Hitchcock Alfred - Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie

Acknowledgments

In the writing of this book, I have had the pleasure of interviewing many of Marnie s production team, who have affirmed to me that filmmaking is a collaborative art. I would like to thank Jay Presson Allen, Diane Baker, Kimberly Beck, Robert Boyle, James Hubert Brown, Linden Chiles, Sean Connery, Virginia Darcy, Winston Graham, Hilton Green, Mariette Hartley, Tippi Hedren, Evan Hunter, Paul Jacobsen, Louise Latham, Jim Linn, Harold Mendelsohn, Harold Michaelson, Rita Riggs, Howard Smit, Joseph Stefano, and Lois Thurman for sharing their memories of working with Alfred Hitchcock. In many cases they donated photographs for this book.

Permission to reproduce the storyboards is in a contractual agreement with Universal Studios, the Alfred Hitchcock Estate, and the Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Letters from Franois Truffaut are quoted with the kind permission of Laura Truffaut, and Grace Kellys letter is reprinted by agreement with the Archives Audiovisuelles de Monaco. Permission to quote from the novel Marnie was provided by Winston Graham, in addition to his correspondence with Hitchcock. I thank the late Mr. Graham for acknowledging this work in his autobiography Memoirs of a Private Man , published posthumously in 2003.

Letters, certain information concerning The Birds and Marnie , and other material from Evan Hunters memoir Me and Hitch have been used with the kind permission of the authors estate, copyright 1997 by Evan Hunter. Permission to quote from the Edith Head seminars was provided by the American Film Institute and the Motion Picture & Television Fund, Woodland Hills, California. The late Robert Boyle kindly consented to quoting from his seminar at the American Film Institute.

I also thank Patricia Hitchcock OConnell, Leland H. Faust, and Steven Kravitz for allowing me to publish from the Marnie files from the Alfred J. Hitchcock Trust. In addition, I thank Barbara Hall, Kristine Krueger, and the staff of the Margaret Herrick Library Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, for their professionalism and dedication in allowing me access to them. I also thank the American Film Institute and Universal Studios, both their legal and archive departments, for their support in this project.

For the revised edition of this book, I also thank the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas in Austin for giving me access to Jay Presson Allen and Lewis Allens files, and to Brooke Allen for giving me permission to publish. I also thank Richard Allen for allowing me to quote from his 1999 Hitchcock Centennial interview with Jay Presson Allen at NYU, the V&A museum archives in London, and the Haymarket theatre. Special thanks to Peter Bogdanovich, who so generously allowed me to quote from his series of interviews with Hitchcock, and Bill Krohn, who shared his roundtable discussion on The Birds and Marnie , which was originally published in Cahiers du Cinema in 1982. Individuals I owe thanks to include Brooke Allen, Andrew Birkin, Andrew Graham, Gabrielle Kelly, and Bob Leuci. Finally, thank you to my mother and father.

Introduction

What is the trouble with Marnie ?

Fifty years since the making of Alfred Hitchcocks psychological thriller, that question is still being asked. Released in the summer of 1964, Marnie has generated more controversy than any other Hitchcock film. Less well known than its immediate predecessors, North by Northwest , Psycho , and The Birds , Marnie is commonly cited as the turning point in Hitchcocks career, being either his last great masterpiece or the start of his decline. When it was first released, Marnie was a commercial as well as a critical failure, causing the director to lose a great deal of confidence.

Early reviewers declared Marnie old fashioned and technically naive. Many were critical of Hitchcocks use of a highly expressive mise-en-scne, which included painted backdrops, the dependency of studio-bound sets, conspicuous rear projection, stylized acting, and red suffusions of the screen. These devices alienated audiences and critics alike, in what amounts to a constant assault on the boundaries of cinematic realism. Later biographical assessments attributed these faults to Hitchcocks own emotional turmoil, causing him to lose interest in the project. This viewpoint has been resurrected in the recent portrayal of Hitchcock in TV and cinematic films, being tied to biographical assertions that he physically abused and sexually harassed his lead actress Tippi Hedren during the making of The Birds and Marnie .

Marnie still divides critics and audiences today, just as it did on initial release. The films controversy is far more wide-ranging than that of Vertigo , which is often seen as a companion piece, in its exploration of obsession, fetishism, and domineering love. Vertigo is widely accepted as Hitchcocks masterpiece and in 2012 was named the number-one film of all time in a Sight & Sound poll, thus reaching the apex of its critical canonization. Vertigo s popularity has been steadily rising in the last fifty years, having entered the top ten in 1982, eventually surpassing such greats as Citizen Kane (1941) and Tokyo Story (1953).

Two thousand and twelve was a watershed year for Hitchcock scholarship and for the directors reputation in the media. As well as Vertigo being voted number one, two dramatized biographies were released, placing the director directly in the spotlight. The first film, Hitchcock , starring Anthony Hopkins in the title role and Helen Mirren as Alma, charts the relationship between the director and his wife and is based on Stephen Rebellos book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. The second was a made-for-TV movie titled The Girl , a BBC/HBO collaboration about Tippi Hedrens recollections making The Birds and Marnie . With the latter drama, Marnie was re-introduced to a whole new generation of modern-day audiences, for better or worse, giving a unique opportunity to see how a fifty-year-old film, not widely known outside film scholars, Hitchcock fans, and auteurists, is perceived by a contemporary audience.