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At least two other Psycho Threads

http://monsterkidclassich...ku.com/topic/3751?page=1   Misleading Pyscho

 

http://monsterkidclassich.../reply/82806#reply-82806

Psycho/George Reeves Connection

 

http://gvarts.blogspot.com/2009/08/psycho.html

The voice overs by “mother’ are even more rococo. First hired was Paul Jasmin, an aspirant actor who had developed, as a joke, a practice of phoning well-known actors as 'Eunice Ayers'. Hitchcock also hired actresses Jeanette Nolan and Virginia Gregg to record the same lines. The version on the sound track is a splicing together of the three voices. From word to word it jumps from one to the other.

Can someone experienced with sound , such as Craig, confirm this?  My understanding is that the
final voice of Mother, when she is not vengeful, ie

"It's sad, when a mother has to speak the words that condemn her own son. But I couldn't allow them to believe that I would commit murder. They'll put him away now, as I should have years ago. He was always bad, and in the end he intended to tell them I killed those girls and that man... as if I could do anything but just sit and stare, like one of his stuffed birds. They know I can't move a finger, and I won't. I'll just sit here and be quiet, just in case they do... suspect me. They're probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of a person I am. I'm not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching... they'll see. They'll see and they'll know, and they'll say, "Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly..."

is all Jasmin, it "sounds" different from Mother from earlier in the film.

I'm wondering if someone could post the first frame after the above sequence,( the close ups of
Arbogast falling), and then some frames at the end, where Mother stabs him, to see if these
can confirm or deny Mitzi Koestner's alleged height of four feet.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2X1SPWRHKXH3L

In the finished film, the "Mother" we occasionally see on screen was actually played by three different
actresses - Margo Epper, Anne Dore, and  Mitzi Koestner. The diminutive Koestner also appeared as
a "Munchkin" in the Wizard of Oz.

This would seem to solve the question I had on Koestner's height. Interesting piece of trivia - that two doubles were used during the shower scene for Perkins.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0258350/bio

"Sir Alfred Hitchcock to be a body double in his new thriller called "Psycho." In the film, Epper posed as the supposedly-still-alive Mrs. Norma Bates, who was a murderer. Epper was seen whenever Mrs. Bates who be seen in her bedroom window, and during the famous shower scene, in which the leading lady Marion Crane (played by actress Janet Leigh) was murdered. In the shower scene, however, Epper was not in the whole shot, but only for a brief moment. Margo shot is when Mrs. Bates creeps into the bathroom, unknownst to Marion, and rips open the shower curtain. During the rest of the shower scene, an actress, named Anne Dore did the stabbing scenes."

There is also conflicting information as to whether Janet Leigh was doubled in the shower scene...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/29/psycho-body-double-marli-renfro

"Leigh, in her first interview after the film's release, shared the audience's horror: "I believed that knife went into me. It was that real, that horrifying. I could feel it!" In later interviews, Hitchcock and Leigh categorically stated that it was her body in the shower scene – but it wasn't. The body belonged to a model called Marli Renfro. When you can't see Leigh's face in the shots, you're looking at her body double."

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=24944&category=Notes

"In Leigh's book, the actress dispelled several other myths about the shower scene, such as one that Hitchcock
doused her with cold water to get her to scream. She related that the water was a pleasant temperature
for the entire seven days it took to film the sequence. She also stated, that at the suggestion of costumer
Rita Riggs, she was covered with flesh-toned moleskin in strategic areas, but was otherwise nude. As noted
in the Hitchcock collection, the director did use model Marli Renfro as Leigh's double during the sequence.
According to a September, 1960 Los Angeles Mirror-News and Leigh's book, Renfro appeared nude on
the set to establish the sequence's lightning and camera angles, as well as the density of the water, and to
make the crew more comfortable with Leigh's near-nudity. "

"The only shot of Renfro that Hitchcock attempted to insert into the finished picture was an overhead
shot showing the length of Marion's body after she was slain, but was censored due to Renfro's bare
buttocks being visible, according to Leigh and screenwriter Joseph Stefano. Leigh did state, however,
that Hitchcock used Renfro for the sequence in which Norman wraps up and carries Marion's corpse
to the trunk of the car, as it would have been uncomfortable for Leigh and her face would not be
visible anyway. "

Adding to the confusion here, In the Making of Psycho documentary, Leigh stated she did not
know who the person was that Bates was carrying wrapped in the shower curtain, only that it
wasn't her.

The Psycho File: A Comprehensive Guide to Hitchcock’s Shocker by Joseph Smith

After hearing all three of them reading Hitchcock’s lines, Hitchcock and his sound men

mixed them together – so Jasmin, upon seeing the film, could no longer tell which

portions were his.” In postproduction”, Jasmin told Rebello,  “he spliced and blended a

mixture of voices – Virginia, Jeanette, and me- so that what Mother says literally changes

from word to word and sentence to sentence. He did that to confuse the audience.

 

During the course of the shoot, Psycho’s Mother is played variously by Anthony Perkins,

a stuffed dummy, three different stunt doubles, and three different vocalists, with eight

figures contributing to a single role, one can hardly blame Psycho’s original viewers

for failure to figure out that truth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_(1960_film)

 

Norman Bates' mother was voiced by Paul Jasmin, Virginia Gregg, and Jeanette Nolan, who also provided some screams for Lila's discovery of mother's corpse. The three voices were thoroughly mixed, except for the last speech, which is all Gregg's.^[8]

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0155975/trivia  Psycho 1998

 In the last scene of the film, "Mother"s monologue is a multi track of three voices: "Mother" from this version, a male voice (probably Norman), and "Mother" from the 1960 version.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_(1960_film)

 

It is sometimes claimed that Leigh was not in the shower the entire time, and that a body double was used. However, in an interview with Roger Ebert, and in the book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, Leigh stated that she was in the scene the entire time; Hitchcock used a live model as her stand-in only for the scenes in which Norman wraps up Marion's body in a shower curtain and places her body in the trunk of her car.^[66] However, the 2010 book The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock's Shower by Robert Graysmith contradicts this, identifying Marli Renfro as Leigh's body double for some of the shower scenes.

 

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article7072704.ece

Marli Renfro was Janet Leigh's body double in the shower scenes in Psycho- that's her body getting stabbed by
Norman Bates, not Leigh's - and Alfred Hitchcock covered this up. He wanted the audience to beleive it was Janet
Leigh they were seeing, and so Marli never got credit. She got a lousy $ 500 in total, and no recognition.

Marli Renfro was Janet Leigh's body double n the shower scenes in Psycho that's her body getting stabbed by
Norman Bates, not Leigh's - and Alfred Hitchcock covered this up.. He wanted the audience to believe it was Janet
Leigh they were seeing, and so Marli never got credit. She got a lousy $ 599 in total, and no recongnition.

http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article/?cid=191164&rss=mrqe

Marli Renfro was paid $ 400 as Leigh’s body double for some shots ( according to some reports , she was only used for the scene of Marion’s body being wrapped in the shower curtain). Although Leigh said for many years there was never anyone naked in that shower , she admitted late in her life that Renfo did some shots nude. She also mentioned in his autobiography that she was nude in some scenes as the flesh colored moleskin was washed away from her breasts. ‘What to do? To spoil the so-far successful shot and be modest? Or get if over with and be immodest. I opted for immodesty.”

 

The shot of Arbogast falling backward down   the stairs was a process shot of the actor ( Martin Balsam) , sitting stationary and waving his arms, as if losing his balance, in front of a screen projecting a previously filmed dolly shot moving down the stairs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marli_Renfro

Unperturbed at working nude, Renfro was hired as the body double for the actress Janet Leigh in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho. She was paid $500.^[5] The shower scene in Psycho is considered one of the most famous scenes in cinema history.^[6] It features more than 50 camera cuts in three minutes and took six days to film. Although nudity is implied in the rapid cuts, none is seen. Hitchcock and Leigh initially maintained that only Leigh appeared in the shower.^[5] Only later did Hitchcock acknowledge that when Leigh's face is seen it is her, otherwise it is Renfro.^[7]

http://entertainment.time.../film/article7072704.ece

Marli Renfro is Janet Leigh's body double in the shower scene in Psycho - that's her body getting
getting stabbed by Norman Bates, not Leigh's - and Hitchcock covered this up. He wanted the
audience to believe it was Janet Leigh they were seeing, so Marli never got any credit, She got
paid a lousy $ 500 in total, and no recognition.

"Haha... I am sorry, boy, but you do manage to look ludicrous when you give me orders."