Psycho Great Movie
By 1959 Hitchcock had come out with Vertigo and North by North-West (both great movies) but it was speculated that Hitchcock had become predictable with his plot and formulas, Hitchcock the great innovator had become repetitive and needed a new project that would revitalize the Director.
When Hitchcock chose Psycho (based on the book by Robert Bloch by the same name) as his next project Paramount refused to financially back the movie so Hitchcock had to dip into his own pocket and back the movie himself. Hitchcock was always the innovator and with receiving criticism that he was predictable and over the hill, must have been a sting that he couldn't abide. With a tighter budget than Hitchcock had had for the last few projects, he had to turn down the opportunity for color and shoot in Black and White so that we get one of Hitchcock's most marvelous and enduring visual films.
The movie starts with Marion (Janet Leigh) and her lover Sam (John Gavin) in bed together while they talk about their tragic situation, Marion is hopelessly in love with Sam while Sam has inherited his fathers debt and needs to keep up with his ex-wife's alimony and all he has is a little hardware store to keep his head above water.
Marion then goes back to work at some kind of dealership, where they have a new client. This guy is a cowboy hat wearing, flirting showoff who is making a big deposit, in cash. Marion is supposed to put in the bank but then if she did do just that then we wouldn't really have a movie would we. Marion takes the money for her and Sam and makes a break for California.
While trying to make the drive to Sam Marion has to pull over and take a nap, which leads to a reasonable policeman making the necessary enquirers. One of the longest lasting Hitchcock cliches is the huge paranoia of the police due to a traumatic childhood experience. The policeman is shot in a looming, imposing closeup with dark shades that block out his eyes and this may be Hitchcock blocking out the police mans very soul.
While trying to make it to Marion has to pullup in The Bates Motel where she finds an empty Motel a house that stands darkly looming behind it with a figure of a woman in the window. Then comes down Norman Bates, played by Anthony Perkins. The Bates Motel is a real living building, made for the film that is just outside of Hollywood and still stands to this day.
Anthony Perkins is one of the great examples of perfect casting, he is handsome enough and makes all the correct gestures as to what people are meant to do is social situations but during the conversation between him and Marion, you can see beneath the surface something brewing. Constantly during their conversation it always goes back to Bates mother, all he really has is his stuffed birds, they are harmless but they are positioned ready to pounce on their prey, Marion is in danger the birds subliminally make the audience aware of that fact.
Janet Leigh meets her fate with one of the most parodied, recognizable scene in all of movie history where a dark silhouetted figure swipes away the shower curtain and stabs Marion to death. The scenes genius works by only suggesting the nudity and of her being stabbed. In fact, there is nothing shown that is indecent, you only see what you would see walking on a beach. The Black and White works better than color would have ever worked because of the blood, really they used chocolate syrup for what gets pored down the drain but in the confines of the movie the Black is more striking and effective than if they would have used fake blood. One of the problems with the scene is that it is so well known and as soon as Marion steps into the shower and we see the water running we can set our watches to the scene and are thinking less about the incredibly well put together montage that took the crew seven days to shoot, the Looney Toons or The Simpsons is running through our heads.
This scene is what shocked audiences to their core in 1960, they went to a Hitchcock movie, saw a Hitchcock girl up on screen and then to see her brutally killed off at the hour mark with forty minutes left of the film to go they must have been near traumatized. Interesting fact in the shot where the camera zooms out from Marion's dead eye, Alma Hitchcock, Alfred wife of over forty years and filmmaking partner took one look at that shot and the first thing she said was "you can see the pulse on her neck", Hitchcock was then found in a bit of a sad state when he said "she hates the movie" only proving that he valued her opinion above all else.
After the scene, Norman has to clean up for his mother and dispose of Marion's body. The scene plays through in meticulous attention to detail with Norman cleaning up the body, the blood, checking the draws for anything she might have left, flushing the toilet (which is the first toilet flush in the history of the movies). It is theorized that the audience naturally gravitates to whoever is onscreen even though Norman is cleaning up after a wrongful a murder we seem to want his to clean up every last piece of evidence. Eventually, he gets the forty thousand dollars that are wrapped up in a newspaper so he has no idea what he had in his hand and drives Marion's car into the swamp.
The music is by Bernard Herman one of the great Hitchcock collaborators, much like he was associated with working with James Stewart or Cary Grant, behind the scenes Hitchcock would work with Herman to produce some of the most recognizable music in the movies. A good movie theme is something that works to strengthen the movie by playing the appropriate type of music relevant to the situation and works to heighten the situation. Also the level of how recognizable the theme is a key factor, the music has to be something that you recognize easily. A great theme is something you hear and you know where it's from and you think of the great scenes that they are played over.
Another one of the continuous reoccurring themes in Hitchcock movies was the mother, the ever-present, ever domineering mother that kicks their child while their down. Psycho may have the ultimate example of this, with one of the most controlling of all mother in any Hitchcock or even movie in general.
The killing of Marion also led to Hitchcock making another very bold crucial decision, he would insist that the theater is closed to anyone who was late to the showing of Psycho. There would be posters with Hitchcock with his finger on his watch with the slogan "no one...but no one...will be admitted to the theater after the start each performance". Hitchcock had already gambled a lot on the movie and now he was denying a portion of the audience that might turn up late and probably cut some of the total box offices, but this only served to entice audience members to come and see why they must not be late for this film particularly. This was nothing less than a stroke of genius for the film's marketing.
Being that Hitchcock made Psycho without the studio's backing and therefore without having to make the film according to its approval of ethics and conduct Psycho may stand as the only pure, one hundred percent Hitchcock film where he never had to pull his punches and show and deal with the subjects that fascinated him.
After Marion's death, the movie refocuses to Sam, Marion's sister Lila (Vera Miles) and a private investigator Aborgast (Martin Balsam) who is searching for the money. His investigation, of course leads his to the Bates Motel where he is too good at his job and he meets the same fate as Marion, but not before calling Lila and telling her where he is and that he's going to investigate.
Throughout Psycho there is always a feeling that the characters are in a traditional Hitchcock movie they act as though Marion has run off with the money and is planning to run away with her lover, or her and Norman Bates are in cahoots, or that Norman took the money from Marion because he wants to get out of his dead-end business and start a new one with his newly acquired money. Little do they know that what lies beneath is so much darker and twisted than what they could have possibly predicted.
Sam and Lila also work their way to the Bates Motel and there the truth is eventually revealed, there is no longer a Mrs. Bates or more accurately as the psychologist very neatly explains to us that there is no longer a Norman Bates but now Mother has taken over and Bates ever since the day he killed her has been acting out his mothers wishes to punish her son for his sins.
Eventually, the car gets pulled out of the swamp like the ugly truth emerging into the light. Hitchcock gambled and he won big time, Psych only cost around eight hundred thousand dollars to make and brought in forty million a huge success. Nobody ever questioned Hitchcock as a master ever again, he went on with whatever project he wanted and gained immortality and one of his crowning achievements. After all who else could have made Psycho than Alfred Hitchcock one of the most artistic, fully realized Psychos in history.
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