Marnie operates as a confidence trickster, taking her cash from her employers, and changing her identity along the way, she's spotted one day by a wealthy businessman named Mark, who tries to help her see the error of her ways.

This seems to be one of the more underrated Hitchcock movies, it doesn't seem to be as worshipped as the likes of Vertigo and The Birds, but I think it deserves more acclaim. Hitchcock definitely pushed the boundaries with Marnie, in many ways it was ahead of its time, tackling subjects that are this time weren't often talked about.

What's so interesting about this film, is learning what makes Marnie tick, the history with her mum, and her terror of blood, you have to wait to learn everything, but its worth the wait.

The filming and camera work are terrific, so many scenes are memorable, that moment where Marnie is raiding the safe, with the cleaner at work the other side of the door, that was great, that moment where Mark leans over her on the ship, that was also a great piece of filming.

Two incredible performances, Tippi Hedren is perfect as Marnie, she's conniving, smart, broken, but glamorous and determined. Connery is the perfect counter balance, he's tough, forthright, confident and fiendishly handsome, the pair combine incredibly well.

It deserves more acclaim.

9/10.

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".

Although Tippi Hedren as the title character in Marnie is a compulsive thief and sexually frigid, you have to ask yourself what's wrong with Sean Connery taking up with this dame. Especially since he has an attractive widowed sister-in-law in Diane Baker so obviously interested in him.

Like Spellbound and Vertigo, Marnie deals with psychological problems of the main character. Could Sean Connery have seen Spellbound and decided to become an amateur psychiatrist having been impressed with the way Ingrid Bergman cured and fell for Gregory Peck. Or like in Vertigo did he become obsessed with another Alfred Hitchcock blond as James Stewart did with Kim Novak.

Bits of both those vastly superior Hitchcock films are found in Marnie. Though both Connery and Hedren try their best this unbelievable plot just defeats them. There are also some bad production values, so atypical for a director like Hitchcock.