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On the "I AM NORMA BATES" line-- I'm guessing it had always been there-- it's in the scrpt, and I think it's even in Bloch's novel--it's just that there's so much going on-- the light waving, the skull-corpse twisting around, Vera Miles screaming-- who listens to what Perkins is saying? I know now it was there all along-- but I didn't hear it until I'd watched the thing more than 20 times.
Nothing obsessive about me, no sir.

Settle.... easy... I'm not Tom Weaver, y'know...

I'm neither doubting you nor saying Rubello's book doesn't say that... I'm just saying, I'll beleive it when I see it. Or rather, when I don't see it-- lining two versions up and seeing that the skull head is absent from one version more than the other.

If you KNOW it's there, you see it clearly. If you don't, you miss it consciously. It's like any so-called subliminal effect. EAT POPCORN, my eye. See IT! Yeah, right. And gosh, I didn't even notice those cartoon skulls floating down the stairs in TERROR IN A HAUNTED HOUSE....!

A similar thing happens when you're editing, or repeatedly viewing material-- you become aware of little flash-frames. They may only blip past in a 30th of a second, but you see them. Other people will look at you and say, "What are talking about? There's nothing there." And when you stop, point out the offending frame, then roll it back at speed, it jumps out at them, too.

Thing is, that sequence is so tightly cut and scored, with no editorial longuers or dead air between lines of narration, and the dissolve from Perkins to the quicksand comes so quickly, and matched with Herrmann's music... there is no wiggle room that I can see to extend the brief superimposition. And adding fuel to my pointlessly fiery argument, there's the case of "I YAM NORMABATES"-- which most people, including me, never heard, at least on first, second, tenth or even 1tth viewings of the film... except that it was always there. Even us "film historians" occasionally get things wrong, and maybe Steve Rubello might've bought into a little urban myth here.

But at least he doesn't say that George Reeves played Martin Balsam

Come on. It's a movie.

Please... the IMDb thing above seems to bolster your (and others') argument. I'm certainly not using it to counter what your're recalling. But read what the IMDb guy wrote and see if you disagree with my take on it. And if the messenger can't be believed, I suspect the message itself is flawed as well.

Didn't I just w rite I don't disbelieve you, or disbelieve that this is printed in Rubello's book? I do believe you remember exactly what you remember.

But Bill... how many people have you known over the years-- how many persons have written into magazines, posted on line, whatever... and remembered, very clearly, the shocking color shower sequence in PSYCHO with all that horrible blood? Three people? Forty? Eight thousand? A couple million?

And how many remember that great scene in HORROR OF DRACULA where Christopher Lee claws all that gnarly gray flesh off his face in the end? Wow! Yeah, uh-- a friend of mine saw it on.... er... Canadian TV. Yeah. That was it.

When you are consciously aware of something like this-- the one-second superimposition-- then you not only know it's coming, you see it clearly when it's there-- you're focused on it. It's my impression that this is what happens on repeated viewing of this scene-- and other films as well. It seems longer, only because you know it's there.

I'll read Rubello's book. I'd love to see some proof of this. And by proof, I don't mean firm but ephemeral personal memories, or anecdotes told by crew members after 30 years, or, really, quotes from studio documents (especially the publicity department). I mean, side by side comparisons of the "different" versions.

Big smiles and hugs.

I guess I'll just have to read the book and talk to him.

And wait until I see two different lengths. Sorry. I'm as stubborn as they come sometimes.

(And this isn't the first time this sort of controversy has occurred: see

the balcony!