Mythic Shadows: The Twin Goddesses of “Murder!” and “Mary”

PLACEHOLDER INTRO
The heroines of Alfred Hitchcock’s Murder! (1930) and its German-language counterpart Mary (released in 1931 and directed simultaneously by Hitchcock) possess an angelic, preternatural quality. On trial for murder, they remain radically realistic about the equal possibility of their guilt or innocence: having fallen into a fugue state at the moment of the crime, neither Diana Baring (Norah Baring, in Murder!) nor her German-language counterpart Mary Baring (Olga Tschechowa, in Mary) can recall what happened and are thus unable to confess or properly defend themselves. Refusing to divulge the one secret that might win them sympathy with the jury, they face their fate—the gallows—with stoic grace.

Such courage suggests a strength beyond the ordinary, and it just so happens that Mary and Diana share a mythic, otherworldly bond. The Christian Virgin Mary is closely associated with the Roman goddess Diana.