While Psycho was "the big one" in terms of showing a truly monstrous mother controlling her weak offspring(a man here)...Hitchcock had been giving us more a FEW "dominating" or "too intimate" mothers before then.
The mother in Notorious probably started it all -- I cannot recall a mother of that nature in any Hitchcock film before then -- but AFTER the Notorious mother, we got:
Psycho Bruno's mother in Strangers on a Train(unwilling to accept his insanity, let alone his murderous evil -- "She's a nutty as the son."
Grace Kelly's widowed mother (Jessie Royce Landis) in To Catch a Thief -- travelling with her daughter everywhere, being rather flirtation with Cary Grant(and why not? Older people have lustful feelings, too) and in the final line of the movie , Grace Kelly tells Cary Grant of his mountaintop villa "Oh...Mother will LOVE it here."
Henry Fonda's plain Italian-American mother in The Wrong Man. This one's "nice" -- the actress had actually played a simlilar -- and more domineering and burdensome mother to Ernest Borgnine in Marty. But in The Wrong Man, she believes in her son and urges him to pray for help -- which he gets. (Hitchcock was a religious man who believed in God.)
Gary Grant's widowed mother (Jessie Royce Landis, AGAIN) in North by Northwest. It must have tickled Hitchcock to "transfer" Grace Kelly's rather funny and flamboyant mother directly TO Cary Grant for the second movie. (Landis was only a little older than Grant, but it didn't matter.) Mrs. Thornhill increases the suspense of the story because she doesn't believe her son's tales of spies and kidnapping and life-endangerment ("You men aren't REALLY trying to kill my son, are you?") She's a most UNHELPFUL mother -- comic relief of sorts -- and at the same time is sort of "the leading lady" of the movie ("coupled" with Grant) until Eva Marie Saint comes in.
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ecarle (14979)
2 years ago
Mrs. Bates came next but the weird thing about her is that compared to the Hitchocck mothers who came before her, and the Hitchcock mothers who came AFTER her -- she's a pretty weird, "fake" construct. When she's not a murdering psychopathic monster, she's a VOICE that cackles and yells (very much an old lady voice -- sort of a real "witch") and belittles her son mercilessly. She's a real "extreme case," and in the end we learn why: its because Norman has invented her as such, in his mind.
So a couple of much more "real" Hitchcock mothers came nexe:
Mrs. Brenner in The Birds -- clinging and fearful rather than murderous and out to keep her son for herself. Yet another widow, Mrs. Brenner has "re-created a marriage" with her own son, with the young girl in the family as a surrogate daughter TO her son. Its all very weird and it takes Tippi Hedren AND The Birds to make it normal.
Marnie's mother in Marnie. I don't think she's "Mrs. Edgar" because I don't think she ever married. Marnie was illegitmate. All the other Hitchcock mothers were widows and Hitchcock opined on this: "So often the husband dies first and it is up to the mother not to burden their children." And yet, they do. (Sometimes with welcoming arms, sometimes less so.) The "twist" with old woman who so coldly ignores Marnie and so hates men(as Mrs. Bates hated women) is that it turns out she was a prostitute when younger -- and little Marnie killed one of her johns. (The sickest moment in the flashback to this is when Marnie's mother -- a sexy sexpot in flashback -- carries the sleeping Marnie out their bedroom to take a sailor IN.)
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ecarle (14979)
2 years ago
After a run of mothers from North by Northwest through Marnie, Hitchcock "took a break" from them for almost every movie he made to the end of his career, save one: Frenzy.
Frenzy is about another psycho killer -- and a rapist to boot -- and we meet his mother. Unlike Mrs. Bates, she's alive. We don't know if she's widowed and we only meet her once, but the killer has ONLY his mother's photo on his mantle and Hitchcock's "history with mothers of psychos" tells us to think about her. Mrs. Rusk may have done things with -- and to -- her son that helped form him as the impotent sexual psychopath that he is. Also: both Bob Rusk(the psycho son) and Mrs. Rusk are British, Cockney characters and that somehow contrasts them to the American mothers.
But then Mrs. Sebastian isn't American or English and seems to get the title: The First Hitchcock Mother.
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