Researchers like Janet Walker and Diane Waldman have labelled some of Freud’s conclusions, particularly his writings on the credibility of women recounting childhood abuse, as “anathema to feminism.” This seems to mirror Marnie’s later statement, where she declares she has nothing to gain from psychoanalysis: “I don’t need to read that muck to know that women are stupid and feeble and men are filthy pigs!”

Despite a few pitfalls, Marnie remains a compelling character study, perhaps Hitchcock’s finest, though not his first. Lifeboat (1944) offered a fascinating portrayal of human psychology—both individually and as part of a group. Furthermore, I Confess (1953) investigated the moral dilemma facing Father Michael (Montgomery Clift) with terrific aplomb. However, neither film possessed the same intimate focus on a single character’s aberrant psychology as can be found in Marnie.

Indeed, the usual McGuffin is supplanted by Mark’s drive to catalyse Marnie’s abreaction, hoping it will subsequently make her physically receptive to his advances. This makes it the most dogmatic character study of the director’s career. The psychological study extends to Mark, but it falls far short of doing the character justice. This is a shame, as Mark’s behaviour is often just as peculiar (or concerning) as Marnie’s. We are often left asking: what is their relationship? Why is he helping her? More importantly, why is he allowing this woman to work at his company when he’s aware of her role in the robbery at Crombie & Strutt’s?

In a word: intrigue. He informs Marnie early in their relationship that he has a keen interest in zoology, which mostly revolves around the study of “instinctual behaviour.” He implies he is well aware of Marnie’s criminal status: “That paper deals with the instincts of predators, what you might call the criminal class of the animal world. Lady animals figure very largely as predators.” This is an ironic discussion because there is only one predator in the room—and it’s not Marnie.

Audiences can suspect very early on that there’s something not entirely altruistic about Mark’s motives. When he blackmails Marnie into marrying him, it comes as no surprise. However, what might garner your curiosity is how he speaks about their relationship, referring to their marriage as a form of “wholesome animal lust.” When Marnie protests, asking him to let her go, he laughs: “I’ve caught something really wild this time, haven’t I? I’ve tracked you and caught you, and by God, I’m going to keep you.”

Perhaps I don’t need to point out that referring to your fiancée as a wild creature that you’ve ensnared isn’t exactly normal behaviour, but in case I do: this isn’t exactly normal behaviour. Unfortunately, the film never quite reveals what made Mark like this, nor even frames his mentality as objectively problematic.

Worse, it appears to position Mark as her enlightened saviour. When he proudly presents a picture of a wild cat to Marnie, he smiles: “I’ve trained her.” When Marnie asks to do what, he responds: “To trust me.” This is emblematic of his intentions for Marnie: she’s little more to him than a pet project (if you’ll excuse the pun). He believes he has found something feral, a frightened creature that he can tame.

This is starkly apparent in the film’s most contentious scene: after the newlyweds argue about Marnie’s continued coldness despite Mark’s friendly demeanour, he rapes her on their honeymoon. Hitchcock initially appears to be making the argument that the only cure for a woman’s frigidity is a man’s sex, consent or not. What is perhaps worse, Hitchcock was adamant about keeping the scene in the script, much to screenwriter Evan Hunter’s despair.

Hunter had penned Hitchcock’s previous film, The Birds (1963), which also starred Tippi Hedren. Displeased by the plot point in Winston Graham’s novel of the same name, Hunter pleaded with Hitchcock to remove the scene, fearing it would render Mark a completely unforgivable character (which it entirely does, by the way). Unfortunately, the director was perhaps morbidly enthusiastic about filming it, describing to Hunter how it would look: “Evan, when he sticks it in her—I want that camera right on her face.”

Though Hunter wrote the scene as Hitchcock requested, he also wrote a substitute scene which he begged the auteur to use instead. The director fired him. Jay Presson Allen, the screenwriter who took over after Hunter’s dismissal, educated him years later: “You were bothered by the scene that was his reason for making the film. You just wrote your ticket back to New York.”

It’s a baffling sequence, one that stands out as being horrifically outdated. Mark never once apologises for the violation, nor is the crime even mentioned again. The sexual assault, and Marnie’s subsequent suicide attempt, become an afterthought in the story; Mark doesn’t demonstrate an iota of remorse. It’s also painfully tone-deaf that, in a film where our primary protagonist is plagued by a pathological fear of intimacy, she is raped by her would-be saviour.

This is all bad enough. What makes this whole scenario even more horrific is the knowledge that Hitchcock was hopelessly infatuated with Hedren. While this was already apparent on the set of The Birds, with co-star Rod Taylor being given strict instructions to avoid Hedren when the cameras weren’t rolling, his obsession with the starlet reached its peak during the production of Marnie. Years later, Hedren confessed that Hitchcock made constant, blatant sexual advances towards her, ensuring it would be their last project together.

Other crew members were horrified by the treatment. Co-star Diane Baker recalled: “She was never allowed to gather around with the rest of us, and he demanded that every conversation between her and Hitch be held in private… Nothing could have been more horrible for me than to arrive on that movie set and see her being treated the way she was.” Jay Presson Allen claimed everyone knew Hitchcock was “mad” about Hedren.

As if that testimony weren’t enough, Virginia Darcy, Hedren’s hairdresser, also spoke about the auteur’s behaviour onset: “Tippi rightly felt that she was not his property, but he’d say, ‘You are, I have a contract.'” In Donald Spoto’s 2009 Hitchcock biography The Dark Side of Genius, Hedren speaks about how her refusal to indulge the director led to him torpedoing her career.

While the film’s misogynistic undertones and power abuses might detract from enjoyment, its formal qualities are undeniable. This is particularly evident in Robert Burks’ cinematography, lauded as some of his best work, although it’s hard to surpass his achievements in Rear Window. In their final collaboration, Hitchcock and Burks create intricate split-screen shots with deep focus, making the robbery sequence unusually tense, even by Hitchcock’s standards.

Burks’ intelligent compositions extend further. Canted frames reveal two women anxiously awaiting a man’s arrival on different floors. He also employs colour vibrantly, with the alarming red flashes echoing the pervasive purple in Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958). Additionally, Burks’ use of shadow elevates Marnie visually. Bernice standing ominously in the doorway directly recalls Psycho, while Marnie hiding in a bathroom stall is lit much like classic film noir.

Hitchcock’s traditional focus on the power of imagery remains a compelling aspect of Marnie. A carefully organised suitcase reveals the fastidious psychology of a career criminal, inviting the viewer to ponder: who is this person? A key kicked down a drain, a drop of red ink, a close-up on a handbag, and the suspicious exchange of glances all heighten viewer intrigue. Black hair dye being rinsed out into a sink symbolises the chameleon-like nature of a con artist; much like our protagonist, the film’s aesthetic appeal is impossible to ignore.

While these impressive visuals are mostly successful, Burks’ cinematography also contributes to one of the film’s weakest moments: Marnie’s attempt to grab some money near the end. Here, the frantic zooming in and out on the stacked bills becomes unintentionally comical.

Marnie’s traumatic past—which I won’t divulge here—is predictably revealed with all of Hitchcock’s trademark theatrics. However, what is troublesome is that Mark’s method of handling problems (namely, forcing himself upon them) is vindicated as heroic. After Marnie’s dramatic catharsis, Mark elucidates the reasoning behind her trauma: “When a child, a child of any age, Marnie, can’t get love, it takes what it can get, any way it can get it.”

Despite having only studied psychoanalysis for a week, he’s portrayed as a sophisticated man of action. Furthermore, he remains deeply controlling—the film has not granted Marnie independence but robbed her of it. A central issue is that, although Mark’s lack of altruism is clear (from blackmailing Marnie into marriage to raping her), the film ultimately tries to convince you he was essential for her development.

So, while Marnie is blessed with visual splendour, technical brilliance, and moments of exquisite suspense, it’s equally cursed by a problematic message and a deeply unsympathetic hero. You keep hoping Marnie will break free from the predatory man who has inserted himself into her life, but she doesn’t, and their final embrace is deeply frustrating. Marnie is a good film, obviously well-made, but it can never be great—and that’s a great shame.

USA | 1964 | 130 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Alfred Hitchcock.
writer: Jay Preston Allen (based on the novel by Winston Graham).
starring: Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery, Diane Baker, Martin Gabel, Louise Latham, Bob Sweeney, Milton Selzer, Mariette Hartley, Alan Napier, Bruce Dern & Henry Beckman.