UNIONVILLE: A Hitchcock connection

I've been on an Alfred Hitchcock kick this winter and this past weekend watched his 1964 film "Marnie." 
Marnie, played by Tippi Hedren, is an avid horseback rider, and I learned that some of the equestrian scenes were shot locally, including at Nancy Penn Smith Hannum's farm, Brooklawn, on Newark Road.
Unionville native Susan Cocks was Hedren's (uncredited) stunt double for the riding scenes. 
"She looked a little like Tippi, I guess, and she was a great rider," recalled Susan's sister, Barbie Cocks Vannote.
In one scene Marnie flees a high-society party, jumps on her horse and gallops off bareback, soaring over a gate. Barbie said the costume department made Susan a cashmere-lined yellow silk evening dress to wear for that shot.
"Susan said the tough part was jumping that gate (which was Big) and the dang skirt of the dress was covering her eyes!" said her sister.
The production staff wanted her to do a second take, but she refused, telling them, "No, that was perfect."
Barbie said Susan had fond memories of the experience for the rest of her life: "She had a great time. It was just a gas."

According to Tony Lee Moral's book "Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie," the foxhunting scene with Mr. Stewart's Cheshire Foxhounds was originally scheduled for Nov. 26, 1963. But after President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, Master of Foxhounds Mrs. Hannum called Hitchcock's assistant director and told him they'd have to postpone for two weeks.
The day of the shoot, Barbie remembered, "everybody" showed up. She recalls that a helicopter was used to shoot the overhead sequences.
During the foxhunting scene, Marnie, who had a deep-seated phobia of the color red, freaked out when she saw the scarlet hunting coats and galloped off, pursued by her sister-in-law Lil Mainwaring, whose stunt double was another expert local rider, Patty Meserve.
Recalled Carol Hannum Davidson, "she chased Susan up to the wall where the horse crashed" (though only in the movie, not in real life). The fateful wall was at old Upland Inn at the corner of Newark Road and Route 842.
The production staff also borrowed foxhunting clothes from members of the Hunt and took them to Hollywood. Barbie and Carol Hannum Davidson, both age 21 at the time, took a cross-country road trip to pick them up and got a tour of the studio and tickets to Disneyland.
In the film Sean Connery's character's family, the Rutlands, have a country estate in Unionville, and it was fun to see the blue stationery headed "Wykwyn Farm, Unionville."
According to Tony Cadwalader, "My father, who was a banker in Center City at what was then Fidelity Bank, was asked by Hitchcock to read the script and be taped so Sean Connery could learn how to speak like a proper Philadelphian, which he was honored to do. Of course, in the movie Sean Connery sounds suspiciously just like Sean Connery."
Tom Martin said he remembers "driving by Truman Welling's house off 926 where they shot the exterior scene of entering the country house. There were vans and trucks and cars all over the place, as I recall. I asked my parents what was going on and they told me that it was filming of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Even then he had quite a reputation."
When the movie was released, Mrs. Hannum hosted a private outdoor screening at Brooklawn, realizing only then that the movie was about a lot more than just foxhunting.
Indeed, it's a dark and dated movie, with a couple of truly disturbing scenes that were hard to watch. Even worse is finding out that "Hitch" mistreated and repeatedly propositioned his female lead throughout the shoot; sexual harassment in the movie business is an old, old story.