My first attempt to watch PSYCHO was a Friday night in the basement of my childhood home as a kid. The basement felt a bit like the Bates fruit cellar. I sat in chair just like Mrs. Bates with my back to the stairs although I was lucky to have a black and white television to stare at. I hated my basement. It was scary and dark. Needless to say, I never made it through the entire film. It would be a few years later when I went with my aunt to the Guild Theater in Portland during one of its Alfred Hitchcock Film Festivals that I finally saw PSYCHO with an audience from beginning to end. The power and suspense that PSYCHO held over the audience twenty plus years later was impressive.
The 1950s was Alfred Hitchcock at his most creative. STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1951) kick started his decade but Hitchcock hit a stretch of critical success with some of the biggest stars appearing in some of his best films all in wonderful Technicolor. REAR WINDOW (1954), TO CATCH A THIEF (1955), a remake of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956), VERTIGO (1958), and NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959). So who would have guessed to start off the 60s Hitchcock would eschew that streak to make PSYCHO as his next film. Hitchcock had a deal with Paramount but they weren't thrilled about the project so Hitch filmed it at Universal. Hitchcock shot it in black and white. He used his television crew from ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS to make it except for editor George Tomasini and composer Bernard Herrmann. The screenplay was by Joseph Stefano (a television writer) based on the Robert Bloch novel. There were no big stars like Cary Grant or Grace Kelly in it. Just solid actors like Janet Leigh and Martin Balsam, up and coming newcomer Anthony Perkins, and an array of TV character actors in supporting roles. After one of the greatest film runs by a director in many years, had Alfred Hitchcock gone psycho!
The answer is a resounding NO! PSYCHO is a masterpiece, Hitchcock's crowning achievement in a career of achievements. His camera placement and movement, his use of editing in the infamous shower scene montage, Bernard Herrmann's musical score which is a masterpiece in itself, and screenwriter Joseph Stefano's dialogue which reveals subtext and nuance far above most films are stunning. What no one could have predicted is that PSYCHO would be Hitchcock's truly last great film (some might argue THE BIRDS for that honor but I'm sticking with PSYCHO).
PSYCHO begins on a sunny afternoon in Phoenix, Arizona. Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) has a secret lunch time rendezvous with her lover Sam Loomis (John Gavin) at a downtown motel. Loomis is struggling to run his hardware store in the small town of Fairvale while still paying alimony to his ex-wife. Marion is tired of the secret liaisons. They both dream of tying the knot and living happily ever after. Marion returns to her bank job where her boss George Lowery (Vaughn Taylor) has just closed a loan deal with oil businessman Tom Cassidy (Frank Albertson). Mr. Lowery asks Marion to deposit Cassidy's forty thousand dollars in cash at the bank. Marion makes the rash decision to steal the forty thousand. She packs her suitcase and heads out of Phoenix, presumably to visit her down on his luck boyfriend Sam.
Marion falls asleep on the side of the road. She's awakened by a suspicious Highway Patrol Officer (Mort Mills) who follows her for awhile. Marion trades in her car for a used car, buying the vehicle with cash from used car dealer California Charlie (John Anderson). Marion drives on until darkness and rain force her to stop at the out of the way Bates Motel. The motel proprietor, a shy young man named Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) helps Marion check in. Norman lives in an old Victorian house behind the motel with his invalid mother. After some sandwiches and talk in Norman's motel parlor, Marion realizes she's made a mistake. She excuses herself to go shower and prepare for an early departure back to Phoenix to return the stolen money. But as Marion showers, she is brutally murdered, apparently by Norman's mother.
Norman returns to the motel to find Marion dead. He cleans up the blood and disposes of Marion's body and car in a nearby swamp (never realizing she had forty thousand dollars on her). Lila Crane (Vera Miles), Marion's sister, arrives at Sam's hardware store in Fairvale, looking for Marion. A private detective Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam) also shows up, looking for her missing sister. Arbogast questions motel owners around town before stopping at the Bates Motel. He talks to Norman who acts a bit suspicious. Arbogast reports back to Lila and Sam that he's discovered Marion did stop at the Bates Motel. Arbogast returns to the motel. Arbogast wanders inside the old house to question Norman's mother. The detective encounters Mrs. Bates at the top of the stairwell and meets a vicious death.
Frustrated when Arbogast doesn't return, Sam and Lila visit Sheriff Al Chambers (John McIntire) and his wife (Lurene Tuttle) with their concerns. When Sam mentions that Arbogast wanted to talk to Norman's mother, the Sheriff reveals that Norman's mother died ten years ago in a murder/suicide. The Sheriff visits Norman (off screen) and returns to report no sign of Arbogast, Marion, or the mother. Sam and Lila decide to investigate, driving out to the Bates Motel posing as newlyweds. While Sam distracts Norman with small talk, Lila sneaks up to the house to question Mrs. Bates. Lila goes upstairs before hiding down in the fruit cellar when Norman comes racing back to the house. Sitting in a chair, her back to Lila is Mrs. Bates. In one of the most terrifying Hitchcock finales ever, the killer is revealed (no spoilers here!) in the cellar. During a brief epilogue at the Fairvale police station, a psychiatrist Dr. Richman (Simon Oakland) reveals the killer's motive after talking to the murderer in their cell.
There is so much more to PSYCHO'S plot that I'd love to reveal but I don't want to spoil the joy of watching the film. PSYCHO is such a different film (especially from Hitchcock) than we had ever seen before. PSYCHO starts out like a film noir with Marion embezzling forty thousand dollars from her employer to start a new life with her hard working but struggling boyfriend Sam. Hitchcock even shows Janet Leigh in a white bra (good girl) early in the film during her afternoon tryst with Sam but when she decides to keep the money herself, she's wearing a black bra (bad girl). PSYCHO switches into a horror film when Marion is murdered halfway through the film seemingly by Norman's sick old mother. PSYCHO throws convention entirely out the window, serving up one red herring after another.
We think the film is about greed. Marion steals the money. Then, she has a change of heart. Before she can drive back to Phoenix and return the money, she's murdered. We just lost our heroine, the character we could relate to in her situation. Norman returns to the motel to find her body. He disposes of the body and the money (Norman never realizes it's wrapped up in a newspaper). When Norman disposes of the body and car in the swamp, the car momentarily stops sinking. Will Norman be caught? The car finally sinks and we're relieved. For a moment, we've switched our alliance to Norman. Then, we have new characters to identify with. Sam, Lila, and Detective Arbogast. PSYCHO becomes a mystery film. Who murdered Marion? Arbogast seems confident and smart. He'll solve it, he's a private detective, confident and direct. But Arbogast is also murdered by Norman's mother. All bets are off. This film is PSYCHO with its different film personalities.
PSYCHO is also the mother of all mother films. Mothers have played important roles in many of Hitchcock's films. NOTORIOUS (1946) had a manipulative Leopoldine Konstantin controlling her son Claude Rains life. In STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, the killer Robert Walker has an overbearing mother (Marion Lorne). Girlfriend Grace Kelly acted like a mother to a disabled James Stewart in REAR WINDOW. And Jessie Royce Landis played humorous mothers in two Hitchcock film TO CATCH A THIEF and NORTH BY NORTHWEST. There is nothing humorous about Norman Bates mother in PSYCHO. We hear Mrs. Bates berate Norman when he asks if Marion can join them for dinner. While eating dinner in Norman's parlor, Marion asks if Norman has any friends. "A boy's best friend is his mother," Norman replies. Norman Bates is a mama's boy (in more ways than one). As we will learn, Norman and his mother had a very unique relationship.
With Hitchcock in total artistic control of PSYCHO, Hitchcock and Stefano go wild with motifs and symbolism and repeating themes. Bird imagery is a very prominent symbol in PSYCHO. The lead character Marion's last name is Crane (a long legged bird). Norman Bates (as played by Anthony Perkins) looks like a bird with his angular body and long neck. Norman's mannerisms are bird-like whether he's picking at candy corn or twisting his neck to read the motel register. Norman's hobby is taxidermy and his parlor boasts several stuffed birds like an owl and a crow that menacingly dominate the room. Bird paintings hang in the motel room (I believe one of the birds shown is a flycatcher which snatches its insect prey out of the air). An English slang word for woman is bird. Norman even comments that Marion "eats like a bird" as they share dinner together. All this bird symbolism may have subconsciously led Hitchcock to choose THE BIRDS (1963) as his next film after PSYCHO.
Mirrors are another motif that Hitchcock utilizes in PSYCHO to represent split personalities, the duality of a person. Marion Crane encounters mirrors numerous times, sometimes side by side, other times looking into them from an angle. At the motel with Sam, in the ladies room at the car dealership, or at the check in desk at the Bates Motel, her dual images reflect her good and dark side. Should she sneak around cheap motels with her boyfriend Sam or come out in the public and get married? Should she steal the oil man Cassidy's money or return it to Mr. Lowery and face the consequences? Marion and Lila Crane are two sides of a coin. Marion's the troubled one; Lila the more practical sister. And we know there's a split personality between Norman Bates and his mother, a love/hate relationship or something more sinister. We hear them argue up in the old house. Yet Norman defends his mother to Marion and ends up cleaning up her mess when Mother murders Marion. "She isn't quite herself today," Norman will tell Marion before Marion finds out for herself.
Voyeurism emerges as a central theme in PSYCHO as well. The film opens with Hitchcock's camera scanning the Phoenix skyline before it moves toward a series of windows of a hotel, choosing to peer into one room which happens to have Sam and Marion in it. The camera could have chosen any room and we would have followed the story of any occupant but we follow Marion's story. Hitchcock has turned us into voyeurs right at the outset of PSYCHO. Later, when Norman peers at Marion undressing before she showers, we again become voyeurs like Norman, watching, staring through the same peep hole Norman uses. Watching movies is a form of voyeurism as we spend two hours observing someone else's life.
PSYCHO was groundbreaking in more ways than audiences might imagine, smashing several taboos when it was released. Yes the shower scene broke new ground with its violence, blood, and partial nudity (Hitchcock's expert editing makes you think you see more than you actually do). The opening scene with the two lovers in bed, Janet Leigh in her bra and panties and John Gavin shirtless, after they've made love during her lunch break is daring, truthful, and realistic. No separate beds for these two lovers. The most surprising and funny taboo broken in PSYCHO would appear to be the most harmless. PSYCHO'S most shocking shot is a flushing toilet. After Janet Leigh writes some numbers on a piece of paper, she rips the paper up and flushes it down the toilet. Never had a movie shown a flushing toilet until Hitchcock pulled it off.
There are very few films I can think of that have so many groundbreaking shots and visuals not to mention set pieces as PSYCHO contains. The best and most famous is the shower scene which took Hitchcock seven days to film and involved 70 camera set ups, shot stunningly by director of photography John L. Russell based on Saul Bass's storyboards. It's the perfect blend of editing, sound, and photography. Highlights include the shot looking directly into the shower head, water falling on either side of the camera and the incredible dissolve from the blood cascading into the bathtub drain to Marion's lifeless eye. Not to be outdone, Arbogast's murder, not as long as Marion's, involves a tracking shot up the stairs that turns into a crane shot, the camera becoming God's view looking down at the detective in his final moments. Arbogast's death is equally brutal and Hitchcock follows his fall down the stairs before Mrs. Bates finishes him off.
Those are the big set pieces but it's even the smaller details that astonish. The side close up of Norman peering at Marion through a makeshift peep hole, a small shaft of light shining into his eye. Lila Crane discovering Mrs. Bates in the fruit cellar, screaming at what she finds, her hand striking a single hanging light bulb, causing it to sway back and forth, the light and shadows swaying back and forth across Mrs. Bates' face. The almost death mask on Marion's face as she imagines Cassidy's anger over her theft as she drives in the rain and darkness.
Two of the best scenes in PSYCHO don't involve intricate cutting or fancy camerawork. They are just dialogue scenes that reveal depth about each character, masterfully written by Stefano. The first one is when Marion and Norman eat sandwiches in his parlor. Hitchcock composes the frame perfectly then lets the two characters talk, revealing little nuggets about each other (with those stuffed birds observing silently). "We all go a little mad sometimes, " Norman tells Marion. "Haven't you?" The other scene is when Arbogast questions Norman if Marion stayed at the hotel. It's a classic cat and mouse game between detective and suspect, acted brilliantly by Perkins and Balsam. "She might have fooled me but she didn't fool my mother," Norman tells Arbogast, sending the detective unknowingly to his doom later.
Anthony Perkins had just broken into film in William Wyler's FRIENDLY PERSUASION (1956) after appearing in several television omnibus dramatic shows. He would play real life baseball player Jim Piersall in Robert Mulligan's FEAR STRIKES OUT (1957). Piersall battled mental illness and Perkins performance may have caught Hitchcock's eye for the mentally questionable Norman Bates in PSYCHO. Bates is the role Perkins will forever be remembered for. It's a tour de force as Perkins bounces between shy young man, mama's boy, and accomplice to his "mother's" vicious attacks on Marion and Arbogast. Perkins appeared in many more films and television projects in his career but he would return as Norman Bates in Richard Franklin's PSYCHO II in 1983 along with Vera Miles reprising her role as Lila Crane. As much as I hate that they made a sequel to PSYCHO, PSYCHO II was a loving extension to the original. Perkins would direct and star in the third in the series PSYCHO III (1988) and appear one last time as Norman Bates in a TV movie PSYCHO IV: THE BEGINNING. Ultimately, there should never have been any sequels but Universal (and perhaps audiences) wanted to see more of Perkins incredible acting as Norman Bates.
Following in the footsteps of Madeleine Carroll, Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Eve Marie Saint, and Tippy Hedren, Janet Leigh would play another of Hitchcock's blonde heroines as Marion Crane in PSYCHO. I never realized how much I'm in love with Janet Leigh in PSYCHO. Hitchcock makes us fall in love with Leigh's Marion, all her neuroses and frailties, as we follow her descent into darkness before she realizes her error in judgment. Just when we think she's going be alright, Hitchcock snatches Leigh away from us, killing the major star in the middle of the film, breaking our hearts. Leigh was never a huge star but she did work steadily and with some fantastic directors in great films including Anthony Mann's THE NAKED SPUR (1953) with James Stewart, Orson Welles TOUCH OF EVIL (1958) with Charlton Heston, and John Frankenheimer's THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1963) with Frank Sinatra.
The biggest star of PSYCHO is not the actors or even Hitchcock but the Bates Motel and the gothic Victorian house behind it. Hitchcock makes the structures visually interesting with the motel a horizontal line and the house rising behind it a vertical line. The house is supposed to be California Victorian from the late 19th or early 20th century. The house is a living, breathing character, a domicile of evil, the outer shell of the mostly unseen Mrs. Bates. We do see Mrs. Bates from the motel, either sitting or walking past an upstairs window but only her silhouette. Today, any person just has to see the outline of the house to know it's the PSYCHO house. Tourists can see the PSYCHO house when they take the Universal Studios tour. It's probably the biggest star on the Universal back lot.
PSYCHO'S supporting cast is fantastic as well. Hitchcock liked using Broadway actors for supporting roles in his films and he cast Martin Balsam as the dogged Detective Milton Arbogast, hot on the trail of Marion Crane. Balsam isn't on screen for very long but he makes a lasting impression with his scenes. Other Balsam films include Sidney Lumet's 12 ANGRY MEN (1957) and Alan J. Pakula's ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN (1976). Two of the more undervalued actors in PSYCHO who I think are essential to its success are Vera Miles as Marion's sister Lila and John Gavin as Lila's boyfriend Sam Loomis. After Marion is murdered, the audience has no one to root for at first. As Lila and Sam take up the search for Marion, we join their quest and wish them success. Lila is no slouch. She wants answers and pushes both Sam and Arbogast to find her sister. Miles was supposed to star in Hitchcock's VERTIGO but became pregnant before the film. Reports are Hitchcock never forgave her. Check out Miles in John Ford's THE SEARCHERS (1956) and THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (1962).
Handsome John Gavin has the thankless role of Marion's boyfriend Sam. There's something All-American about Gavin as Sam. Yes, he's paying alimony to his ex-wife and living in the back of his hardware store. But he's found the real love of his life this time in Marion. He even flies down to Phoenix from Fairvale for afternoon trysts with her. Like Marion, Sam is a sympathetic character we can relate to. Gavin would also appear as Julius Caesar in Stanley Kubrick's SPARTACUS in 1960. Gavin eventually became Ambassador to Mexico in 1981 serving for five years during the Reagan presidency. As I mentioned, Hitchcock regularly used Broadway actors for supporting roles (think Thelma Ritter in REAR WINDOW). Just as Hitchcock used his television crew to make PSYCHO, Hitch used television actors to play the remaining roles. Vaughn Taylor as Mr. Lowery, Mort Mills as the Highway Patrol Officer, and John McIntire as Sheriff Chambers were familiar faces on television including spots on ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS. Simon Oakland (WEST SIDE STORY) as the psychiatrist Dr. Richman would be the most recognizable of the smaller roles. And look for Hitchcock's daughter Patricia Hitchcock (STRANGERS ON A TRAIN) who plays Marion's co-worker Caroline.
When horror writer Robert Bloch wrote Psycho inspired by the real life 1957 Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein, he never would have imagined that his story of a middle-aged, rotund serial killer would be turned into worldwide phenomena that is Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO. Those screeching violins from Bernard Herrmann in the infamous shower scene are recognized and used worldwide in movies, television, and commercials today. In a stroke of genius, horror filmmaker John Carpenter would cast Janet Leigh's daughter Jamie Lee Curtis in a rebirth of the slasher thriller HALLOWEEN (1978) that was a homage to PSYCHO but carried the torch for future psychopathic thrillers. Carpenter would even cast mother and daughter together in his horror film THE FOG (1980). Film director Gus Van Sant, more known for his artsy dramatic films, even attempted to remake shot by shot PSYCHO (1998) starring Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche. It's a daring idea but some classics should never be remade and PSYCHO is one of those films for me.
Hitchcock would turn his back on the bright lights and big stars that gave him his greatest success throughout the 50s to make a modest budgeted (for him), black and white thriller. The world of cinema would forever be changed with the release of PSYCHO. Just as 1960 began a new decade, PSYCHO seemed to usher in a new reality for film. Sex and violence would no longer be censored like it was in the past. Hitchcock broke the barrier, showing taboo subjects more realistically but not gratuitously. Copy cat films would soon follow like Robert Aldrich's WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962) and PARANOIAC (1963) but there will always be just one PSYCHO (I'm already not counting Van Sant's effort or the sequels). Hitchcock would make five more films after PSYCHO but he would never quite achieve its success again. But moviegoers like me are thankful that he took a chance on a small, personal project in 1960 and unleashed PSYCHO to the public. Cue the screeching violins.
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