In "Cousin Tundifer" there are a couple of old houses shown next to each other in the style of the Psycho house. Does anyone know if they are still standing at the studio? Has anyone seen them in person? I don't remember them being used in any other shows.
shareWe had a psycho-type house that was at Universal Studios in Florida. It was torn down so that they could use the land for something else. Maybe in Universal Studios in LA?
shareLocations for Thriller include Revue Studios in Studio City and Colonial Street in backlot of Universal Studios. It looks an awful lot like the town sets for Twilight Zone but that was MGM in Culver City. Not sure how far apart they were.
shareHere is a collection of photos of the houses on Colonial Street at Universal Studios. Apparently the house used in Cousin Tundifer was also used as the Munsters house, and later part of it was used to make the Psycho house (which was just a two-walled facade.
http://www.retroweb.com/universal_colonial_street.html
"...used as the Munsters house, and later part of it was used to make the Psycho house".
"Psycho" was filmed in late 1959 and early 1960. The first season of "The Musters" was made in 1964. Therefore, pieces of "The Munsters" house were not used to make the "Psycho" house.
The Purple House:http://youtu.be/BmUdkko91PY
shareI swear that the staircase in "Mr. George" is the one from PSYCHO.
shareYes. The house certainly is the one Norman Bates lived in. Odd to see it on a turn of the (20th) century city street in Mr. George. A beautifully made episode.
shareWhat's interesting to me about Thriller is that while it used the famous EXTERIOR of the Psycho house in at least one episode(with Tom Poston) and maybe more, this may be one of the only shows to use some sets from the INTERIOR: the foyer, the staircase, simply "re-dressed with new props."
Thriller premiered in the fall of 1960, just as Psycho was finishing a theatrical run that started in June and ran through September or so. Filming on Psycho had finished in February of 1960, so not only was the house exterior there for the taking, so were those interiors.
The EXTERIOR Psycho house was used all through the 60's and into the 70's on Universal TV and movie productions. (Though it changed since 1960 -- walls were built on the rear and the right side of the house that had not been built for the original -- where the house was only seen from the front and the left side.)
My guess is that the INTERIOR Psycho house sets were eventually "struck" and destroyed. Old movie soundstage sets didn't have much staying power.
Alfred Hitchcock himself only allowed the Psycho house exterior to be used on his TV series once but it was for a great, scary episode from near the end of the series run ("An Unlocked Window.")
Meanwhile, the Bates Motel was evidently left standing long enough for John Gavin of Psycho to appear beside it in the FINAL 1965 episode of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour -- "Off Season" -- directed by William Friedkin (eventually to direct The French Connection and The Exorcist.)
Over time all the original sets (inside AND outside) of Psycho had fallen apart(the house was rebuilt) but Thriller was made right after Psycho and got to use a LOT of the sets and props from that famous forbear.
I've read somewhere that the Bates Mansion was dismantled circa 1980. It's supposed to re-surface as a grand-looking beach house in Chevy Chase's 'Modern Problems' in 1981.
shareI've read somewhere that the Bates Mansion was dismantled circa 1980. It's supposed to re-surface as a grand-looking beach house in Chevy Chase's 'Modern Problems' in 1981.
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The physical status of the Psycho House, the Bates Motel, and their interior soundstage sets has been open to debate over the years.
It seems that all the interiors were torn down first -- though you can see some of them in a few Thriller episodes, and the Psycho staircase is reported re-dressed for Gregory Peck to meet private eye Telly Savalas upstairs at hotel where a woman has been attacked in Cape Fear (1991.)
The exterior of the Bates Motel is supposedly used in Off Season with John Gavin -- the final episode of the Alred Hitchcock Hour and of ALL Hitchcock episodes.
That was in 1965. One year earlier in 1964, the Bates Motel exterior evidently is used in the remake of "The Killers" with Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, and Ronald Reagan(as a crime boss!) The film is in color, the motel is painted yellow and covered with more foliage than the original.
But it is the Bates Mansion that seems to have survived the longest and "sneakily" been rebuilt over the decades so that not a board of it is from the original 1960 production. (Again, such fairly "shoddy" studio set worksmanship is just not built to last.)
The "original" 1960 Bates Mansion seems to appear in some Thriller episodes, one Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and some Universal Westerns like The Virginian. It is also in Western movie with Yul Brynner called "Invitation to a Gunfight" -- often seen from the OTHER side of the 1960 movie - so that other side(and a rear wall) were built later.
There are pages out there that trace the house and its movement arll around the Universal lot. It is in a 1971 Night Gallery episode where Leslie Nielsen spends the night in a haunted house.
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But we can figure it started to be taken apart and re-built -- and spruced up for Psycho II in 1983. No new Bates Motel was built for Psycho II; just the office area and parlor. (A matte painting was used for one long shot of the motel.)
For Psycho III in 1986, a new Bates Motel was built and many scenes were set there. (Both house and motel were used in a 1986 episode of Spielberg's Amazing Stories that they probably inspired: the plot is about a teenage Psycho fan who gets transported into the movie!)
It is.
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