Pas de printemps pour Marnie

Add me to the group of viewers who like this film. Yes, it is long and heavy on dialog, but visually stunning, and Bernard Herrmann's music is rich and vibrant. The best score he has ever composed.

For me, I have favorite scenes in the movie, for example the opening shot of a woman carrying a yellow purse. From there we go to her hotel room and watch as she transforms herself into another person. Old clothes get discarded in a train locker and the key gently kicked down a grate. All of this is done with no words, but wonderful camera angles, and accompanied by a great musical score.

The office scene where Marnie waits in the women's room before robbing the safe. You only hear the voices of her co-workers saying good night for the weekend. Again, this entire scene is done visually, only this time with a split screen showing Marnie and the cleaning lady simultaneously, as if we are watching a play. Only when the shoe falls from her coat pocket do we know that the cleaning woman is hard of hearing and the scene is now concluded.

There are several vignettes such as these that make the movie interesting. Yes, the riding scenes are fake looking, and I think it was just a case where Alfred just didn't quite keep up with technology. But when you think of Marnie, this is the last, true Alfred Hitchcock movie we will ever see. From then on, we never again see a grand production with high production values as we have here.

Yes it has flaws, and the acting may not be up to par at times, but there are worthwhile aspects that make this movie a classic in the Hitchcock canon.

One's interest or appreciation of Marnie is proportional to that of Hitchcock. The film isn't bad but it certainly has its flaws. The pacing is very subdued and there's a bit too much melodrama and stretches on the plot for it to truly thrive. But anyone who's actually interested probably will give as little thought all the psychological hooey as Hitch did. The focus of the movie is in the little details. The techniques and styles that make this an Alfred Hitchcock film. And of course the final help this film needed can be found with Sean Connery in between Bonds and at his best. And the master of suspense is supported by that sort of 'dream team' of Tomasini, Burks and Herrmann. With them he created some of the most elegant films and in this case he has Connery and Hedren to populate it.

To find out that Bernardo Bertolucci, the director of Last Tango In Paris, loves Marnie makes a lot of sense, to me anyway. If you think about it, Last Tango In Paris could have been a Hitchcock movie. An American in Paris meets a young girl, they have sex without knowing anything about each other and ends up in murder. Marnie is truly perverse and Sean Connery's obsession for Tippi Hedren is infinitely more perverse than whatever poor Tippi Hedren suffers from. He is turned on by her rejection. The kiss during the gelid honeymoon stays inches away from necrophilia. right?. The script is just delicious. Sean Connery goes for the troublesome center of his character, yes he does, whether consciously or unconsciously. Tippi Hedren is terrific here and with all the things we know now about the making of the movie her performance has acquired some extra something. Diane Baker as the scorned sister in law is a delight. So here we are, talking about a movie made 53 years ago. Time does extraordinary things.

The rumors surrounding Marnie - the last in an amazing run of truly great Hitchcock movies that lasted from 1950-1964 - are plentiful. All of them consist of director Alfred Hitchcock's growing obsession for Tippi Hedrin (who starred in The Birds one year earlier). By the end of the movie, Hitchcock would not talk to Hedrin or even refer to her by name (this following a supposed failed pass at Hedrin), and his friends say Marnie was the last movie Hitchcock truly cared about.

Regardless of the rumors, Marnie was a box-office failure and went unnoticed until recently when DVD brought back Hitchcock's unremarkable films, along with his classics. And behold, from the ashes ariseth... Marnie.

Starring Hedrin as Marnie and Sean Connery as the man who falls in love with her, this movie tells of a compulsive thief and pathalogical liar who is caught by Connery and blackmailed into marrying him. Connery finds that Hedrin has incredible fears of red and thunderstorms, refuses to let men touch her and has disturbing dreams brought on by knocks at her door. Connery must play the dual role of keeping Marnie away from the police while trying to find out why she does what she does.

This is indeed an excellent Hitchcock film. He reminds the audience that he did start out directing silent movies, and uses this silence very well in the robbery/cleaning lady scene. The moments leading up to Marnie's revealing flashback are incredible, and the movie reeks of typical Hitchcock: slow, methodic pacing to a brilliant and stunning climax.

Marnie is not a patented "Hitchcock classic": The fades-to-red have not aged well (if they ever did look good), the horse-riding scenes just don't work, and the backgrounds are obviously fake (although it has been speculated that Hitchcock did this on purpose -- whatever the case he later regretted it). But the basic premise, the acting, the directing are all top notch and have turned Marnie into another of the "Underrated Hitchcock"s.

8/10

Marnie operates as a confidence trickster, taking her cash from her employers, and changing her identity along the way, she's spotted one day by a wealthy businessman named Mark, who tries to help her see the error of her ways.

This seems to be one of the more underrated Hitchcock movies, it doesn't seem to be as worshipped as the likes of Vertigo and The Birds, but I think it deserves more acclaim. Hitchcock definitely pushed the boundaries with Marnie, in many ways it was ahead of its time, tackling subjects that are this time weren't often talked about.

What's so interesting about this film, is learning what makes Marnie tick, the history with her mum, and her terror of blood, you have to wait to learn everything, but its worth the wait.

The filming and camera work are terrific, so many scenes are memorable, that moment where Marnie is raiding the safe, with the cleaner at work the other side of the door, that was great, that moment where Mark leans over her on the ship, that was also a great piece of filming.

Two incredible performances, Tippi Hedren is perfect as Marnie, she's conniving, smart, broken, but glamorous and determined. Connery is the perfect counter balance, he's tough, forthright, confident and fiendishly handsome, the pair combine incredibly well.

It deserves more acclaim.

9/10.