Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13771 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-10-17
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 126 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Both visually and psychologically, Marnie is crass in comparison with Hitchcock's peak achievement in Vertigo--although it shares some of that film's characteristic obsessive themes. Sean Connery, fresh from From Russia with Love, is a Philadelphia playboy who begins to fall for Tippi Hedren's blonde ice goddess only when he realises that she's a professional thief (she's come to work in his upper-crust insurance office in order to embezzle mass quantities). His patient programme of investigation and surveillance has a creepy, voyeuristic quality that's pure Hitchcock, but all's lost when it emerges that the root of Marnie's problem is phobic sexual frigidity, induced by a childhood trauma. Luckily, Sean is up to the challenge, as it were. Not even DH Lawrence believed as fervently as Hitchcock in the curative properties of sexual release. --David Chute

Special Features
English
Region 2

Synopsis
In terms of psychological power and innovative visual techniques, MARNIE ranks alongside VERTIGO and PSYCHO as one of Alfred Hitchcock's most exceptional films. This thriller, based on a best-selling novel by Wilson Graham, revolves around Marnie (Tippi Hedren), a pathological liar and compulsive thief who is befriended by her latest victim, Mark Rutland (Sean Connery). Despite his sincere love, dashing looks, and wealth, some deep-seated neurosis makes her emotionally inaccessible, causing him to search her past for an explanation. This is Connery's American film debut, and he portrays his character's fascination with Marnie with a conviction that allows the psychological turmoil of the young woman to emerge. Hedren's performance as the deeply conflicted and emotionally scarred woman walks the fine line favored by Hitchcock, balanced between an icy sexuality and emotional fragility. The director wants to show the audience Marnie's world and fears, so he uses a range of innovative visual techniques--including awkward rear projections, flashes of color, and a menacing atmosphere of storms--to convey her troubled state of mind. MARNIE is one of Hitchcock's most underrated and underappreciated films.

Customer Reviews

An impotant movie that deserves a better transfer
Perhaps the last of the great Hitchcock movies, Marnie is a flawed masterpiece. Tippi Hedren plays Marnie with the intelligence of an accomplished criminal and the vulnerability of frightened young girl. Sean Connery is also convincing in the unlikely role of the rich and very eligible Mark Rutland who is obsessed with saving Marnie from her fractured life. The script by Jay Presson Allen provides some brilliant highpoints in a plot that traces common Hitchcock themes of childhood trauma and an overbearing mother. Hitchcock's direction, however, varies from the sublime to the ridiculous. Brilliant compositions and set pieces, such as the robbery scene, Rutland's office and the final climax, are held together by some truly awful studio fabrications. This was to be the last time Hitchcock would work with many of his oldest allies, including his director of photography Robert Burks, his editor George Tomasini and composer Bernard Herman. As such, it really does represent the end of an era.

It's a great shame that such an important film has been so poorly transferred onto this region 2 disc. An aspect ratio of 1.33:1 might be great for those wanting to fill their TV screens, but it seriously detracts from many compositions. The picture quality is also very grainy and often noticeably blurred. I've heard that the region 1 version is better, so that might be a worthwhile consideration for those with region free machines. Otherwise, I would wait until the studio finally gives this film the treatment it deserves.

Impressive Psychological Thriller
"Marnie" is one of Hitchcock's darker films that features themes like kleptomania, compulsive lying, female frigidity , dark family secrets and childhood trauma. Phew ! As you can tell , it is not a barrel of laughs, but it is well acted and the plot is developed well. "Marnie" is part romance, part mystery and part thriller and deals with the relationship between a rich, eccentric ,slightly maverick businessman (Sean Connery) and the beautiful, but psychologically disturbed Marnie (Tippi Hedren). Connery tries unsuccessfully to get behind Marnie's icy protective shell,only penetrating it and uncovering the mystery behind her traumatised condition in a dramatic denouement at the home of one of her relatives. "Marnie" makes for uncomfortable viewing at times and is ,perhaps, the last really good film that Hitchcock made.

intriguing and with many effective dark touches
When it first appeared, 'Marnie' was not universally well reviewed. As with a few of Hitchcock's later films, the unsuccessful 'Frenzy', for example, it dealt with some uncomfortable subjects, and the treatment of the heroine, Marnie, was seen by some judges to be troubling, a view supported by rumours that Hitchcock had taken an unhealthy and unwelcome interest in Tippi Hedren, the actress who plays her. Certainly Marnie is treated at one point in a way which would now be seen as unacceptable (and probably was then) by the frustrated hero (Sean Connery). Whatever the rights and wrongs of that, this remains an interesting film which tells an involving story and has many tense scenes which bear Hitchcock's hallmark. Marnie's compulsion to steal, the significance of the colour red and the reason for it, the very effective ending down by the docks, are all well handled. It is perhaps a film which yields more on a second or third viewing ; I have certainly continued to enjoy it over the years. Hedren (who led also in 'The Birds', one of Hitchcock's late masterpieces and a better film than this) is good, as are all the cast ; this is a good film and can be recommended.