Plot
Margaret "Marnie" Edgar (Hedren) is a troubled young woman who has an unnatural fear and mistrust of men, thunderstorms, and the color red. She is also a thief. She uses her charms on Sidney Strutt (Martin Gabel) to get a job without references. Then late one night, she steals the contents of the company safe and disappears.
Mark Rutland (Connery), a widower who owns a large publishing company, is a customer of Strutt's. He learns about the theft from the victim, and remembers the woman.
Unaware of this, Marnie applies for a job at Mark's company; he hires her and they begin to date. He too is robbed, but he tracks her down. He has fallen in love with her, and instead of handing her over to the police, blackmails her into marrying him.
They leave on a honeymoon cruise. He finds out about her frigidity. At first, he respects her wishes, but later rapes her. The next morning, she attempts suicide by drowning in the ship's swimming pool, but Mark rescues her in time.
Upon their return, Mark tries to discover the reason behind Marnie's behavior. In the end, they visit her mother, Bernice (Louise Latham) in Baltimore, Maryland, and learn that she used to be a prostitute. When Marnie was six years old, one of Bernice's clients (a sailor played by Bruce Dern) had tried drunkenly to calm the child when she was frightened by a thunderstorm, petting her and kissing her. It seemed to Bernice that the sailor was molesting Marnie, so she attacked him. During the struggle the sailor fell on Bernice and broke her leg. Seeing her mother struggling and in great pain, the child struck the sailor with a fireplace poker, killing him. The bloodshed led to her distrust of men and fear of the color red. Once the origin of her fears is revealed to her, she seems to decide that she wants to try to make her marriage work.
Read more about this topic: Marnie (film)
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