For any sense of appreciation for this movie, I think you first have to get past the absurdity of the basic plot. You figure that Mark Rutland became president of his family's business because he had a fair amount of business acumen and a semblance of common sense. Once he realizes that Mary Taylor has robbed his safe and has a history of aliases in other cities doing the same, how is it he keeps the romance going? Especially when Marnie makes every effort to dissuade him at every turn. They say love is blind and marriage is an eye opener, but it seems to me that Rutland had his eyes sewn shut.
With that off my chest, director Hitchcock does a decent enough job of maintaining intrigue and suspense in the story; the aforementioned safe robbery scene with the cleaning lady was particularly noteworthy. Yet at the same time, I have to wonder why Hitch resorted to such almost comical techniques as used in the riding sequence of the fox hunt scene and the rapid zoom in and out of the money in the safe. The latter reminded me of some of those 1940's Warner Brothers cartoons that employ a similar device. It had the feel of a fledgling director who might still be searching for his own vision in making a picture instead of someone with a whole pile of them under his belt already. I have to tell you though, the scene that made me wince was Marnie's horse taking that fall over the jump.
You know what the biggest surprise for me was? Finding out that actress Louise Latham played the parts of both the elder Mrs. Edgar and the young mother of Marnie in the scene with the sailor. The makeup job was so good for both characterizations that it even fooled Hitchcock's assistant director on the set, who asked who the actress was to show up for the flash back filming.
Coming off of Hitchcock's suspense thriller "The Birds", I thought Tippi Hedren did more than a competent job as the conflicted title character, bringing a range of emotion to a role that could have wound up a caricature if not done as well. Opposite Sean Connery, Hedren wondered how she could pull it off. Credit director Hitchcock with a firm but insightful bit of advice - "It's called acting".
With that off my chest, director Hitchcock does a decent enough job of maintaining intrigue and suspense in the story; the aforementioned safe robbery scene with the cleaning lady was particularly noteworthy. Yet at the same time, I have to wonder why Hitch resorted to such almost comical techniques as used in the riding sequence of the fox hunt scene and the rapid zoom in and out of the money in the safe. The latter reminded me of some of those 1940's Warner Brothers cartoons that employ a similar device. It had the feel of a fledgling director who might still be searching for his own vision in making a picture instead of someone with a whole pile of them under his belt already. I have to tell you though, the scene that made me wince was Marnie's horse taking that fall over the jump.
You know what the biggest surprise for me was? Finding out that actress Louise Latham played the parts of both the elder Mrs. Edgar and the young mother of Marnie in the scene with the sailor. The makeup job was so good for both characterizations that it even fooled Hitchcock's assistant director on the set, who asked who the actress was to show up for the flash back filming.
Coming off of Hitchcock's suspense thriller "The Birds", I thought Tippi Hedren did more than a competent job as the conflicted title character, bringing a range of emotion to a role that could have wound up a caricature if not done as well. Opposite Sean Connery, Hedren wondered how she could pull it off. Credit director Hitchcock with a firm but insightful bit of advice - "It's called acting".