Psycho (1960 film): Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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== Plot ==

[[Phoenix, Arizona|Phoenix]] real estate secretary [[Marion Crane]] steals $40,000 cash from her employer after hearing her boyfriend, Sam, complain that his debts are delaying their marriage. She sets off to drive to Sam's home in Fairvale, California, and switches cars after she encounters a suspicious policeman. A heavy rainstorm forces Marion to stop at the Bates Motel just a few miles from Fairvale. [[Norman Bates]], the proprietor, whose [[Second Empire style]] house overlooks the motel, registers Marion (who uses an alias) and invites her to eat with him in the motel's office. When Norman returns to his house to retrieve the food, Marion hears him arguing with his mother about his desire to dine with Marion. After he returns, he discusses his hobby as a [[taxidermist]], his mother's "illness", and how people have a "private trap" they want to escape. When Marion suggests that Norman should have his mother institutionalized, he becomes greatly offended and insists that she's harmless. Marion decides to drive back to Phoenix in the morning to return the stolen money. As she showers, a shadowy figure enters the bathroom and stabs her to death. Shortly afterward, Norman comes to check on Marion, only to discover her dead body. Horrified, he hurriedly cleans up the murder scene. He then puts Marion's body, her belongings, and unbeknownst to him, the hidden cash in her car, then sinks the car in a [[swamp]].

Marion's sister [[Lila Crane|Lila]] arrives in Fairvale a week later, tells Sam about the theft, and demands to know where Marion is. He denies knowing anything about her disappearance. A private investigator named Arbogast approaches them, saying that he has been hired to retrieve the money. He stops at the Bates Motel and questions Norman, whose nervous behavior, stuttering, and inconsistent answers arouse his suspicion. He examines the [[guest register]] and discovers from her handwriting that Marion spent a night in the motel. When Arbogast infers from Norman that Marion had spoken to his mother, he asks to speak to her, but Norman refuses to allow it. After Arbogast enters the Bates home to search for Norman's mother, the shadowy figure ~~emerges~~assaults ~~from~~him at the top of the ~~bedroom~~stairs and stabs him to death.

When Sam and Lila do not hear back from Arbogast, Sam goes to the motel to look for him. He sees a figure in the house who he assumes is Norman's mother. Lila and Sam alert the local sheriff, Al Chambers, who tells them Norman's mother died in a murder-suicide by [[strychnine poisoning]] ten years earlier. Chambers suggests that Arbogast lied to Sam and Lila so he could pursue Marion and the money. Convinced that something happened to Arbogast, Lila and Sam drive to the motel. Sam distracts Norman in the office while Lila sneaks into the house. Suspicious, Norman knocks Sam unconscious. As he goes to the house, Lila hides in the fruit cellar, where she discovers the [[mummified]] body of Norman's mother. Lila screams in horror, and Norman, wearing women's clothes and a wig, enters the cellar and tries to stab her. Sam appears and subdues him.

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==== Shower scene ====

The murder of Leigh's character in the shower is the film's pivotal scene and one of the best-known in all of cinema.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Macnab|first1=Geoffrey|title=The Shower Scenes! Why 45 Seconds of Hitchcock's Psycho still haunts us|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-shower-scene-why-45seconds-of-hitchcock-s-psycho-still-haunt-us-a7967676.html|website=Independent|date=September 26, 2017}}</ref> As such, it spawned numerous myths and legends. It was shot from December 17–23, 1959, after Leigh had twice postponed the filming, first because of a cold and then because of her period.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/feb/06/top-10-film-moments-usual-suspects-psycho|title=The top 10 film moments|date=February 6, 2000|newspaper=The Guardian|access-date=March 24, 2018|archive-date=June 16, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180616013515/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/feb/06/top-10-film-moments-usual-suspects-psycho|url-status=live}}</ref> The finished scene runs some three minutes, and its flurry of action and edits has produced contradictory attempts to count its parts. Hitchcock himself contributed to this pattern, telling Truffaut that "there were seventy camera setups for forty-five seconds of footage",<ref name="Truffaut" /> and maintaining to other interviewers that there were "seventy-eight pieces of the film".<ref>{{Harvnb|McGilligan|2003|p=594}}</ref> The 2017 documentary ''[[78/52|78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene]]'', by director [[Alexandre O. Philippe]], latches onto this last figure for the production's tagline, '78 Shots & 52 Cuts That Changed Cinema Forever'.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4372240/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1|title = 78/52| publisher=[[IMDb]] |date = October 13, 2017}}</ref> But in his careful description of the shower scene, film scholar Philip J. Skerry counted only 60 separate shots, with a table breaking down the middle 34 by type, camera position, angle, movement, focus, POV, and subject.<ref>{{Harvnb|Skerry|2008|pp=231–56}}</ref> Absent an alternative tabulation, Richard Schickel and Frank Capra, in their 2001 book ''The Men Who Made the Movies'', concluded the most reasonable calculation was 60. Many are close-ups, including extreme close-ups, except for medium shots in the shower directly before and directly after the murder. The combination of the close shots with their short duration makes the sequence feel more subjective than if the images were presented alone or at a wider angle, an example of the technique Hitchcock described as "transferring the menace from the screen into the mind of the audience".<ref>Hitchcock, cited in {{Harvnb|Schickel|Capra|2001|pp=293, 308}}</ref>

[[File:Psycho (1960 film) shower scene.jpg|thumb|right|alt=A silhouetted figure brandishes a knife towards the camera|The shadowy figure from the shower scene]]

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<ref>{{cite web|first=Alfred|last=Hitchcock|publisher=FilMagicians|via=YouTube|title=Alfred Hitchcock interview on Psycho (1964)|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiTM_vtZJog| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200129210531/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiTM_vtZJog| archive-date=2020-01-29 |access-date=2018-12-09}}</ref>}}

A popular myth emerged that ice-cold water was used in the shower scene to make Leigh's scream realistic. Leigh denied this on numerous occasions, saying the crew was accommodating, using hot water throughout the week-long shoot.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4153/is_20041004/ai_n12103901 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130112094906/http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4153/is_20041004/ai_n12103901 |archive-date=January 12, 2013 |title=Janet Leigh, star of Psycho shower scene, dies at 77 |access-date=March 13, 2007 |last=Leitch |first=Luke |date=October 4, 2004 |newspaper=[[Evening Standard]] |via=Find Articles}}</ref> All of the screams are Leigh's.{{sfn|Nickens|Leigh|1996|p=83}} Another myth was that graphic designer [[Saul Bass]] directed the shower scene. This was denied by several figures associated with the film, including Leigh, who stated: "Absolutely not! I have emphatically said this in any interview I've ever given. I've said it to his face in front of other people ... I was in that shower for seven days, and, believe me, Alfred Hitchcock was right next to his camera for every one of those seventy-odd shots".{{sfn|Nickens|Leigh|1996|pp=67–70}} Green also rebuts Bass's claim: "There is not a shot in that movie that I didn't roll the camera for. And I can tell you I never rolled the camera for Mr. Bass".{{sfn|Nickens|Leigh|1996|pp=67–70}} Roger Ebert, a longtime admirer of Hitchcock's work, summarily dismissed the rumor: "It seems unlikely that a perfectionist with an ego like Hitchcock's would let someone else direct such a scene".<ref>{{cite news|url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19961215/ANSWERMAN/612150303/1023 |title=Movie Answer Man |access-date=March 13, 2007 |last=Ebert |first=Roger |author-link=Roger Ebert |date=December 15, 1996 |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060628034544/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F19961215%2FANSWERMAN%2F612150303%2F1023 |archive-date=June 28, 2006}}</ref>

Commentators such as [[Stephen Rebello]] and Bill Krohn have argued in favor of Bass's contribution to the scene in his capacity as a visual consultant and storyboard artist.<ref>{{Harvnb|Rebello|1990|p=117}}</ref> Along with designing the opening credits, Bass is termed "Pictorial Consultant" in the credits. When interviewing Hitchcock in 1967, [[François Truffaut]] asked about the extent of Bass's contribution, to which Hitchcock replied that in addition to the titles, Bass had provided storyboards for the Arbogast murder (which he claimed to have rejected), but made no mention of Bass's having provided storyboards for the shower scene.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://notcoming.com/saulbass/caps_psycho.php|title=Psycho: The Title Credits|access-date=November 20, 2010|archive-date=November 26, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101126164244/http://notcoming.com/saulbass/caps_psycho.php|url-status=live}}</ref>▼

According to Bill Krohn's ''Hitchcock at Work'', Bass's first claim to have directed the scene was in 1970, when he provided a magazine with 48 drawings used as storyboards as proof of his contribution.<ref name="Krohn">{{Harvnb|Krohn|2003}}{{Page needed|date=September 2010}}</ref> Krohn's analysis of the production, while rebutting Bass's claims for having directed the scene, notes that these storyboards did introduce key aspects of the final scene—most notably, the fact that the killer appears as a silhouette, and details such as the close-ups of the slashing knife, Leigh's desperate outstretched arm, the shower curtain being torn off its hooks, and the transition from the drain to Marion Crane's dead eye. Krohn notes that this final transition is highly reminiscent of the iris titles that Bass created for ''[[Vertigo (film)|Vertigo]]''.<ref name="Krohn" /> Krohn also notes that Hitchcock shot the scene with two cameras: one a [[Mitchell Camera|Mitchell BNC]],{{citation needed|date=August 2024}} the other a handheld French ''[[Eclair (camera)|Éclair]]'' camera which [[Orson Welles]] had used in ''[[Touch of Evil]]'' (1958). To create an ideal montage for the greatest emotional impact on the audience, Hitchcock shot a lot of footage of this scene which he trimmed down in the editing room. He even brought a [[Moviola]] on the set to gauge the footage required. The final sequence, which his editor [[George Tomasini]] worked on with Hitchcock's advice, however, did not go far beyond the basic structural elements set up by Bass's storyboards.<ref name="Krohn" />▼

According to [[Donald Spoto]] in ''The Dark Side of Genius'' and to Stephen Rebello in ''Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho'', Hitchcock's wife and trusted collaborator, [[Alma Reville]], spotted a blooper in one of the last edits of ''Psycho'' before its official release: after Marion was supposedly dead, one could see her blink. According to [[Patricia Hitchcock]], talking in [[Laurent Bouzereau]]'s "Making of" documentary, Alma spotted that Leigh's character appeared to take a breath. In either case, the postmortem activity was edited out and was never seen by audiences.<ref name="dvddoc" /> Although Marion's eyes should have been dilated after her death, the contact lenses necessary for this effect would have required six weeks of acclimatization to wear them, so Hitchcock decided to forgo them.{{sfn|Nickens|Leigh|1996|pp=176, 42}}

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[[Film theorist]] [[Robin Wood (critic)|Robin Wood]] also discusses how the shower washes "away her guilt". He comments upon the "[[alienation effect]]" of killing off the "apparent center of the film" with which spectators had identified.<ref name="wood">{{Harvnb|Wood|1989|p=146}}</ref> The scene was the subject of [[Alexandre O. Philippe]]'s 2017 documentary ''78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene'', the title of which references the putative number of cuts and set-ups, respectively, that Hitchcock used to shoot it.<ref name="BBC March 2018">{{cite web|title= Hitchcock's Shower Scene: 78/52|url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09w3w9v/hitchcocks-shower-scene-7852|author= |publisher=BBC|access-date= March 10, 2018|archive-date= March 11, 2018|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20180311152324/https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09w3w9v/hitchcocks-shower-scene-7852|url-status= live}}</ref><ref name="Variety">{{cite web| title= Film Review: '78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene'| url= https://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/7852-review-psycho-1201966555/| last= Gleiberman| first= Owen| author-link= Owen Gleiberman| work= [[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]| date= January 24, 2017| access-date= March 10, 2018| archive-date= December 13, 2017| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20171213011034/https://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/7852-review-psycho-1201966555/| url-status= live}}</ref>

===== Saul Bass's claim to credit =====

Aside from the cold water myth, another claim was that graphic designer [[Saul Bass]] directed the shower scene. This was denied by several figures associated with the film, including Leigh, who stated: "Absolutely not! I have emphatically said this in any interview I've ever given. I've said it to his face in front of other people ... I was in that shower for seven days, and, believe me, Alfred Hitchcock was right next to his camera for every one of those seventy-odd shots".{{sfn|Nickens|Leigh|1996|pp=67–70}} Green also rebuts Bass's claim: "There is not a shot in that movie that I didn't roll the camera for. And I can tell you I never rolled the camera for Mr. Bass".{{sfn|Nickens|Leigh|1996|pp=67–70}} Roger Ebert, a longtime admirer of Hitchcock's work, summarily dismissed the rumor: "It seems unlikely that a perfectionist with an ego like Hitchcock's would let someone else direct such a scene".<ref>{{cite news|url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19961215/ANSWERMAN/612150303/1023 |title=Movie Answer Man |access-date=March 13, 2007 |last=Ebert |first=Roger |author-link=Roger Ebert |date=December 15, 1996 |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060628034544/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F19961215%2FANSWERMAN%2F612150303%2F1023 |archive-date=June 28, 2006}}</ref>

▲Commentators such as [[Stephen Rebello]] and Bill Krohn have argued in favor of Bass's contribution to the scene in his capacity as a visual consultant and storyboard artist.<ref>{{Harvnb|Rebello|1990|p=117}}</ref> Along with designing the opening credits, Bass is termed "Pictorial Consultant" in the credits. When interviewing Hitchcock in 1967, [[François Truffaut]] asked about the extent of Bass's contribution, to which Hitchcock replied that in addition to the titles, Bass had provided storyboards for the Arbogast murder (which he claimed to have rejected), but made no mention of Bass's having provided storyboards for the shower scene.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://notcoming.com/saulbass/caps_psycho.php|title=Psycho: The Title Credits|access-date=November 20, 2010|archive-date=November 26, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101126164244/http://notcoming.com/saulbass/caps_psycho.php|url-status=live}}</ref>

▲According to Bill Krohn's ''Hitchcock at Work'', Bass's first claim to have directed the scene was in 1970, when he provided a magazine with 48 drawings used as storyboards as proof of his contribution.<ref name="Krohn">{{Harvnb|Krohn|2003}}{{Page needed|date=September 2010}}</ref> Krohn's analysis of the production, while rebutting Bass's claims for having directed the scene, notes that these storyboards did introduce key aspects of the final scene—most notably, the fact that the killer appears as a silhouette, and details such as the close-ups of the slashing knife, Leigh's desperate outstretched arm, the shower curtain being torn off its hooks, and the transition from the drain to Marion Crane's dead eye. Krohn notes that this final transition is highly reminiscent of the iris titles that Bass created for ''[[Vertigo (film)|Vertigo]]''.<ref name="Krohn" /> Krohn also notes that Hitchcock shot the scene with two cameras: one a [[Mitchell Camera|Mitchell BNC]],{{citation needed|date=August 2024}} the other a handheld French ''[[Eclair (camera)|Éclair]]'' camera which [[Orson Welles]] had used in ''[[Touch of Evil]]'' (1958). To create an ideal montage for the greatest emotional impact on the audience, Hitchcock shot a lot of footage of this scene which he trimmed down in the editing room. He even brought a [[Moviola]] on the set to gauge the footage required. The final sequence, which his editor [[George Tomasini]] worked on with Hitchcock's advice, however, did not go far beyond the basic structural elements set up by Bass's storyboards.<ref name="Krohn" />

== Soundtrack ==

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=== Home media ===

The film has been released several times on [[Capacitance Electronic Disc|CED]], [[VHS]], [[LaserDisc]], DVD and [[Blu-ray]]. [[DiscoVision]] first released ''Psycho'' on the LaserDisc format in "standard play" (5five sides) in 1979, and "extended play" (2two sides) in October 1981. MCA/Universal Home Video released a new LaserDisc version of ''Psycho'' in August 1988 (Catalog #: 11003). In May 1998, Universal Studios Home Video released a deluxe edition of ''Psycho'' as part of their Signature Collection. This [[THX]]-certified Widescreen (1.85:1) LaserDisc Deluxe Edition (Catalog #: 43105) is spread across 4four extended -play sides and 1one standard -play side, and includes a new documentary and isolated Bernard Herrmann score. A DVD edition was released at the same time as the LaserDisc.<ref name="Rele_1">{{cite web|title=Discovision Library: Psycho|url=http://www.blamld.com/DiscoVision/Library.htm|access-date=November 8, 2010|archive-date=November 19, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101119150354/http://blamld.com/DiscoVision/Library.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

A version of the film with extended footage of Marion undressing (showing her taking off her bra), Norman cleaning up after the murder, and Arbogast's death (in which he is stabbed four times instead of two) has been shown on German TV, and was released there on Blu-ray in 2015.<ref>{{cite web|title=Psycho – Hitchcock's Classic Uncut on German TV|url=http://www.movie-censorship.com/news.php?ID=7614|website=Movie Censorship|access-date=August 17, 2016|archive-date=March 23, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160323214105/http://www.movie-censorship.com/news.php?ID=7614|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Psycho UNCUT!| date=May 25, 2015 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHDdcZ56HSA| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211116/aHDdcZ56HSA| archive-date=November 16, 2021 | url-status=live|via=YouTube}}{{cbignore}}</ref> This footage had been cut from the US version of the film in 1968 before the re-release of the movie after the ratings system was first established by the MPAA; these cuts were mandated by the [[National Legion of Decency]].<ref name=AFI>{{Cite web|title=Psycho (1960)|url=https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/53260|website=[[AFI Catalog of Feature Films]]|access-date=June 26, 2019|archive-date=June 27, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190627180348/https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/53260|url-status=live}}</ref>

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It went on to become the second [[1960 in film|highest-grossing film of 1960]], behind ''[[Spartacus (film)|Spartacus]]'',<ref name="tom">{{cite web|last1=Brueggemann|first1=Tom|title='Psycho' Turns 60 This Week: How the 1960 Release Created an Iconic Film|url=https://www.indiewire.com/2020/06/psycho-turns-60-this-week-1960-release-1202237395/|website=Indiewire|date=June 14, 2020}}</ref> earning a box office gross of $32 million,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Psycho|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0054215/?ref_=bo_se_r_1|access-date=September 27, 2020|website=Box Office Mojo}}</ref> which generated approximately $9.1 million in North American [[theatrical rental]]s.<ref name=Finler>{{cite book |last=Finler |first=Joel Waldo |year=2003 |title=The Hollywood Story |publisher=Wallflower Press |isbn=978-1-903364-66-6 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=rvVhEJmbfrsC&pg=PA358 358–359]}}</ref> ''Psycho'' remains the most commercially successful film of Hitchcock's career.<ref name="tom" /> Hitchcock personally earned in excess of $15 million from ''Psycho''. He then swapped his rights to ''Psycho'' and his TV anthology for 150,000 shares of [[MCA Inc.|MCA]], making him the third largest shareholder in MCA Inc., and his own boss at Universal, in theory; this did not stop them from interfering with his later films.<ref>Stephen Rebello, ''Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho'', Soft Skull Press, Berkeley, 1990.</ref>{{sfn|Nickens|Leigh|1996|p=141}}

=== Accolades ===

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"

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[[Category:1960 horror films]]

[[Category:1960 independent films]]

[[Category:1960 ~~LGBT~~LGBTQ-related films]]

[[Category:1960s American films]]

[[Category:1960s English-language films]]

[[Category:1960s serial killer films]]

[[Category:American black-and-white films]]

[[Category:American ~~LGBT~~LGBTQ-related films]]

[[Category:American slasher films]]

[[Category:Articles containing video clips]]

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[[Category:Films shot in California]]

[[Category:Films with screenplays by Joseph Stefano]]

[[Category:~~LGBT~~LGBTQ-related horror films]]

[[Category:Paramount Pictures films]]

[[Category:Psycho (franchise) films]]

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[[Category:English-language horror films]]

[[Category:English-language independent films]]

[[Category:English-language crime films]]