Psycho (1960) in The Psycho Ward Forum

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Psycho (1960)

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Paul Penna		#41	[-]
May 3 10 11:28 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I like the part (can I say that?) in old movies where a couple goes into a bar or nightclub and the guy just says "Bring us some drinks." Whatever's in 'em, they show up a couple minutes later and everybody's satisfied. Same thing with saying to the guy at the cigar stand, "Gimme a pack of cigarettes." Last Edited By: Paul Penna May 3 10 11:35 AM. Edited 1 times.
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Stephen Pickard		#42	[-]
May 3 10 11:38 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Going back to the shower scene. After the stabbing, Marion reaches for the shower curtain and pulls on it ripping it from the rail. The eye follows, normally, to what's in focus, the hand, the curtain, the rail. If you look in the background, although it is out of focus, it is surprisingly a clear view of breasts. Would these be Leigh's or the double?
Bobtheman	Norman's Slip Up	#43	[-]
May 3 10 11:45 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Norman's slip up in his coversation with Arbogast Norman: Uh - she was - she was sitting back there -- no, no, she was standing back there with a sandwhich in her hand , and she said uh -- she had to go to sleep early because she had uh -- a long d-d-d-dr-drive uh, ahead of her. Arbogast: Uh-huh. Back where? Norman: Back, uh, where she came from. Arbogast: No, no. You said she was sitting back -- Norman: Oh, uh- Arbogast: -- or standing back there.. Norman: Yes. B-back in my uh -- parlor there. She said she was hungry and I made her a sandwhich. And then she said uh -- she was tired and had to go uh -- back to bed. That was an important clue to Arbogast to pick up on - he didn't mention in his conversation with Lila that he found out that Marion said she was returning to Phoenix. He said " This fellow who runs the place said that she just spent the night -- left the next day, and that was it." That was a stroke of genius to have this exchange to show Norman's extreme nervousness and made the scene even more realistic. Last Edited By: Bobtheman May 3 10 11:49 AM. Edited 2 times.
Bobtheman		#44	[-]
May 3 10 2:03 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Plot Hole? Sam: You mean to say that old woman I saw sitting in the window out there wasn't Bate's mother? Sheriff: Now, wait a moment, Sam. Are you sure you saw an old woman? Sam: Yes! In the house behind the motel! I called and pounded but she just ignored me! But the front door was unlocked, allowing Arbogast to enter the house, and also Lila in other scenes. Wouldn't Sam have tried to open the door??
AnthonyOsika		#45	[-]
May 3 10 2:08 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've made a healthy living out of trying front doors to see if they're locked.
Rick		#46	[-]
May 3 10 3:46 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	One more thought on exiting on the passenger side...Probably Hitchcock did do this as shorthand. Easier and quicker to shoot it that way. But he would only do that because it was acceptable and common behavior at the time. Also, it makes sense, as has been mentioned, that Marion Crane slides across the seat to exit because she's avoiding the rain. Could not Hitchcock have had Arbogast do the same thing to provide a visual link between the two? After all, they're both getting out of their cars to meet Norman, and they both will share the same fate. Usually I'd think that suggesting something like this might be giving a little too much credit to the director, but I'm not sure it's possible to give too much credit to Hitchcock.
Ted Newsom		#47	[-]
May 3 10 3:50 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	...major character (played by a well-known actress) was brutually murdered before our eyes about forty five minutes into the film , and of course, the twist ending. Has either of these situations occured as a precedent before Psycho, to anyone's knowledge? Offhand-- DOA, where Edmund O'Brian comes into a police station and tells them he's been murdered (beats Janet Leigh by about 45 minutes). 1948, '49 I think. THE FALCON'S BROTHER, in which George Sanders (the lead character) gets bumped off halfway through, replaced by his (real life) brother Tom Conway as the new Falcon. Circa 1942. SUNSET BOULEVARD and SCARED TO DEATH, where the protagonist is stone cold dead in the opening scene, then narrates the story in flashback. 1946 and 1949, irrespectively. The wacky INVISIBLE INVADERS, where the first shot is old John Carradine with some test tubes, and he blows up, deader 'n' a mackerel (OK, he comes back as a zombie, but still.) 1959. MURDER BY TELEVISION, where the Lugosi detective character is killed, dead, done with-- then his heretofore unmentioned twin brother shows up and picks up right were the other guy left off. (1933?) INVISIBLE GHOST, in which the romantic (hah) lead is killed off halfway through... only to have his heretofore unmentioned twin brother (!!!) show up in the next scene and (guess what?) take up right where his brother left off (1943). As for twist endings... pshew. How many examples would you like? SCARED TO DEATH (long-dead guy returns as a vengeful ghost, and in drag as a woman); MALTESE FALCON (femme romantic lead turns out to be guilty lying murderer, and hero turns her over); LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT (scary vampire turns out to be Scotland Yard detective in preposterous get-up), LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT (vampire is actually a vaudeville performer hired to be spooky for a screwy cop)... HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (nasty man with nasty wife in haunted house; she dies but really doesn;t; he kills her and her sneaky lover and gets away with it)... Not to take away from Hitchcock's handling of the material (brilliant, unsurpassable), but the old twist ending schtick is more Bloch-ian than Hitchcockian. Last Edited By: Ted Newsom May 3 10 4:03 PM. Edited 1 times.
Bobtheman		#48	[-]
May 3 10 5:48 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Getting back to Norman's slip of the tongue: Norman: Back, uh, where she came from. Norman also provided Arbogast with a timeline of when Marion left ( but really didn't) in this exchange: Norman: Well, uh -- she arrived uh-- rather late one night and she went straight to sleep and uh-- left early the next morning. Arbogast: Well, how early? Norman; Oh, ex- very early. Arbogast; Uh-huh. Which morning was that? Norman: Uh-- the uh--th-the-the-th-the-th-th-the next morning -- Sunday. I believe it has been established that it should have taken Marion about sixteen hours or so for the return trip if she made it, and so if she left early Sunday, she should have arrived by late Sunday in Phoenix. Arbogast also told Sam and Lila: Sam: Did you check in Phoenix? Hospitals? Maybe she had a accident. Ot a hold-up. Arbogast: No, she had been seen leaving town in her own car-- by her employer, I might add. I'm surprised he didn't probe Norman a bit more about his conversation with Marion to find out how and why she came to tell him she was leaving to "go back where she came from", and then reviewing with him that she should have been back in Phoenix the next night, and he had checked for accidents and hold-ups. However, he did say: Arbogast: Well, to tell you the truth, I do mind. You see, if it doesn't jell- it isn't aspic. And this ain't jelling. It's not coming together. Something's missing. Wouldn't or shouldn't Arbogast's investigation ascertain that Marion's vehicle had been sold? She had to provide the dealership with proof of ownership, etc. Would the sale have somehow been public knowledge?
Bobtheman		#49	[-]
May 3 10 7:07 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	These are some rare photos of Marion Cotillard posing as Janet Leigh for Vanity Fair's Alfred Hitchcock series.
Todd Strickland		#50	[-]
May 3 10 9:46 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Bobtheman wrote: Two of the many things that made this film stand out- to me, and I'm sure many, many others - uipon first viewing were the facts that the then major character (played by a well-known actress)was brutually murdered before our eyes about forty five minutes into the film , and of course, the twist ending. Has either of these situations occured as a precdent before Psycho, to anyone's knowledge? CITY OF THE DEAD aka HORROR HOTEL (1960). I don't know if this was released before or after, but surely was shot without PSYCHO being an influence.
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ryanbrennan		#51	[-]
May 4 10 12:48 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	DOA, where Edmund O'Brian comes into a police station and tells them he's been murdered (beats Janet Leigh by about 45 minutes). 1948, '49 I think. I showed the opening of D.O.A. to my 15 year old daughter, who knew nothing about the movie, and before O'Brien could answer she'd already figured it out. I'd expect that just about everyone who went to the movie back in the day knew this beforehand. After all, that's kind of the movie's novel twist and selling point. I think most of these examples are different in nature. We've got no emotional investment in O'Brien or William Holden in SUNSET BLVD. right at the beginning of those movies. In PSYCHO Hitchcock plays with audience expectations and emotions. You don't expect to get emotionally involved with Marion Crane, care about her, and then have her, a woman, killed, brutally partway into the movie. Jeez, she'd seen the error of her ways and was going to redeem herself, willing to take the punishment she knew she'd get. Since her killing is always cited as a big deal, and has been cited as a big deal for a long while, I'd say it was a pretty big shock to a lot of audiences in 1960 accustomed to seeing the good girl heroine make it to the finish.
Bobtheman		#52	[-]
May 4 10 4:07 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	One of the myths of Psycho is that the shower sequence was shot in color. I'm wondering if that originated as some viewers mis-remembered the color sequence in The Tingler, which invloved a woman being killed, a bathroom, and a bathtub for Psycho. Last Edited By: Bobtheman May 4 10 4:16 AM. Edited 1 times.
Bobtheman		#53	[-]
May 4 10 4:36 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	"CITY OF THE DEAD aka HORROR HOTEL (1960). I don't know if this was released before or after, but surely was shot without PSYCHO being an influence." Horror Hotel was released in the US on September 12, 1961, a year after Psycho. One of the similarities in both films is that at the end of them, Mother and Elizabeth Selwyn were discovered in chairs, which had to be spun around to show them both dead. However, one of the distinctions between both films is that there was a lot of foreshadowing in Horror Hotel regarding Nan Barlow's death, you could see it coming, but Marion Crane's death in Psycho was completely and totally unexpected. That came as much much more of a shock.
Joe Karlosi		#54	[-]
May 4 10 5:17 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Bobtheman wrote: Horror Hotel was released in the US on September 12, 1961, a year after Psycho. But HH (as CITY OF THE DEAD) was released in the UK in September 1960. PSYCHO was released June 1960. Between the audio commentary and interviews on the VCI disc for CITY OF THE DEAD, I think it was pretty well established by the director and leading lady that they didn't copy PSYCHO. But it's been a while since I've watched the extras so my memory may be a little rusty.
TomWeaver999		#55	[-]
May 4 10 7:26 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	HORROR HOTEL was made before PSYCHO but after the book PSYCHO -- so if they copied, they copied from the book.
PhantomXCI		#56	[-]
May 4 10 10:37 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	CITY OF THE DEAD (HORROR HOTEL) was shot in 1959, and submitted to the British Board of Film Censors on January 28, 1960. It then sat on the shelf for 9 months before release.
CapnDunsel		#57	[-]
May 4 10 11:11 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Stephen Pickard wrote: Going back to the shower scene. After the stabbing, Marion reaches for the shower curtain and pulls on it ripping it from the rail. The eye follows, normally, to what's in focus, the hand, the curtain, the rail. If you look in the background, although it is out of focus, it is surprisingly a clear view of breasts. Would these be Leigh's or the double? Body double, according to the commentary. However, during the closeup when she's dead, Leigh's breasts became visible to the crew when the moleskin covering them peeled off from the steam. A sidenote: Hershey's Chocolate Syrup (used for blood) was nominated over John Gavin for Best Supporting Actor. The way it sensually swirled in the tub during Leigh's love scene with the knife was more convincing than Gavin's earlier love scene.
Stephen Pickard		#58	[-]
May 4 10 11:12 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	CapnDunsel wrote: Stephen Pickard wrote: Going back to the shower scene. After the stabbing, Marion reaches for the shower curtain and pulls on it ripping it from the rail. The eye follows, normally, to what's in focus, the hand, the curtain, the rail. If you look in the background, although it is out of focus, it is surprisingly a clear view of breasts. Would these be Leigh's or the double? Body double, according to the commentary. However, during the closeup when she's dead, Leigh's breasts became visible to the crew when the moleskin covering them peeled off from the steam. A sidenote: Hershey's Chocolate Syrup (used for blood) was nominated over John Gavin for Best Supporting Actor. The way it sensually swirled in the tub during Leigh's love scene with the knife was more convincing than Gavin's earlier love scene.
Ted Newsom	My latest photoshop blasphemy	#59	[-]
May 4 10 2:35 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Y'know, it woulda looked pretty good in color.
amarok		#60	[-]
May 6 10 5:42 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I was aware of the dubbed-in cry "I am Norma Bates!" in PSYCHO as far back as I can remember. It just made no sense to me. Of course, I didn't know Mother's name was Norma; I thought he was saying "Norman Bates". Well, I knew that! I had to enter my car via the passenger's side the other day. It was like a half-hour of aerobics, trying to climb through that cramped space with the big plastic CD holder separating the bucket seats (without spilling my drink). Ah, for the good old days of those roomy old cars, with their bench-seats, slick vinyl upholstry -- and before seat-belt laws -- Perhaps, Bill, you should have mentioned that one often slid to the passenger's side -- even if one didn't WANT to! And Heaven help a back seat full of kids, dogpiling against the doors every time they hit a curve. Last Edited By: amarok May 6 10 5:45 AM. Edited 1 times.
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Psycho (1960)