BEFORE: Ooh, a sexy mystery for Friday the 13th, and I didn't even plan that! Tippi Hedren completes a hat-trick tonight, or should that be called a Tipple Play? Tippi Hedren Triple-Header, try saying that one five times real fast! Just please, no more pecking birds.
THE PLOT: Mark marries Marnie although she is a habitual thief and has serious psychological problems, and tries to help her confront and resolve them.
AFTER: Oh, a SEXIST mystery. Sorry, I must have misheard. At first this might seem like your average heist film mixed with a romance, something akin to "How to Steal a Million" with Audrey Hepburn, or "The Thomas Crown Affair", but Hitchcock added a lot of psychological stuff, which sort of takes over the second half of the film.
Marnie Edgar is a thief, that much is obvious, but in trying to get behind WHY she's a thief, Hitch took a stab at connecting the psychological dots, much like he did in "Spellbound" with amnesia, and I'm just not sure that the connections are valid. You can't just say that the human brain works a certain way just because that suits your plot - wouldn't it make more sense to do a little research into, say, kleptomania, or the effects of childhood trauma, and portray something akin to what might take place in the real world?
Nope, Hitchcock just sort of forged ahead and made Marnie a complex creature - where this past trauma, and her lack of sexual desire, and a fear of the color red, and her desire to steal large sums of money, is all tied together. But for the life of me, I can't justify all these things working together, or at least not being in conflict with one another. Oh, sure, there's an explanation for it all, but it seems like he worked backward from the justification, and that's really putting the cart before the horse.
(But wait, I think maybe with "Psycho" he did the same thing, I feel like he knew who he wanted Norman Bates to be at the end, and then spent the whole film working up to it. Anyway, there it worked and here, not so much. Considering that "Psycho" didn't really explain WHY Marion Crane took the money, I think perhaps this was a chance to delve a little deeper into the motivations of a female criminal.)
It's very easy to think, "Oh, Hitchcock didn't understand women, so he made this one unfathomable." I think perhaps that's an oversimplification, even if it feels true. There's something here about the complex nature of attraction and love, or whatever twisted simulation of love this relationship seems to portray. Looking at the male side of the equation for a minute, Mark Rutland first pretends to love Marnie in order to gain her confidence and stop a robbery, but then he seems to have fallen in love with her for real in the process. Even when her hangups might mean that he'd have to endure a sexless marriage, he still hangs tough and tries to get to the cause of her anxieties, and I think that's going above and beyond. A lot of men would have cut their losses at this point, I'd wager.
Also starring Sean Connery (last seen in "Diamonds Are Forever"), Diane Baker (last seen in "Courage Under Fire"), Alan Napier, Martin Gabel, Louise Latham, Mariette Hartley (last seen in "The Magnificent Seven Ride!"), with a cameo from Bruce Dern (last seen in "Mulholland Falls").
RATING: 5 out of 10 social security numbers
With cable companies charging a premium while there are better and more reasonably priced alternatives, perhaps it's time you dump your cable company. Either Netflix or Amazon video are good alternatives.
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