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Saturday, March 28, 2009

Marnie (1964) [NR] ****

An edited film review by Kenneth Brown, blu-ray.com, November 10, 2012.

Alfred Hitchcock wanted Grace Kelly as Marnie Edgar, author Winston Graham's beautiful thief; a woman whose next target, successful publisher Mark Rutland (Sean Connery), catches her in the act, chooses blackmail over arrest, and forces her to marry him, among other things. Paramount balked, though. Grace Kelly, a thief and rape victim? So the coveted actress eventually withdrew, albeit for a number of reasons.

And so the Master of Suspense turned to Tippi Hedren, fresh off her career-defining performance in The Birds. Hedren, as it turned out, was the perfect choice. Cold, distant, volatile, wounded, passionate, terrified, emotionless. Whatever Hitchcock needed on screen, his lead actress delivered.

Casting Connery was another coup. MGM's James Bond as a silver-tongued manipulator, a criminal in his own right and, worst of all, a rapist? The contrast alone is enough to make Marnie and Mark's scenes together charged with something entirely separate from the good will and sexual tension other screenwriters would have grafted onto the story. (Screenwriter Evan Hunter was Hitchcock's first choice, but Hunter wanted to do away with the pivotal rape scene; an instinct that led to his quick dismissal.)

But much of Marnie feels cobbled together. There are unforgettable scenes to be sure. Hedren's performance alone drives the otherwise stilted psychosexual drama along, but just as many are unremarkable. Connery brings very little to the screen other than quasi-Bond charm and a thinly veiled frigidity of his own. He mugs and muses with authority (and a perpetually cocked eyebrow), but exhibits little connection to Hedren and the material; Marnie's trauma is a touch contrived, and never quite puts her present course into perspective; and Hitchcock struggles to maintain suspense through his second act.

Be that as it may, second-tier Hitchcock is better than most classic directors' first-tier films. Marnie is the last of Hitchcock's fully realized projects, and the finest of his final five movies. Torn Curtain, Topaz, Frenzy, Family Plot... it's rather downhill from here.

Labels: crime, drama, mystery, romance, Sixties, thriller



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