Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie

Tony Lee Moral's book chronicling the production of one of Alfred Hitchcock's most intriguing films, Marnie, stands out for being a thoroughly researched and very detailed book. We get an insider's glimpse into how the iconic director worked. It would have seemed very unlikely, when the film was originally released in 1964 to disappointing box office results, that anyone would ever want to read a book about it. But nothing about Marnie, which follows a beautiful, mysterious compulsive thief as she tries to outrun the law and love at the same time, came easily. It was a struggle to be made and took a long time to gain the popularity it deserves. The story, director and film itself were all ahead of their time, which is part of what makes this book interesting. There has been a lot of publicity surrounding the sexual harassment allegations made by the film's leading lady Tippi Hedren about Alfred Hitchcock. This book, which came out prior to Hedren's autobiography, does not delve deeply into the alleged sexual harassment. This is primarily an exploration of a very memorable film that audiences, especially Hitchcock fans have embraced in the past few decades. The behind-the-scenes story could easily be a film itself. We read about efforts to bring Grace Kelly out of retirement to play the title role, about Hitchcock's discovery of his next ice princess -- Tippi Hedren -- how he and wife Alma gave her acting lessons in preparation for The Birds, the multiple writers who tried to tackle the adaptation of Winston Graham's novel and Hitchcock's unique way of developing and directing a project. Fans of Marnie will want to dive right in to this book.

Hitchcock and the Making of [bookcover:Hitchcock and the Making of MarnieMarnie|374984]



P.S. I would like to mention that my new novel Songbird of Culpeper County has just been released. Please take a look.