10 Things You Didn't Know About Alfred Hitchcock

4. He Fired Evan Hunter for Not Including the Rape Scene in His Screenplay for Marnie

Hitchcock hired Evan Hunter, who had adapted Daphne Du Maurier's short story in to the screenplay for The Birds for Hitchcock, to adapt Winston Graham's novel Marnie. Hunter was very reluctant to include a scene where the Mark character, to be played by Sean Connery, raped his wife Marnie (Tippi Hendren), who he is trying to cure of being a thief. Hunter recounts how Hitchcock told him how he intended to film the scene: "Hitch held up his hands the way directors do when they're framing a shot. Palms out, fingers together, thumbs extended and touching to form a perfect square. Moving his hands toward my face, like a camera coming in for a close shot, he said, 'Evan, when he sticks it in her, I want that camera right on her face.'" Hunter thought this scene would make Mark "unheroic" and wrote two versions of the scene, one with the rape, and an alternative version- which he asked Hitchcock to use instead. Hitchcock fired him and then hired Jay Presson Allen, a woman, to write the screenplay. She included the scene and later told Hunter that he fired himself when he argued with Hitchcock about including the scene: "You just got bothered by the scene that was his reason for making the movie. You just wrote your ticket back to New York." She said she had no problems including the scene and it was up to Connery's performance to make audiences forgive Mark for what he did. It's both fascinating and unnerving how adamant Hitchcock was in wanting to include this scene, even though the rape is more implied than actually seen.