Customer Reviews

Marnie

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I love most Hitchcock films with a couple of exceptions (eg. Frenzy) but Marnie is my favourite. It is not a thriller, nothing like Psycho or The Birds. Rather, it is a sophisticated psychological suspense film about a compulsive embezzler (played by Tippi Hedron) who changes her identity after each job until she is caught in the act by her dashing new employer (played by Sean Connery) who has fallen in love with her. Tippi plays the role of Marnie to perfection. She is mesmerizing. And Sean inhabits his role as Mark Rutland so completely that the famous Sean Connery disappears. It's also an unintentional commentary on the culture of the late 50's, early 60's. Feminists beware. The film is archetypal, an adult fairy tale and crime drama brilliantly rendered. The audience is made to care deeply about Marnie's fate. One of my top 10 movies of all time.

Sean Connery and Tippi Hendren...how can you go wrong...Brings back memories of 60's. Well acted. Tippin Hendren should have done more movies.

Marnie is another movie that I had been searching for and did not find previously. So happy when I saw it was now available on DVD. Quality of product was great and shipment was immediate - no waiting for 2 weeks or more.

SEAN CONNERY STEALS THE SHOW IN THIS ALFRED HITCHCOCK MASTERPIECE. THE MOVIE IS AMBITIOUS FOR ITS TIME PERIOD AND HOLDS UP WELL TO THIS DAY. THE MOVIE CONTAINS SUSPENSE, HUMOUR AND SEAN CONNERY IN A VERY UNUSUAL ROLE AS MARNIE'S HERO. VERY WELL DIRECTED BY ALFRED HITCHCOCK ESPECIALLY THE SCENE WITH MARNIE'S SHOE. I LOVE TO WATCH IT AGAIN AND AGAIN BECAUSE I ALWAYS SEE SOMETHING DIFFERENT THAN BEFORE.

I have had traumatic childhood experiences with men, and Tippi Hedron's performance as Marnie shows an amazing depth of understanding of what it's like and how such things can affect you well into your adulthood. People may find it very unrealistic, but I have lived much of this (not the thievery!). It's amazing to me that her portrayal of the character shows such a depth of understanding of what I have lived.

Those who give poor ratings to this movie need to buy/rent thrillers with lots of machine-gun fire etc. This movie is not like that. But there are layers and layers of things to think about. It moves slowly at times as if Hitchcock supposed viewers could not make the connections very well. But there is enough here to provoke (as it has!) many essays and papers on the psychological issues it draws upon. QUITE WORTH A LOOK!!!

This is my favourite movie, probably because there isn't another film like it. It's a very intellegent and romantic thriller made just before movies started to tackle more 'adult' themes in a more graphic way. Marnie explores these themes but it is done in a romantasised and stylistic manner.

Hitchcock directs brilliantly as you'd expect and manages to coax a real tour de force from Tippi Hendren. Connery is in his prime and Louise Latham is truly staggering as Marnie's mother. The underated (and dead sexy) Diane Baker is also excellent.

I really can't recommend Marnie enough and this DVD is superb (better than the region 2 one).

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Format: Color
Studio: Universal Studios
Video Release Date: August 3, 1999

Cast:

Tippi Hedren ... Marnie Edgar/Margaret Edgar/Peggy Nicholson/Mary Taylor
Sean Connery ... Mark Rutland
Diane Baker ... Lil Mainwaring
Martin Gabel ... Sidney Strutt
Louise Latham ... Bernice Edgar
Bob Sweeney ... Cousin Bob
Milton Selzer ... Man at Track
Mariette Hartley ... Susan Clabon
Alan Napier ... Mr. Rutland
Bruce Dern ... Sailor
Henry Beckman ... First Detective
S. John Launer ... Sam Ward
Edith Evanson ... Rita
Meg Wyllie ... Mrs. Turpin
John Hart
Alfred Hitchcock ... Man leaving hotel room
Rupert Crosse ... Office worker
Louise Lorimer ... Mrs. Strutt
Kimberly Beck ... Jesse
Carmen Phillips ... Sidney Strutt's secretary
Melody Thomas Scott ... Young Marnie

One of Hitchcock's masterpieces, and like many other of his efforts, a psychological drama.

Marnie (Tippi Hedren) was a kleptomaniac, a compulsive thief. She supported her mother, Bernice Edgar (Louise Latham), who was a stern, domineering person of religious conviction with high standards of personal conduct, and who had turned her daughter into a man-hater.

Enter Mark Rutland (Sean Connery) who marries Marnie, knowing that she is a thief and liar, but unaware of all of her serious hang-ups. However, as the problems begin to surface, he tries to solve them.

Grace Kelly was originally considered for the part of Marnie, but was already the princess of Monaco and her subjects were less than enthusiastic about it, and besides, the picture was being made by Universal while she was still under contract to MGM, so she dropped the idea and never again considered a movie career. This was also an early effort in the career of Sean Connery, before his series as James Bond.

An entertaining film, with good acting throughout, and the excellent direction of Hitchcock, with his usual trademark cameo. You should enjoy the picture.

Bruce Dern plays a focal role, as well, as an unnamed sailor, but it is not an unimportant part.

Joseph (Joe) Pierre

author of Handguns and Freedom...their care and maintenance
and other books

Hitch was truly angry that Grace Kelly backed out of this project, so Tippi Hedren got the call. Then Hitch made Tippi-Marnie suffer. No director ever played out his psyche in film like Hitchcock. The rape fantasy is central to Marnie. The criminal female mind, both sensual and man hating in its ambiguity is portrayed in Freudian terms. Visually, Marnie is startling to see and familiar to Hitch's fans. The backgrounds, for example, Baltimore Harbor and Marnie's childhood street are beautiful, yet unreal in a plastic sense. I noticed this in Vertigo; a place is somehow more beautiful and possibly ominous because of painted device, careful set, or clothing design that we have not seen except for Spielberg in his space visitor films or Spike Lee in his plastic black neighborhoods, so we always feel while we are viewing that the real world is somehow enhanced. Then there's the details, the way the shots are set up. The camera gradually circles the blonde ice goddess. Give us a close up of the keys in the drawer with the combination and pull back to show the cleaning lady in a split shot with the burglar. Marnie is a psychological thriller and because it plays Hollywood-Freudian, it slows and is stilted or amateurish. Couch time is pretty much a personal drama difficult for a general audience to care about. For all the tribulations uttered on the shrinks couch, the story is still the thing on film. Marnie is predictable and slow to unwind. All the advantages of a slowly unraveling story helped Hitch in Vertigo, but Marnie seems to plod along. Still, Marnie is better than 99% of the films ever made.

I have PTSD. I've locked out large chunks of my childhood. I first saw Marnie when I was 17. It didn't knock my repressions loose, but it certainly stirred them up. I saw it again when I was in my forties, and I was recovering my memories. It knocked my socks off again. This movie would probably play completely differently to someone with a different history from mine. But it really hit it for me, and all those years when I was holding things down, I think it let me know that I was not alone.