MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > Marion/Melanie/Marnie

Marion/Melanie/Marnie

posted 4 years ago by ecarle (14979)
11 replies | jump to latest

When you make 53 movies like Hitchcock did, and make them as an auteur with a vision....there are bound to be patterns that turn up.

Movies with dominating or too-close mothers in them, for instance.

Or people hanging from ledges and rain gutters.

Or names?

Marion. (Psycho)
Melanie (The Birds)
Marnie (Marnie)

Ever notice how "Marnie" is rather a hybrid of....Marion and Melanie?

One wonders to what extent Hitchcock sort of elected to create that juxtaposition.

He could not have had this on his mind in 1959, when he bought Robert Bloch's 1959 novel, Psycho, with its key female character of "Mary Crane."

In Bloch's novel, Mary Crane starts out the story in Dallas, Texas, and drives north to a Bates Motel somewhere in Kansas or Missouri(it is never specified.)

Hitchcock and screenwriter Joseph Stefano moved Mary Crane to Phoenix, Arizona...I believe so as to put Mary closer to California so that Hitchcock could move the Bates Motel to Northern California and film footage in parts of that state with which Hitchcock was familiar.

But a routine fact check revealed that there was a REAL Mary Crane living in Phoenix Arizona, and for legal movie making reasons, the name would have to change.

Hitchcock chose "Marion." Close enough.

And Marion Crane, as portrayed by Janet Leigh, became a very famous movie character. Famous from the get-go in 1960, given that the Psycho movie poster billed Leigh with her character's name: "And Janet Leigh as Marion Crane." Often actors got billing "And" ("And Ernest Borgnine")...its practically required these days to give someone with a "name" noteable billing. But to get the CHARACTER name up there, too? Much more rare, and in the case of Janet Leigh...historic.

The novel "Marnie" came out in 1961. Hitchcock bought the book and contemplated filming Marnie as his next film after Psycho. But he seems to have realized that Marnie -- a romantic drama with sexual and psychological depths -- was still too mundane a property to properly follow Psycho.

So the search continued for "the movie to follow Psycho" -- and maybe, to TOP Psycho. Daphne DuMaurier's The Birds(a short story published years before) got the nod.

The screenplay for The Birds was practically a new, original screenplay. There wasn't enough story in the short story for a full-length film, and Hitchcock had no use for the practically non-existent characters in the story(a stoic farmer and his family.) After a few false starts(including a red herring murder mystery), Hitchcock and his screenwriter Evan Hunter settled on the familiar family psychodrama of a young man too close to his mother(!), and the blonde who invades his territory. The best thing in 'The Birds" is ...the birds, but its tale of a broken family(The Brenners) and the stylish San Francisco woman who comes to stay, well...its there.

Since The Birds script was original, Hitchcock and Evan Hunter could choose their character names. And thus the heroine of The Birds became...Melanie.

One can see the wheels turning in Hitchcock's head. He knew that he would be filming Marnie relatively soon. His last, and most successful movie, starred "Janet Leigh as Marion Crane." Marion. Marnie. Certainly THOSE two names were close enough. Mash them together and you get...Melanie.

Plus three "M" names. Hitchcock had an affinity for "M" names: Marion. Melanie. Marnie. Mitch(Brenner in The Birds.) Mark (Rutland in Marnie.) Michael (Armstrong in Torn Curtain) And even -- for those in the know: Milton(Arbogast in Psycho, though his first name can only be found in the novel.)

And what of the "match ups" among Marion, Melanie, and Marnie? Well, Melanie and Marnie are played by the same woman -- Tippi Hedren -- with only a modicum of difference in the performance -- though Marnie hails from a poor upbringing in the northerly South(Maryland) and is psychologically damaged almost beyond repair, while Melanie is a San Francisco aging debutante with a rich kid's upbringing.

But one can also see a strong connection between Marion and Marnie -- whose names are the closest in spelling, yes? Both Marion and Marnie are working class women -- well, SECRETARIAL class, which is more white collar -- than the rich Melanie. And both Marion and Marnie ultimately steal money from the employers who trust them. With Marion, its a profound "one time crime"(and she intends to give the money back). But with Marnie, its a continual criminal enterprise -- she steals from MANY companies, one after the other, changing her name and look each time.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I wonder how Hitchcock felt when he realized, in reading the novel Marnie shortly after releasing Psycho, that he yet AGAIN was looking at a property about a secretary who steals....its not like that is a regular thing. I expect the "linkage" appealed to him; moreover, Marnie the sexually frigid thief actually belonged to a long line of messed-up Hitchcock heroines who were to be dominated by somewhat nutty men (see: Rebecca, Suspicion, Notorious, Under Capricorn, Stage Fright...Vertigo...Psycho?)

The several scenes in Marnie in which we see Marnie at work in a couple of offices(plotting her thefts) give us a little "Hitchcock gift": they allow us to imagine the real estate office scene in Psycho...in color. (Decades before Van Sant did it.) One ends up preferring the Psycho office scene -- the black and white cinematography is crisp and clean and rather TV-showish(say, Perry Mason.) The offices in Marnie are rather shabby, yellow-tinted places -- oddly Marnie, in color looks cheaper than Psycho in b/w. And yet, there it is -- clear connection between two Hitchcock movies: American offices in which attractive women toil and plot their financial revenge.

In contrast to the hardscrabble thieving secretaries Marion and Marnie, the rich and spoiled Melanie Daniels would seem to be "the odd woman out." Not quite so, though. Melanie ends up linked strongly to Marion only near the very end of The Birds...when Melanie is trapped in an upstairs room and attacked by a mass of birds in a scene that is staged and shot very much in the montage style of the Psycho shower scene. These two scenes are practically doubles for each other. And thus Melanie joins Marion in "victimhood" and movie history. The catch: Melanie survives the attack on her(she is not alone -- the Brenners come to the rescue.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

And if Melanie is most STRONGLY linked to Marion in the "mirror image matchup" of the final bird attack to the shower scene, even EARLIER in the film -- Melanie finds herself entrapped in a phone booth as birds attack, and the confined space of that booth(including "overhead views" of the enclosed space) isn't all that removed from the private trap of the shower in Psycho.

And so, Hitchcock could amuse himself by linking the names of his three female characters -- Marion, Melanie, Marnie -- to create a bond among them(on paper, and in Hitchcock studies) -- but they also linked up in other ways.

And consider this : one film after the "trilogy" of Psycho, The Birds, and Marnie, Hitchcock abandoned a blonde heroine, meddlesome mothers and family psychodramas to return to the spy genre of the film before the trilogy: North by Northwest.

The new spy picture was Torn Curtain, and Julie Andrews -- a very big newly-minted star(Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music) -- was given none of the traits of Marion, Melanie, OR Marnie. She's not a working class secretary; she's not a rich kid -- she's a scientist's assistant. Nor is she given an "M" name. Rather, as Sarah Sherman, Andrews is given one of those alliterative names that Hitchcock often favored for characters -- like Sebastian Sholes in The Birds(if Sarah Sherman married Sebastian Sholes...) Or Felix Forsythe. Or Herbie Hawkins.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Speaking of a "trilogy" among Psycho, The Birds, and Marnie...certainly they share Monstrous Mothers of varying degrees. As has been noted, Marnie's mother (who has never married, so she's not Mrs. Edgar) hates men in her daughter's life as much as Mrs. Bates hates women in her son's. And somewhere between the monstrous murderous Mrs. Bates and the sexually warped Marnie's mother is Mrs. Brenner(Lydia) in The Birds...a much less melodramatic, but more realistic take on how a mother can smother her adult child and keep them from a healthy romantic existence.

I suppose we could add one more "M" character to the trilogy:

Marion, Melanie, Marnie...and Mother.

[–] swanstep (2628) 4 years ago

Also, Midge (Vertigo) [famously fused on Mad Men with Melanie Daniels to give us Rosemary DeWitt's sexy but doomed Midge Daniels].

It's worth mentioning that (Psycho-revering) Michael Haneke has pointedly used essentially the same names over & over since his first film in the '80s, Seventh Continent. All his main opposite sex couples [not necessarily romantic, can be widower father + adult daughter as in Happy End (2017)] are Anna/Anne & Georg/Georges. When their surnames are important or otherwise revealed, they're always 'Laurent'. 'Anne & Georges' are always the norm that the story's events overthrow.

The principal semi-exception is The Piano Teacher (2001) which adapted a prize-winning novel from a Nobel-prize-winning Austrian author. There Haneke regular Huppert is 'Erika Kohut'. But Erika doesn't have any normal relations with anyone, she's the disruptor not the norm, hence this case is only *semi*-exceptional.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Also, Midge (Vertigo) [famously fused on Mad Men with Melanie Daniels to give us Rosemary DeWitt's sexy but doomed Midge Daniels].

And also in Vertigo...Madeleine. Who was truly a "blonde Hitchcock beauty." Its funny...its almost a straight run: Madeleine, Marion, Melanie, Marnie. Who's out of step? Eve. Eve Kendall in NXNW...played (in another coincidence) by EVA Marie Saint(truly coincidental given that Eve was almost played by Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, or Cyd Charisse.)

"Mad Men" wanted that Hitchcock connection for the first two seasons(set in 1960 through 1962.) Midge Daniels was one way to get it. But also Roger Sterling(an ad man like Thornhill) and Harry Crane.

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This reminds me that so many OTHER Hitchcock characters (including women) did NOT have names starting with M. There's Alica and Lisa and Frances and Charlie and Sarah and Nicole and Juanita and Fran. But wait, in the late seventies we have a run of Brenda and Babs and Blanche....patterns "emerge."

My little mental review pulled up another significant "M" woman however: Miriam in Strangers on a Train. Her brutal murder early in the film rather links her to Marion 9 years later. But Miriam is, famously, a very villainous tart of a victim -- a real tramp in 1951 terms. However, when Pat Hitchcock's character actually says(after her death) "she was a tramp," her father admonishes: "She was a human being." And we saw that in her last moments...we DID feel sorry for her as Bruno strangled her. "Hitchcockian complexity."

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Nowhere else to put this, so I'll put it here.

"More fun with Hitchcock name initials."

The run of "M" names ends with Julie Andrews as Sarah Sherman in Torn Curtain, which in turn triggers memories of "alliterative names" in Hitchcock. Felix Forsythe and Brenda Blaney(both from Frenzy) came to mind. And Herbie Hawkins in Shadow of a Doubt. And Sebastian Sholes in The Birds. I do believe that Joel McCrea had TWO alliterative names in Foreign Correspondent: Johnny Jones and Huntley Haverstock(the latter was a pen name, yes?)

But here's a "trick": When the cast credits roll at the end of Frenzy, we get:

Robert Rusk....Barry Foster.

So, alliterative: RR.

But all through the movie , he is only called "Bob Rusk." Thus, BR.

Bob Rusk's friend(our anti-hero Richard Blaney) is RB.

RB and BR -- an inverted pair. Unless you call Richard "Dick Blaney" and then the rhyme falls apart.

But also this: Bob Rusk goes crazy trying to retrieve a tie-pin with the letter "R" on it. But "R" could mean Richard, too -- so what's the hurry?

Have I missed any other "alliterative Hitchcock names?"

[–] jay440 (107) 4 years ago

I recently rewatched Marnie and had forgotten an early scene where, searching for a new alias, she thumbs through some Social Security cards. Names on the cards: Marion Holland (the name she has just used to rob her most recent office), Mary Taylor, and Martha Heilbron(!) before settling on Margaret Edgar.

Having your alias and your real name share the same first syllable is, if you think about it, a neat trick to avoid detection. It's that little truth that gives the big lie it's seeming veracity. It reminds me of a moment in Gone Girl when the "missing" wife, Amy (played by Rosamund Pike), who is going by the name Nancy and hiding out at a campground, is found out by her pregnant neighbor, who robs her and tells her, "You say your name’s Nancy but you don’t answer to it half the time. You’re hiding—I don’t know why, I don’t care. But you’re not going to call the cops."

Actually, this little trick didn't work out that well for "Marie Samuels", did it? Never mind.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I recently rewatched Marnie and had forgotten an early scene where, searching for a new alias, she thumbs through some Social Security cards. Names on the cards: Marion Holland (the name she has just used to rob her most recent office), Mary Taylor, and Martha Heilbron(!) before settling on Margaret Edgar.

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Man, that's a lot of M names! Of course, here, indeed, Marnie is aligning her false names with her real name so as to "hide in plain sight."

I will stop here for a moment to say that I can't really recall clearly: Marnie Edgar WAS her real name? And "Marnie's mother"(Louise Latham) was NOT "Mrs. Edgar" -- she never married? No, I can't be right. Marnie's mother was a young hooker, but she had Marnie as a young child with her at the time of the murder. So...Marnie's mother WAS married at one time? Marnie's mother WAS "Mrs. Edgar?" I will go check this out -- Mrs. Edgar should get to take her rightful place with Mrs. Danvers, Mrs. Bates, Mrs. Stevens, Mrs. Thornhill, Mrs. Brenner, and Mrs. Rusk. THERE'S some "M" names.

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Marion(in Psycho AND as an alias in Marnie), Melanie, Marnie, Margaret, Mary, Martha...Madeleine in Vertigo, Midge in Vertigo....what gives? Are there more "M" female names than any other letter? Or did Hitchcock just like the sound of it?

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Having your alias and your real name share the same first syllable is, if you think about it, a neat trick to avoid detection. It's that little truth that gives the big lie it's seeming veracity.

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Yes...and you don't have to change the monograms on your luggage!

"Special guest appearance" In Psycho III, Diana Scarwid plays a "runaway nun" named Maureen Coyle. HER luggage is marked "MC" and Norman takes it as a disturbing allusion to "Marion Crane" (Scarwid is meant to look somewhat like Janet Leigh, but it didn't really take -- still, I rather liked the idea that of all his victims, Norman just might have been haunted the most by Marion -- there WAS a connection between them, perhaps.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

It reminds me of a moment in Gone Girl when the "missing" wife, Amy (played by Rosamund Pike), who is going by the name Nancy and hiding out at a campground, is found out by her pregnant neighbor, who robs her and tells her, "You say your name’s Nancy but you don’t answer to it half the time. You’re hiding—I don’t know why, I don’t care. But you’re not going to call the cops."

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That was a great, scary scene -- almost a "side bar" to the main murderous tale. The woman befriends "Nancy" -- but(with a man's help, right?) robs her. The woman's other scary comment is: "You should be more careful -- the next criminals you meet may be more dangerous than us."

Amy not answering to "Nancy" reminds us: in "Psycho," Marion Crane signs in as "Marie Samuels from Los Angeles"(she SAYS "Los Angeles" out loud)...but, having completed her parlor chat with Norman, gives her name as Marion and says "I'm driving back to Phoenix". D'OH. Further proof that Marion Crane simply didn't have it in her to be a crook -- but Marnie Edgar DID!

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Actually, this little trick didn't work out that well for "Marie Samuels", did it? Never mind.

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Hah. As above. Plus Arbogast makes the connection later immediately: "Ah...here it is...Marie Samuels. That's an interesting alias. Her boyfriend's name was Sam." I always liked Arbogast's quicksilver "read' of the clue. It illustrated just how smart he was, how good a detective he was. Good enough to get himself killed.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

It's worth mentioning that (Psycho-revering) Michael Haneke has pointedly used essentially the same names over & over since his first film in the '80s, Seventh Continent. All his main opposite sex couples [not necessarily romantic, can be widower father + adult daughter as in Happy End (2017)] are Anna/Anne & Georg/Georges. When their surnames are important or otherwise revealed, they're always 'Laurent'. 'Anne & Georges' are always the norm that the story's events overthrow.

--

THAT's an intriguing motif....I suppose you could say it allowed Haneke to tell different stories about the same types.

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The principal semi-exception is The Piano Teacher (2001) which adapted a prize-winning novel from a Nobel-prize-winning Austrian author. There Haneke regular Huppert is 'Erika Kohut'. But Erika doesn't have any normal relations with anyone, she's the disruptor not the norm, hence this case is only *semi*-exceptional.

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OR...NOT the same types...

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Movie character names are a classic case of "not that important ....but yes they are."

Sometimes, the name of the character is the name of the movie: Mildred Pierce. Daisy Kenyon....Forrest Gump. Erin Brockovich.

But I think it is more interesting when a character is so interesting that the name becomes famous without being in the title: Scarlett O'Hara. Sam Spade. Blanche DuBois. Vito Corleone.

Norman Bates. (with "Marion Crane" pretty famous, too.)

I've always found it "funny" the various names given to male heroes in the movies. Its as if there is an endless book of names that are manly and almost generic: Jim something or John something or Ben something or Bill something.

I can only think of one character name that was almost the same in two different movies:

The Shootist: John Wayne as John B. Books (aka "John Bernard Books.")

Witness: Harrison Ford as "John Book." Close but no cigar.