Marnie (1964)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 2.5

I absolutely hate to give a Hitch film such a low rating, but Marnie is certainly misplaced in the recently released Masterpiece Collection. Starting out very promisingly with a truely subtle and wonderful performance by Tippi Hedren that had me from her first moment on screen, the film spirals downwardly with the marriage between her and Sean Connery (whose sometimes-British, sometimes-American accent completely took me out of the picture with roughly every word he spoke). After this point, I started thinking that Marnie was a bipolar schizophrenic with her wails and outbursts and coldsweats. The script is so all over the place with its juggling routine of one two many subplots that the main plot isn't given enough room to fully develope and breathe and by the time its climax peaks I felt like I didn't know what film I was watching. This point in the film is sadly rather embarrassing with Connery suddenly recalling moments that supposedly happened in the film (I couldn't remember them!) and Hedren doing her best with poorly handled material. How'd you go so wrong, Hitch?

**Now, I watched this over a span of three days--could that have something to do with my negative reaction? Maybe, but I feel it's somewhat unlikely.