Happy Mothers Day, Mrs. Bates, 2017!

Sunday May 14.

Its a Psycho holiday, that's for sure.

Some years ago, the Encore Mystery cable channel ran Psycho back-to-back or 24 hours on Mother's Day...I recall watching the end, then the whole movie, and then the beginning just to sample three of the showings.

TBS ran Psycho as a Mother's Day staple for a few years, too, though just once on the day.

One critic wrote of the original 1960 Psycho that it "dealt Mother Love a blow from which it may well not recover," but certainly Psycho kept the concept of Mother Love so well in view that we've had decades of Mrs. Bates, from the old crone of Hitchcock's original and two of the sequels to the Young Olivia Hussey of Psycho IV and the Middle Aged but Vibrant Vera Farmiga of Bates Motel.

Not to mention...Norman Bates himself as the incarnation of Mother in all his ways. I prefer to think of Tony Perkins, 1960, running into the fruit cellar in Mom's duds with that blood thirsty smile , as the "true" version of Mother as Norman.

To the good, this baddest of Bad Mothers should remind all of us to honor, or remember , our own mothers who -- in my case at least -- was everything that the 1960 Mrs. Bates was not. I can't imagine my mother ever saying to me "I'm sorry , boy but you do manage to look ludicrous trying to give me orders." She was a lot nicer than that.

Happy Mother Day's ,Norman. You've kept Mother front and center in American movies and cable television for well on 60 years now.