She has many purses, one for each identity, and there's no shortage of potential employers of such a beautiful girl (whatever her hair color at the time). She periodically returns to her mother's house in Baltimore to try to buy maternal love with plfered cash. (Mom's street is a large strikingly unrealistic constructed set that was almost surely inspired by the paintings of Italian surrealist Giorgio de Chirico) Only being raped by an adoring Sean Connery (really… there's no other way to describe it)shows her the true love that empowers her to delve into her repressed past, and discover why she cannot stand lightning or the color red.

Made following PSYCHO and THE BIRDS, MARNIE is so aggressively surreal it flopped, and was originally dismissed as an embarassing mis-step by the master, but forty years later can be seen as one of Hitch's greatest films. Tippi Hedren was the last of Hitchcock's blonde protegees, all being pathological attempts to replace the irreplaceable Grace Kelly. Though frighteningly pretty, Ms. Hedren always seemed too cold or mentally deficient to be sexy. Her daughter Melanie Griffith, though less pretty, has always seemed clever, vivacious, and sexy as hell, so we can assume that Peter Griffith was a charismatic guy.