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California Charlie's Car Lot

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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In a pretty daring move(even for more narrative-driven 1960) Hitchcock doesn't get us to the Bates Motel until Psycho has hit the 30 minute mark.

Until that point, we get "the ballad of Marion Crane," equal parts banality and paranoia.

Though with a nice fillip of sex. How brilliant was it of Hitchcock (and Joe Stefano) to open the film with the first (and last) display of sexy necking, undressed bodies and sexual torpor of Marion and Sam?

For with that "sex launch" to the movie, we were perhaps more willing to put up with scenes that would show us Marion working at her office, packing a bag, parrying with a highway partrolman and...

...buying a used car to replace her now "hot" current vehicle.

I dunno: is there another movie that gets into the high pressure angst of buying a car? Because oh boy, it IS an angst-ridden experience if you've ever done it at a car lot. The way the salesmen are grouped in "predatory desperation," and how one eventually selects you out and ...the pressure is on. For a purchase that will take a lot out of your pocket or future installment payments, and is generally non-refundable.

I think Hitchcock understood this when he worked on the Psycho script with Joe Stefano. Bloch's novel had spoken to Marion/Mary buying new cars TWICE -- but we were just told this, not shown in detail. Moreover, in the book, Arbogast detailed to Sam and Lila how he, personally, stopped at the various car lots and TRACED Marion's car switches(in the movie, we get the feeling that Arbogast flew directly to Fairvale.)

So Bloch's novel put a lot of weight on the car purchase angle, and Hitchcock evidently instructed Stefano to "boil down" the car purchase to one transaction, and one scene. But a VERY suspenseful, paranoid -- and sometimes funny scene.

Stern father-figure California Charlie. His very name is a plot point: CALIFORNIA Charlie. Marion has left Arizona("Out of state license and all.") Its a funny plot point: the guy is named after a STATE? That has likely hundreds of car lots? Oh, well -- the point is taken (though not always, some critics thought that ALL of Psycho was set in Arizona.)

California Charlie has lots of nerve-wracking lines:

"First customer of the day is always the most trouble."

"You can do anything you want, and bein' a woman, you will."

"First time I've ever heard of the customer high-pressuring the salesman."(I LOVE that line, and so did Hitchcock: it repeats in Marion's voices in her head.)

"I take it you can prove the car is yours? Out of state license and all."

"What's the matter, somebody chasin' you?"

"Over there." (Said sharply, MEANLY, to Marion's inquiry about where the ladies room is. And hey, is there any movie before Psycho where a woman asks where the ladies room is? Its that toilet thing, again.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The location of California Charlie's car lot is a bit of "Hollywood magic."

In the film, it is meant to be in Bakersfield, California, about 120 miles north of Los Angeles, and the "gateway to the California Central Valley." Non-Californians would not know this. As for everybody else, we do get a POV shot from Marin's car where the sign "Bakersfield City Limits" can be seen but -- blink and you will miss it.

"Gaffe hounds" note that the Bakersfield thoroughfare has more lanes than the street from which Marion's car drives onto California Charlie's lot. There's a reason for that:

California Charlie's lot(for the dramatic dialogue sequence) wasn't in Bakersfield. It was in North Hollywood California -- about two blocks from Universal Studios where Psycho was filmed on the studio soundstages and backlot.

Question: has any OTHER Hollywood movie ever had the luxury of filming a major scene just two blocks away from the studio? I mean, when Marion buys her Los Angeles paper from the street box, if the camera had panned up and above her, you'd see "Universal City."

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I have personally visited that car lot. I'd say recently, but it was in 1998...the year that Van Sant's Psycho came out. And I've never been back. In '98, that lot(a Ford lot when Hitch made Psycho) sold "Mini-Coopers," -- those little boxy cars featured in "The Italian Job." And where in '60 there had been, across the street, a bar/restaurant called "Sirrocco"(shown with the cop leaning against his car), in '98 that place was long gone and a big parking garage filled the entire block. (A sad "time machine" effect thus travels with Psycho 1960: the area around the car lot is gone just as most of the Phoenix skyline in the film is gone.)

Managing to politely shoo away the car salesmen who approached me, I placed myself where Marion talked with Charlie, and then I walked around the back and found the small side street(with the same houses) where Hitchcock had his extras walk back and forth to create "color." As I recall, the main office where Charlie goes to do his paperwork is built out and covered up; some of the area where Marion and Charlie talked is inside, not outside, now.

So much of Psycho is a soundstage movie, or a backlot movie(Main Street Fairvale, the church) that its locations are pretty valuable to know: Phoenix, Gorman(where the cop questions Marion), Highway 99 (the long, long long drive into night.)

But Phoenix was second-unit work as was 99. The only locations you can visit are Gorman and the car lot. Well, you CAN stand at that intersection where Lowery crosses in front of Marion in Phoenix(and I have), but actor Vaughn Taylor really walked in front of footage OF that intersection. Neither he nor Janet Leigh set foot in Phoenix to make Psycho.

Gorman looks the same -- I see it about once a year driving near LA.

But that car lot? Well, the structure of the main building is the same, as is the sales lot, but everything else -- the cars sold there, the parking lot across the street -- are totally different from 1960. Thus, Psycho is a record of a time and place long gone.

PS. Van Sant chose not to -- or was prevented from -- filming at that same car lot for his "shot by shot" remake of Psycho. I've never found the car lot he did film at, and it seems "sub-par," not designed with the precision that attracted Hitchcock's eye (well, its being two blocks away from Universal likely sealed the deal.)

PPS. Bakersfield, California is but ten miles from where Hitchcock filmed the crop duster scene for North by Northwest the year before. But the crop duster scene is supposed to be happening in Indiana. And the "Bakersfield car lot" in Psycho was really filmed in North Hollywood.

The movies lie to us, all the time.

[–] Mr_K_Pratt (11) 7 years ago

Coincidently, I just came across these 'Psycho filming location then and now' videos, featuring the car lot. I was going to start a new thread, but noticed yours!

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEo_NKxY8bU

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASNHtF-1dX4

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Well, there ya go! Thank you.

I see that others maintained a fascination with this "famous Hitchcock movie location" that can be found within a few blocks of Universal Studios.

The California Charlie scene rather benefits from the reality of the location, the sense that we are in a real place "en route" to the rather fantastic locale of the Bates Mansion and Motel.

[–] telegonus (736) 7 years ago

Charlie is a great character, EC, because not only was it a part veteran character actor John Anderson was born to play buy he manages to make his prickly lines sound intimidating without actually doing anything to suggest he's actually "on" to Marion. At an emotional level I think it's fair to say that he is without even realizing it,--this much is obvious--but he doesn't know the details. This is typical of many people in business, and in sales especially, who, if they're any good, develop a sixth sense about who they're dealing with, what's up with them, whether or not they can make a sale and whether it's even worth the time to try (it more often than not is, as dealing in a friendly manner with someone you know you can't sell anything to "in the moment" doesn't mean you won't/can't in the future, thus everyone you deal with is in this respect important,--I speak from experience).

All this aside, Charlie is only hip to Marion's anxiety, her desperate air, her need to move on quickly, her feelings of guilt, which I know sounds like LOL! That's a lot. However that may be, for a seasoned salesman-businessman like California Charlie it's actually fairly routine. Think of all the "desperate housewives" he's dealt with in his life. Not to mention husbands "fleeing" their wives. People are frequently nervous, edgy and suspicious seeming for a host of reasons, none of them related to crime. This is the nature of the beast. The highway cop was more problematical, however Charlie's later bonding with him doesn't necessarily suggest they're going to "do anything" regarding Marion. For his part, Charlie's just "sharing", as we like to say. Even the cop, intimidating as he is to the viewer, who sees him from Marion's perspective, is just doing his job, just as the nearly always intimidating Sgt. Joe Friday on Dragnet is. He looks, has his suspicions, ponders the matter, then moves on. There's no concrete evidence that this seemingly "troubled" woman is worth pursuing.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Charlie is a great character, EC, because not only was it a part veteran character actor John Anderson was born to play

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A bit of a parlor game here. Who else IN THE CAST of Psycho could play each other roles:

California Charlie: John Anderson OR John McIntire

The psychiatrist: Simon Oakland OR Martin Balsam

Arbogast: Martin Balsam OR Simon Oakland OR John Anderson(who would be closer to Arbogast in Bloch's novel, but as you have noted, telegonus, Malcolm Atterbury from NXNW --the farmer -- and The Birds -- the sheriff, would be a great fit.)

Marion Crane: Janet Leigh OR Vera Miles (said Hitchcock: "In the average production I would have given Janet Leigh (the sister role.))

But for all those "switcheroos," precision won out: Hitchcock picked EXACTLY the right people for the right roles.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

buy he manages to make his prickly lines sound intimidating without actually doing anything to suggest he's actually "on" to Marion.

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His questions and comments have "edge" but the paranoid Marion thinks they all "mean he knows." Or COULD know. Its a beautiful study in paranoia(as was the scene with the cop, who SHOWS UP HERE.)

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At an emotional level I think it's fair to say that he is without even realizing it,--this much is obvious--but he doesn't know the details.

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Some of his lines simply "hit wrong": ("First customer of the day is always the most trouble" and the one about "bein' a woman, you will.")

But some of his lines evidence suspicion:

"First time I've seen the customer high pressure the salesman."

"Somebody chasin' you?"

And he finally comes right out and asks about Marion's ownership of the car. At this point, Charlie is telling Marion "Look, this is all too suspicious. I have to ask."

But Marion has the great retort: "I believe I have the necessary papers." All business.

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This is typical of many people in business, and in sales especially, who, if they're any good, develop a sixth sense about who they're dealing with, what's up with them, whether or not they can make a sale and whether it's even worth the time to try (it more often than not is, as dealing in a friendly manner with someone you know you can't sell anything to "in the moment" doesn't mean you won't/can't in the future, thus everyone you deal with is in this respect important,--I speak from experience).

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I expect you would be a very good salesman , telegonus. You have the right manners and attitude. I've done a little in my youth and I know what you're talking about even as I'm not sure I was very good at it. Simply put: ones I thought would certainly buy...didn't. Ones I thought WOULDN'T buy...did. But I can't say I did enough of it to know.

[–] telegonus (736) 7 years ago

Okay. Why not?

While I can see John McIntire as Charlie easily enough I don't think that John Anderson would have been right for Al Chambers. He strikes me as a more limited player than McIntire. Imagine Anderson delivering the line (and I quote from memory here) "well, if that was Mrs Bates in the window then who's that bury up at Greenlawn cemetery?". Mcintire's reading was perfect, with a deadpan knowingness that I've never seen in Anderson's work, or at least not that I can remember.

Martin Balsam could likely have played the shrink as well as Oakland he'd also likely have not had Oakland's near operatic bravura. Again, "reading the lines" is so important in a movie. A lot of classic movie "one liners" are remembered as much for the perfection of the delivery as for the lines themselves. Think Groucho in anything, and especially in his interactions with Margaret Dumont in any of the "brothers" pix. Oakland, on the other hand, might have been too assertive in his scenes with Norman had he played Arbogast. Balsam, famously, acted WITH Perkins in Psycho. We can only how the more strident Oakland would have played it.

For Marion, I'd say Vera Miles could have played the part enough, although Janet Leigh suggested vulnerability beneath the surface, while Miles had a somewhat hard look to her, had it even in her "going mad" scenes in The Wrong Man. In her television work, too, Miles often played a "hard case". I think of her dominatrix, especially in her dealings with (implied) partner Barbara Rush in The Outer Limits episode The Forms Of Things Unknown.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Okay. Why not?

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Casting can be its own parlor game. With so many movies, I've read of "first choices" not gotten. Alternate versions of the characters we know.

Hitchcock split 50/50 on his screen psychos and first choices. Anthony Perkins was the first choice for Psycho and Robert Walker was the first choice for Strangers on a Train. But William Powell was the first choice for Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt and Michael Caine was the first choice for Rusk in Frenzy. Imagine those two latter roles with the "first choices," and the movies change in our mind.

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While I can see John McIntire as Charlie easily enough I don't think that John Anderson would have been right for Al Chambers. He strikes me as a more limited player than McIntire. Imagine Anderson delivering the line (and I quote from memory here) "well, if that was Mrs Bates in the window then who's that bury up at Greenlawn cemetery?". Mcintire's reading was perfect, with a deadpan knowingness that I've never seen in Anderson's work, or at least not that I can remember.

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Well, line reading is the thing, isn't it. Anderson was always on the grim, stoic side, McIntire could raise and eyebrow and put a little special delivery on his lines that had some flavor. And he had those big rooster eyebrows to furrow...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Martin Balsam could likely have played the shrink as well as Oakland he'd also likely have not had Oakland's near operatic bravura.

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Well, here, I see Balsam as possessing(at that time) a kind of "suave sophistication" that would have fit the shrink, and actually gave Arbogast a lot more "pizazz" than a more "flat" character guy(say, John Anderson) could have.

But Oakland certainly plays for the big flourish, whereas Balsam underplays.

Recall that Joseph Stefano recommended both Balsam and Oakland for their roles. Hitchcock viewed film on them, and hired them. So they were "first choices."

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Again, "reading the lines" is so important in a movie.

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And in singing(think: Sinatra) , and in stand-up comedy(think Richard Pryor.) Which is why there is a "mix and match" to these professions. Sinatra and Pryor became movie stars -- actors. Line readers.

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A lot of classic movie "one liners" are remembered as much for the perfection of the delivery as for the lines themselves. Think Groucho in anything, and especially in his interactions with Margaret Dumont in any of the "brothers" pix.

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Groucho: I'm standing up for the honor of this woman!...which is more than SHE ever did.

I've got a lifetime Hitchcock Jones, but back in the 70's, I was heavy into Groucho Marx (in his Brothers period.) But also in the 70's, in LA, they ran re-runs of his fifties game show "You Bet Your Life" and THAT was a huge syndication hit.

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Oakland, on the other hand, might have been too assertive in his scenes with Norman had he played Arbogast. Balsam, famously, acted WITH Perkins in Psycho. We can only imagine how the more strident Oakland would have played it.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I suppose the playout of this casting exercise is to realize that Hitchcock -- who had viewed film on Balsam and Oakland and likely had a good feeling for their acting styles (Balsam in 12 Angry Men; Oakland in I Want to Live) and cast just right.

In the 60's, Hitchcock:

Hired Martin Balsam to improvise and act opposite Tippi Hedren in her Birds screen test.

Hired Simon Oakland to improvise and act opposite discovery Claire Griswold in her Marnie screen test.

The Balsam/Hedren test is on The Birds DVD; Tippi has to kiss Marty a lot. Balsam wasn't bad looking, but in "movie terms," Hedren should have been kissing John Gavin. Perhaps Hitchcock couldn't bring himself to have Tippi kiss a handsome man other than in the movie.

I wonder about Simon and Claire?

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

For Marion, I'd say Vera Miles could have played the part enough, although Janet Leigh suggested vulnerability beneath the surface, while Miles had a somewhat hard look to her, had it even in her "going mad" scenes in The Wrong Man. In her television work, too, Miles often played a "hard case". I think of her dominatrix, especially in her dealings with (implied) partner Barbara Rush in The Outer Limits episode The Forms Of Things Unknown.

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Yes, Vera had a toughness that only got tougher as the years went on.

Both Vera Miles and Janet Leigh played "guest killers" on the Columbo series in the 70's. Vera was a real meanie. Janet was sympathetic and didn't really even remember committing her murder -- Columbo allows her to die of a brain tumor rather than arresting her.

Its funny: Hitchcock famously wanted to turn Vera Miles into another Grace Kelly and got furious when Miles quit Vertigo over a pregnancy. Had Hitchcock made Vera Miles a bigger star, maybe she could have been "the big star who gest killed in Psycho." But Janet Leigh was that person in 1960.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

All this aside, Charlie is only hip to Marion's anxiety, her desperate air, her need to move on quickly,

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"You shouldn't be in a hurry when you're buying a car..."
"Is there anything that wrong with making a decision and wanting to move along?"(Or something like that.)

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However that may be, for a seasoned salesman-businessman like California Charlie it's actually fairly routine. Think of all the "desperate housewives" he's dealt with in his life. Not to mention husbands "fleeing" their wives. People are frequently nervous, edgy and suspicious seeming for a host of reasons, none of them related to crime. This is the nature of the beast.

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Excellent insights. I always felt roughly the same way about Arbogast. As a 1960 private eye he likely has a lot of experience with motels, their keepers , and those who run there. A motel to a "divorce detective" is a hotbed of adultery,and Norman Bates IS good looking. Which is why I think Arbogast works up a theory about Norman and Marion as LOVERS. ("Did you spend the night with her?..." "Did this Marion Crane want you to gallantly protect her? You'd know you were being used.") Arbo might even be thinking that Marion brought Norman into the crime somehow("Not even if shepaid you?")

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The highway cop was more problematical, however Charlie's later bonding with him doesn't necessarily suggest they're going to "do anything" regarding Marion. For his part, Charlie's just "sharing", as we like to say. Even the cop, intimidating as he is to the viewer, who sees him from Marion's perspective, is just doing his job, just as the nearly always intimidating Sgt. Joe Friday on Dragnet is. He looks, has his suspicions, ponders the matter, then moves on. There's no concrete evidence that this seemingly "troubled" woman is worth pursuing.

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Hitchcock conveys the cop's menace(at first) by his LOOK. That huge, immobile face filling the screen. The sunglasses(which give him, wrote somebody, an insect look.) His robotic size and stillness(though his line readings are actually rather friendly and even warm -- such as his suggestion that Marion stay in a motel instead of sleeping in her car.)

Much as Norman gives himself away to Arbogast when he slips up about the old couple, Marion triggers the cop's authoritarian side when she answers him this way:

Cop: Is anything wrong?
Marion: Am I acting like anything is wrong?
Cop: Well, frankly...yes. Is there?
Marion. No. Its just that I'm in a hurry and you're taking up my time.

BUZZ.

You can't say that to a cop. And he reacts:

Cop: Now, just a minute. Turn your engine off, please.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I've said that Psycho has "other movies that play in our minds" ...the story before we come in, the story after, the story "beneath"(what's really going on at the Bates Motel.)

Well, here's my theory about how the Cop and California Charlie figured into Psycho well after the movie ends.

With Norman Bates arrested, photos of his victims -- Marion Crane and Arbogast, AT LEAST -- would end up in California-wide newspapers and national magazines.

And we can figure: both the cop and California Charlie would read those papers and see Marion's photo -- and KNOW: "Oh, no, that's that woman I saw...she sure was acting suspicious. Did THIS have anything to do with that?"

The answer of course is no. And I'll bet this, too: the newspaper articles wouldn't get into the embezzlement at all. Cassidy and Lowery don't want it known. Lila and Sam don't want it known. Arbogast could just be portrayed as hired to go after a missing person.

And thus, the cop and California Charlie would never REALLY know why Marion was so jumpy.

Though I'll bet the cop thought: "Damn...I should have arrested her for SOMETHING. Maybe she never would have gone to that motel...hey, wait, I TOLD her to go to a motel."

And then he would have a drink. Maybe two.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

One might wonder: All this "fantasy speculation." About two characters -- the cop and California Charlie -- who never really existed, and who weren't on screen very long, and "really shouldn't matter."

But they do. They are in a great movie. A powerful movie that nobody forgets once they see it.

And characters can and DO motivate us to think about them in other ways. ALL characters do, in the great movies.

Psycho especially. Didn't everybody figure that Sam and Lila might marry? In a very sad marriage based on tragedy? Well Psycho II says they did.

Billy Wilder said he was inspired to write "The Apartment" based on a movie he saw and loved called "Brief Encounter," about an adulterous couple who use the bed of the man's friend for affair time. Said Wilder: "I wanted to make a movie about the man who had to get in his bed while it was still warm from the couple using it."

But Wilder said something almost as important to me. He said that once he saw Brief Encounter, "I couldn't get it out of my head for days."

The great movies do that. Sometimes longer.

[–] telegonus (736) 7 years ago

Mort Mills probably gave the performance of his career as the highway cop in Psycho. In other things I've seen him in he was competent, intelligent and sharp, much like Sam Wanamaker and Lee Philips, with whom he compares favorably but for his lack of leading man good looks.

In Psycho, the highway cop was like the angel of death for Marion. One might almost say that "he got to her" before Norman, even going so far as to suggest that she stay at a motel! Like the little "scarecrow man" in The Twilight Zone The Hitch-Hiker he was leading the way for a woman driver...to death!

The cop, however, had no intent, as such: this was his function in the film. Yet he "protected" Marion as well, in a strange way. One might say that he foretold her doom, by his very appearance, as representative of the Law, and that in his absence, well, le deluge, as the saying goes.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Mort Mills probably gave the performance of his career as the highway cop in Psycho.

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Likely so. Interesting that he was in that OTHER Janet Leigh motel movie by a Film God(Touch of Evil) and he has more scenes and more to do in that one. (He's an assistant DA assisting cop Charlton Heston.) But that was a "regular" role. Here he is working for Hitchcock in that rather otherworldly, formalistic -- dare I say "arty" mode --that separates Hitchcock from the pack. The cop is a visual, physical MENACE, and yet his words are pleasantly spoken enough, his curiosity human enough, his advice caring enough ("There are plenty of motels in the area, you should have...I mean, just to be safe.")

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In other things I've seen him in he was competent, intelligent and sharp, much like Sam Wanamaker and Lee Philips, with whom he compares favorably but for his lack of leading man good looks.

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I love your in-depth knowledge of all actors from all eras , telegonus -- its one of your personal calling cards -- and for once I know the two other guys you are talking about, though I know Sam Wanamaker better. He had a certain "genteel power" to him, an elegant looking man who often played murderous gangsters (like late in his career, versus Arnold Schwarzenegger in Raw Deal.)

Quite exactly how/why you line up Mort Mills to Wanamaker and Phillips is an interesting angle on how any of us see different actors.

BTW, it looks like Mort Mills was a semi-regular on Perry Mason, as a cop, but I know YOU know that. And Mills benefitted from the many Western TV shows of the time; he made a good desperado. (He's even in "The Three Stooges Meet the Outlaws," yes?)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And Mort Mills holds an exalted honor in Hitchocck's canon: to my knowledge, he is the only player in Psycho who got to appear in ANOTHER Hitchcock film -- Torn Curtain, where he's a rough-hewned, cynical American spy(faking being a farmer) in East Germany. Alas, lighting didn't strike twice. Its no Psycho.

And consider this: Anthony Perkins swore that Hitchcock wanted HIM for the Paul Newman role in Torn Curtain, but was overruled by the studio. Had Perkins made Torn Curtain, HE would have shared a scene with Mort Mills as Janet Leigh did.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

In Psycho, the highway cop was like the angel of death for Marion. One might almost say that "he got to her" before Norman, even going so far as to suggest that she stay at a motel!

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The cops line about motels is one of the many, many, many ironies in a Hitchcock film filled with them. I also like how he says "plenty of motels in the area," reminding us that Marion picked JUST THE WRONG ONE out of those plenty. Only the Bates Motel is a deathtrap.

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Like the little "scarecrow man" in The Twilight Zone The Hitch-Hiker he was leading the way for a woman driver...to death!

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A very famous TZ episode with another blonde(Inger Stevens) and...yeah. Psycho and The Twilight Zone and Hitchcock's TV show were rather of the same "feel" in those years.

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The cop, however, had no intent, as such: this was his function in the film. Yet he "protected" Marion as well, in a strange way. One might say that he foretold her doom, by his very appearance, as representative of the Law, and that in his absence, well, le deluge, as the saying goes.

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All true. At a minimum, he's a warning that her crazy scheme won't ever work. But he's also a cautionary gatekeeper to the rest of Marion's trip. And he "echoes" later with Norman's tale of "the cruel eyes studying you" and how Arbogast, as well, early on gets a huge head/face close-up as his screen introduction.

The writer Raymond Durgnant brought in Puritan religious belief about the cop: "Under Puritan beliefs, God sends the cop to give Marion a chance at redemption, which she rejects, thereby doubling her damnation."

Or something like that.

[–] telegonus (736) 7 years ago

Durgnat was very sharp on Psycho. His comments on it in one of his earlier books,--Films & Feelings?--are inspired. He picked up on the greatness of the film. There is an underlying Puritan-Calvinist undercurrent in Psycho. Odd, when you consider that both screenwriter Joe Stefano and director Alf Hitchcock were Roman Catholic, but then America is at its moral core deeply Protestant, was and still is. The work ethic still rules, even as it's spread around a bit more than sixty years ago to includes play, and that includes sexuality. It's all in the mix: workouts, gyms, bike rides, mountaineering, skiing, schtupping, getting satisfaction, giving satisfaction, pulling your "own weight", giving back to society something after you've earned your fair share, and so on. Bewildering, and enough to make your head spin. So many rules, mandates, dictates; and all neatly internalized. If you are, for whatever the reason, outside that orbit, it can be simultaneously intimidating and off putting: people running around all the time, chained by rules, regulations and schedules, content in their self-created captivity, and calling it freedom.

[–] telegonus (736) 7 years ago

...and after that cheery mini-essay, back to the movie: it's all there early on. First, the tryst with Sam, then back to the office. The representatives of capitalism, Lowrey and Cassidy, make for an unappetizing couple, and their power is impressive. Lowrey has only his inner office air conditioned, but maybe, if they work real hard, the girls in the outer office can EARN their air conditioning. Maybe. Cassidy flashes his wad and talks about buying happiness. It's no wonder that Marion robs, on impulse, and out of frustration; and Cassidy was as rude and crude as she was polite and refined. But in the end it doesn't matter: he has power and she doesn't. So she decides to even the score.

In the larger scheme of things Marion has for all intents and purposes "damned" herself, and all she sees are symbols of punishment and damnation in the two men she encounters on her long drive to Fairvale. The cop was caring and yet frightening. He could see her face, she couldn't see his. No, he didn't know the truth about her, but he suspected, suspected something. Charlie's manner of speaking to and his interactions with Marion were unlucky in that he was one of those people who, when one encounters them on a bad day, seem to know how to push every button, every wrong button so as to make one squirm. Under normal circumstances he'd be a minor annoyance, a mere pebble in the shoe. But not on this day.

Then more bad luck in the rain, pulling into the wrong motel,--the first one, it's not like Marion wanted to get killed that night--and in better weather she might have shopped around a bit or driven straight into Fairvale. As to Norman, he didn't seem evil at first. His manner was empathetic. He was helpful, friendly. How could Marion have known that she was, to channel Norman's own words, stepping into a private trap? It's not like he killed every guest who spent the night in his motel. He was selective. Marion was, as he guessed early on, in flight.

[–] telegonus (736) 7 years ago

Psycho set up the terms, the basis, for Marion's "paying for her sins" early. There's sex with Sam,--on her lunch break, a no-no back in the day--and then the theft. If one were to view her actions "from above" she was a sinner even before she committed the real life crime of theft. It's like she was already driving down that road. Nowadays, this is an old-fashioned perspective, a WTF, but not in 1960.

It's not difficult to infer that if Marion had a weakness it was for men. She was modern and sophisticated in her dealings with Sam, and she seemed to feel that she needed him. He was hot. They were in a way a hot couple, and on the surface they had everything going for them: looks, youth, mojo. Everything but money. Maybe because she was so good looking she didn't seem to bond with women based on the one relationship with see with her and another woman she's clearly "way above" Pat Hitchcock's character. They live in different worlds. Pat's character likely didn't have, prior to her marriage, a whole lot of sexual experience; and yet she found a guy and got wed. Marion, I think it's reasonable to infer, had had many boyfriends. Pat "settled". Marion was not so easy to please. She wanted More. That wanting,--and that More--is what got her killed.

The cruel irony, of course, is that Marion had, the night she was murdered, in encountering the man who was going to kill her, met her soulmate, after a fashion, in Norman himself; however it was a bonding of opposites. Each could feel for the other person even as the connection was skin deep. Marion could sense Norman "in hiding" as well as he could sense Marion "in flight". It's difficult, from a 21st century perspective, to make sense of all this from a theological standpoint except to say that Norman was, as he already knew, "born damned", while Marion's "damnation" came more from what had happened to her afterwards, thus she had choices. Norman had "triggers". The shrink summed it up well enough.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

It's difficult, from a 21st century perspective, to make sense of all this from a theological standpoint except to say that Norman was, as he already knew, "born damned", while Marion's "damnation" came more from what had happened to her afterwards, thus she had choices.

---

This whole damnation angle is worth considering.

Hitchcock scholar Robin Wood said that the status of Norman Bates in the cell at the end -- as Mother "probably for all time" -- is a vision of "eternal damnation." Wood doesn't seem too compassionate towards this man(who now looks like a monster) who brutally killed two people before our eyes and killed at least four more. Damnation is likely the end of such evil. (Or three sequels, which are another kind of damnation.)

But what of Marion? In "1960 church terms," I suppose pre-marital sex and embezzlement are sins.

Dwight MacDonald in his pan of Psycho wrote, "There is to the shower murder a kind of irritating Hays Code moralizing: this is what necking, thieving girls get."

But I don't much feel that Hitchcock was considering Marion to be all THAT damned. He's non-judgmental. He told Truffaut "I think she's just an ordinary bourgeois" and he said that he filmed the erotic-underwear opening tryst because "I know that's how young people behave." And Hitchcock certainly gives Marion every good reason to at least attempt that theft -- its money Cassidy doesn't declare and can afford to lose. And he's a pig.

I expect that Hitchcock -- following Robert Bloch's story material -- WAS interested in rather "morally neutralizing" Marion Crane. Had Marion been the young married mother of two pre-schoolers, driving back from a state PTA convention en route to her family and THEN been killed in the shower --- audiences would have been repelled. But Marion is single, frazzled, a bit too "shady" in her dealings...she's a noir woman in certain ways and we can accept her killing even if it shocks us.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

It's not difficult to infer that if Marion had a weakness it was for men. She was modern and sophisticated in her dealings with Sam, and she seemed to feel that she needed him. He was hot. They were in a way a hot couple, and on the surface they had everything going for them: looks, youth, mojo.

---

Seeing them both semi-undressed in their first scene, its pretty clear that Sam and Marion are one of those "beautiful people couples" who just KNOW they should be together -- because they LOOK great together. I've known such couples. One of them broke up and then got back together because neither of them could quite find someone good looking enough to compare to the ex.

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Everything but money.

--

Its the weird bad problem to their relationship...but that happens, too. Hollywood is filled with beautiful people who grew up poor and used their looks to save themselves financially -- and then some. Of course, if they don't make it to stardom, there are always strip clubs and escort services to staff...

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Maybe because she was so good looking she didn't seem to bond with women based on the one relationship with see with her and another woman she's clearly "way above" Pat Hitchcock's character. They live in different worlds. Pat's character likely didn't have, prior to her marriage, a whole lot of sexual experience; and yet she found a guy and got wed. Marion, I think it's reasonable to infer, had had many boyfriends. Pat "settled". Marion was not so easy to please.

---

Hitchcock was an adroit director on casting. Rather rough: he selected his own DAUGHTER for the role of the "inferior" one, but he was ruthless in doing so. He had one of the best possible actresses for this role.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And its a great "human reality" that the dowdy Caroline might end up more "happy and permanently settled" in a "non-beautiful people marriage" than sexbomb Marion.

I am thinking of the sixties-set TV show "Mad Men" and how it demonstrated that all the "beautiful people" marriages broke up because the spouses cheated in light of "always being hit on , or always hitting on people, outside the marriage." It was a rueful take on marriage and sex: lead character Don Draper ended up twice divorced and paying a LOT of alimony(and child support) because of his alpha male cheating ways.

Now, none of this is set in stone. I know of several happy and long-lived "beautiful people" marriages where the spouses come to accept age and loss of perfect looks. And I've seen marriages between less than beautiful spouses break up.

But on balance, Psycho gets it right in this scene, with the famous line from Caroline to Marion:

Caroline: He was FLIRTING with you. He must have noticed my wedding ring.

Yeah, that's it. (And recall, in the Van Sant, the pretty Rita Wilson was cast as Caroline, and suddenly the joke evaporated.)

---

She wanted More. That wanting,--and that More--is what got her killed.

Yes -- to that extent, Psycho IS somewhat judgmental. Sam and Marion may have terrible edge-of-poverty workaday lives. But as the film goes on to show, they likely could have made it without the theft. Sam was going to propose marriage(we learn from his letter); Marion likely would have moved to Fairvale, lived in that room with Sam until an apartment or house could be rented; get some sort of job. Marion goes for "the easy way out" and it puts her on the road to the Bates Motel.

But Hitchcock is so even-handed we can see ALL of the options for Marion: not embezzling, embezzling and getting away with it(Sam and Marion in Mexico); banking the money on Monday morning, without the boss even knowing, giving the money back if Arbogast caught her, etc.

[–] telegonus (736) 7 years ago

Truly, EC: I too have known many plain and in some cases downright homely couples who had wonderful marriages and were great parents. In some cases their kids were even good looking! When I was young I knew a lot of attractive and truly privileged couples, twentysomethings and a bit older who in the looks, brains and education "departments" HAD IT All. Well, ALL but true happiness. In some respects they did have glamor and charisma, people liked them, gathered around them, GOSSIPED ABOUT THEM. Attractive couple gets that. Who gossiped about Archie and Edith Bunker? No one. Yet they had a decent marriage and an attractive, loving daughter.

Marion and Sam are to my eyes a fairly typical "handsome couple". If they'd only had money and lived in NYC, San Fran or L.A. they'd have been featured in those Sunday supplement articles on the best and the brightest in our town, etc. That still might not have made them happy, though. I sense that Sam's somewhat surly, bullying nature was somewhat inherent in his character, that it would have been there if his father had been a banker. Marion's more of a maybe, as in if she could accept Sam,--some women accept their "Sams" better than others--it might have worked.

As to Psycho, no one knew better than homely Alfred the vagaries of looks, money and power. One only has to look at the personal lives of some of the biggest stars and celebrities, and even more, their children's lives, from David Selznick and Jennifer Jones to Debbie Reynolds and the very unlucky in so many areas of her life daughter Carrie Fisher to see how awful things can be for children of the rich, famous and beautiful. Even if they inherent just one attribute,--looks, say--that still doesn't mean their lives will turn out well. Jane Fonda has not had an easy time of it, and she's been at least professionally successful. Her brother Peter has always struck me as deeply disturbed in some way, with an underlying hostility.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Truly, EC: I too have known many plain and in some cases downright homely couples who had wonderful marriages and were great parents.

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I can think of a few. From my outside view looking in, they truly loved each other and bonded. I'm assuming because they weren't gorgeous, there were few opportunities to stray(though we can't assume that either.) They were workmate companions, a true team.

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In some cases their kids were even good looking!

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I've known some couples like that. The "mix" yielded beautiful children from plain parents. Its pretty trippy when you see them all together.

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When I was young I knew a lot of attractive and truly privileged couples, twentysomethings and a bit older who in the looks, brains and education "departments" HAD IT All. Well, ALL but true happiness. In some respects they did have glamor and charisma, people liked them, gathered around them, GOSSIPED ABOUT THEM. Attractive couple gets that.

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Well, its human nature. There's also this: certain "dictates of nature" still apply. Pretty people seek out pretty people for mates. This only generally breaks with wealthy unattractive men(usually) who land beautiful trophy wives.

And my favorite: downright ugly rich male rock stars who mate with supermodels. The resulting kids are: a little of both.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Who gossiped about Archie and Edith Bunker? No one. Yet they had a decent marriage and an attractive, loving daughter.

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Yeah. I guess so. I watched the series intermittedly at best (not a TV snob, just not home much.) And I think the weird thing about that show was that while Archie was being portrayed as a "comic bad guy," the show couldn't help but attract America to CARE about Archie and his family, and how they just might all come out a bit more caring about each others political viewpoints, and how politics didn't even necessarily matter when matters of human life (marriage, births, deaths) overcame everything else.

But the bottom line: Archie and Edith were a couple meant to remain a couple. The competition of good looks was off the table...life could go on. And when Edith died, and Archie found her sole slipper by their bed, and cried "I was supposed to go first"...America cried, too.

I'm reminded of Hitchcock telling some interviewer of his near life-long celibacy: "Sex is for kids, sex is for the movies, I'm bored with sex."

Well, if you're Alfred Hitchcock, you are...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Marion and Sam are to my eyes a fairly typical "handsome couple". If they'd only had money and lived in NYC, San Fran or L.A. they'd have been featured in those Sunday supplement articles on the best and the brightest in our town, etc. That still might not have made them happy, though.

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I think Issue One with Sam and Marion is that they are both attractive, but seem to have been given none of the breaks of life to truly succeed. Each is burdened by parents -- Sam by his father's debts(we assume his mother is dead); Marion(in the novel and unfiilmed parts of the screenplay) orphaned as a young adult by her parents. Sam and Marion are "on their own," and Sam is flat-out trapped, living in that room in his hardware store.

And as I noted somewhere in this thread, show business is riddled with good looking folks from poor backgrounds who knew how to hustle -- their looks were their ticket to fame.

Remember how, in real life, Janet Leigh(not her real name) was discovered in a photo at a ski resort office by visiting Norma Shearer? Norma got Leigh (whose real name was, I think MARION) a screen test and the rest is history, including Janet Leigh meeting an actor named Tony Curtis(real name: Bernard Schwartz) who was also from hardscrabble roots.

And by the way, Janet Leigh(Marion Something in real life) hailed in real life from the towns of Merced and Stockton, which are both on Highway 99, at spaces of about 100 and 200 miles from California Charlie's in Bakersfield, also on Highway 99.

In short, driving on Highway 99, Janet Leigh was sort of re-creating her life, in Psycho.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I sense that Sam's somewhat surly, bullying nature was somewhat inherent in his character,

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One interesting thing about our "takes" on Psycho, telegonus, is that I think we read Norman and Sam a little differently from each other. I think I think of Norman with a little LESS compassion than you, and I think I think of Sam with a little MORE compassion. Sam's bullying of Norman in the motel office seems to me a rather understandable "alpha male" reaction: he's supposed to play the part of a disinterested motel visitor, but he CAN'T. This Norman Bates fellow is SOMEHOW responsible for Marion's disappearance, and Sam's rage slowly boils up as a kind of "bully with a needle."

Sam with Marion seems to be a guy who's in it mainly for the occasional sex, but can't help but realize he DOES love this woman, especially when she threatens to end things. And Sam IS burdened, at a fairly young age, with alimony and business debt that other men his age don't have.

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that it would have been there if his father had been a banker.

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Perhaps. Sam's great looks and big size could give him a bully's confidence no matter what his family background. He's a "Big Man on Campus" type.

--

Marion's more of a maybe, as in if she could accept Sam,--some women accept their "Sams" better than others--it might have worked.

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It might have worked. "Psycho" is very sad on that point, once we see Sam writing that letter.

I would here like to note that Hitchcock went to great lengths, in promoting The Birds, to say that "this time I have some real characters to study"(paraphrase) whereas in Psycho"all the characters in the second half were mere figures." He meant everybody except Norman, he meant Sam, Lila, and Arbogast. And yet I find Sam, Lila, and Arbogast WAY more interesting people than ANYBODY in The Birds. I truly wonder about their lives before and(for two of them) after Psycho.

[–] telegonus (736) 7 years ago

Fair enough, EC. I vastly prefer Anthony Perkins to John Gavin as an actor, so the former's Norman is a character I "favor". At some level, the pathology aside,--admittedly a difficult thing to do--there's an endearing vulnerability to Norman that Sam just doesn't have. Norman is, alas, a monster, and yet as we can see he's deeply human, albeit damaged beyond repair, but this makes him all the more sympathetic, to me anyway.

Sam is an empowered alpha guy: tall, good looking, not rich, but his own boss in a way that the somewhat more secure, financially, that is, Norman really isn't. Mother runs HIS show, as we later find out. Sam gets action. Women. Norman is dominated by an "inner woman" who runs his life and drives him to kill. Two very different All-American males, these two. Neither is affluent and yet one is a top dog, a hot dog, the other a wimp. In the big picture, that is.

I do think that's an inner monster, as it were, in Sam; you can see it in the way he treats people. There's an arrogance to him, an imperiousness. Vastly smoother and better socialized than Norman, Sam knows how to present himself in a good light. He'd never allow himself to sink to Norman's level, or even close, thus he's a law biding citizen. Yet for all that, he never draws me into his world, his true self, as Norman does.

Maybe Sam does have a nice side, a good, fair, square shooting side. I don't know. We never get to see much of Sam that's agreeable. Where Norman is concerned, we get to see much about him that's likable, charming, sympathetic and kind. This doesn't make him any less a killer, it does, however humanize him, and I see much in him that I can like. He's the perp, but a perp with a soul, however wounded.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Fair enough, EC. I vastly prefer Anthony Perkins to John Gavin as an actor, so the former's Norman is a character I "favor".

---

I'm reminded of some critic's phrase -- which I borrowed without attribution for one of my posts the other day, it bugs me -- that in Frenzy, the villain has so much more surface charm than the hero that "it throws one's moral compass right off."

In that film, villain(Barry Foster) and hero(Jon Finch) were played by virtual unknowns, so it was the CHARACTERS who threw us; in Psycho, perhaps its very much that Tony Perkins was a bigger star than John Gavin(certainly at that time) and had greater levels of empathy to his look and sound.

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At some level, the pathology aside,--admittedly a difficult thing to do--there's an endearing vulnerability to Norman that Sam just doesn't have. Norman is, alas, a monster, and yet as we can see he's deeply human, albeit damaged beyond repair, but this makes him all the more sympathetic, to me anyway.

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I see what you are saying, and we know that Hitchcock knew it. Remember how he told Perkins, "Tony, you ARE this picture." Without Norman Bates as a sympathetic being, the horrific events of the film would have no "relatable human center." It was also how Hitchcock kept his twist secret. As some critic wrote, "Even if they suspect him, the audience doesn't WANT Anthony Perkins to be a killer."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Sam is an empowered alpha guy: tall, good looking, not rich, but his own boss in a way that the somewhat more secure, financially, that is, Norman really isn't. Mother runs HIS show, as we later find out. .---

Yes, I can see that. I am also flashing on a "mean moment" from Sam as the boss of young Bob the counterman:

Sam: Bob, run out and get some lunch, alright?
Bob: Oh, that's OK Sam, I brought it with me.
Sam: (Sharply, meanly) Run out and eat it!

Now Sam is upset -- Lila's here and crying, something's wrong with Marion -- but he still seems a bit of...yeah, OK...a bully...

Ha. Sometimes I have to go "re-examine the evidence."

---

Sam gets action. Women. Norman is dominated by an "inner woman" who runs his life and drives him to kill. Two very different All-American males, these two. Neither is affluent and yet one is a top dog, a hot dog, the other a wimp. In the big picture, that is.

---

Anthony Perkins had been being used as a romantic star in the fifties; HE got the women, and sometimes big strapping ones like Sophia Loren(and hot ones like Jane Fonda). But Psycho played him up --quite believably -- as so withdrawn and awkward with women that his sweet handsome looks just weren't enough. Mother wrecked this handsome boy in certain ways to be sure -- though the monster strikes me as "there from the start."

But Sam? Look at that body. Football player for sure. Probably had a LOT of girls. But perhaps Fairvale wasn't too well populated with them; Sam had to go to the Big City of Phoenix to meet someone so physically his match as Marion Crane.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I do think that's an inner monster, as it were, in Sam; you can see it in the way he treats people.

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Like Bob the counterman. "Bob Summerfield" as named in Bloch's book. Good old Bob Summerfield, Sam remembers in the book, is a nice guy who once tried to beat a superior's brains out with a gun butt in the Army. None of that made it to the movie, though. Sam was thinking about how "you just don't know people, no matter how nice they seem."

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There's an arrogance to him, an imperiousness. Vastly smoother and better socialized than Norman, Sam knows how to present himself in a good light.

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Well, he has to present himself to the townsfolk of Fairvale as a good guy, every day. Norman only deals with the occasional motel passerby. Again, Bloch's book has more detail on Sam's business: townspeople go out of their way to spend at his store and relieve his debt -- but if there were a scandal, they'd abandon him. Its a lot of pressure.

---

He'd never allow himself to sink to Norman's level, or even close, thus he's a law biding citizen. Yet for all that, he never draws me into his world, his true self, as Norman does.

Maybe Sam does have a nice side, a good, fair, square shooting side. I don't know. We never get to see much of Sam that's agreeable.

---

Well, in his only scene with Marion, he's a bit of a whiner and self-pitying(though for good reasons.) Some critic wrote: "Sam's not much of a hero, he doesn't gallantly sweep away the financial concerns." And from the moment he meets Lila, LIKE Lila -- he's "a man under stress" --- Marion's disappearance is crazy-making for Sam and for Lila. And Sam's likely feeling some guilt -- Marion was coming to HIM.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Where Norman is concerned, we get to see much about him that's likable, charming, sympathetic and kind. This doesn't make him any less a killer, it does, however humanize him, and I see much in him that I can like. He's the perp, but a perp with a soul, however wounded.

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And for me, a question has always been: is the likeable and kind stuff a front? Mainly to lure Marion in for death, but also to fend off Arbogast's questions. You have convinced me, telegonus: no. There was and is a nice person within Norman Bates, possessed of humane traits that have to arise naturally. Norman WANTS to function well in society. He's also clearly lonely, getting to converse with Marion is a big treat for him and he probably liked talking to Arbogast on the porch the first time before Arbo revealed he's a private detective. There's an eagerness to Norman in his first remarks to Arbogast; he's happy to have someone to talk to.

No, the sadness of Psycho is Hitchocck' final and rather brutal statement that Norman Bates as a 'humane human" has been lost to his dark side, though even there, there is a twist: at the end, in her mind: Mother is the nice person. She even SOUNDS nice: "Its hard when a mother must condemn her own son..."

I'm no fan of the Psycho sequels, but I will say that all three of them focused on characters still wanting to love and mother Norman Bates -- even when they learn of his past. I'm thinking of Meg Tilly as Lila's daughter in II; Diana Scarwid's wayward nun in III, and the psychiatric nurse who MARRIES Norman in IV. The sequels all focus on the question: "Can Norman Bates be saved by love?" The answers were: no, no, YES. (Though hell, I'm not sure as a woman I'd want to sleep next to a man who stabbed a women in a shower and a man on some stairs.)

[–] telegonus (736) 7 years ago

I'm glad I've convinced you, EC, although I'm sure it's difficult as heck to find a right answer here. It was just my intuition and imagination, maybe getting the better of me, but then maybe not.

Yes, Sam has to be somewhat of a nice guy to do business in Fairvale, though on the other had one might wonder why he doesn't do better. It's not like there were Ace Hardwares and Home Depots back then. Usually a small town hardware store owner, like a small town pharmacist or barber, doesn't have to worry much about competition. That he's not busier than he is on the weekend may speak volumes...but again, maybe not. We never once catch a charming moment with the man. It could also just be John Gavin's innate charmlessness.

On the other hand, no matter how charming Norman was his motel was a losing proposition long term. The land was far more valuable than the business, and a normal person would recognize this and probably already be negotiating to either sell it or go into a business partnership,--a mall maybe, an amusement park (yikes!), a summer camp (for girls!), the possibilities are endless--all this beyond Norman, however I think that had the businesses been reversed Sam would have recognized this and done alright for himself.

Yes, Norman's kindness does seem genuine. It is. So is his friendliness in general. The downside is the inner mom, the part of him he can't control, which makes him a kind of psychopath,--not sure if psychosis can be ruled out, however something akin to multiple personality disorder strikes me as nearer to the case--and when Norman has mother on a leash, as it were, he's a decent sort.

If he had an assistant to work part-time at the desk I doubt that he'd have spoken to him with the casual, desultory cruelty Sam spoke to his counter help. The sort of assurance one sees in Sam, his confidence, even given his dire economic predicament, speaks to his height, good looks, his stud qualities, and nothing can take that away.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I'm glad I've convinced you, EC,

--

I think you have. Actually, its always been harder for me to see Norman as "nice fellow at heart," but I guess he is. If Mother is so compartmentalized within him....the other half might be as pure as could be, a truly nice person, the nice side ALL of us have.

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although I'm sure it's difficult as heck to find a right answer here. It was just my intuition and imagination, maybe getting the better of me, but then maybe not.

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We all respond to movies and characters in different ways.

I recall Raymond Durgnat in an early essay on Psycho getting California Charlie all wrong, I thought. Durgnat saw Charlie as "making it wonderfully easy to change cars and continue in crime," as if he was a cheery helper. He doesn't PLAY that way, and years later, Durgnant in his book modified his assessment. Somewhat.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Yes, Sam has to be somewhat of a nice guy to do business in Fairvale, though on the other had one might wonder why he doesn't do better.

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Interesting point!

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It's not like there were Ace Hardwares and Home Depots back then.

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Though they were coming a few decades down the line. Motel Six and Best Westerns, too, to put Bates Motels out of business.

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Usually a small town hardware store owner, like a small town pharmacist or barber, doesn't have to worry much about competition. That he's not busier than he is on the weekend may speak volumes...but again, maybe not.

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Great point. Well, he's a divorced man in 1960, lives in his store, maybe some people remember a teenage stuck up bully. On the other hand, maybe Fairvale is just too small to support the business.

Perhaps the same highway move that neutralized the Bates Motel victimized Fairvale in a similar way. Nobody stops at the motel anymore; nobody stops at the TOWN anymore?
---

We never once catch a charming moment with the man. It could also just be John Gavin's innate charmlessness.

---

Well, I guess I'm the one person out there who found him kinda likeable.

You know who I find UNlikeable? Rod Taylor(a warm actor in other roles) as the insufferable Mitch Brenner in The Birds. His cross-examinations of and insults towards Melanie Daniels strike me as beyond "heroic romantic patter." The birds sort of give the pompous Mitch what he deserves...and he BECOMES heroic.

[–] telegonus (736) 7 years ago

Rod Taylor doesn't bother me in The Birds. He did the best he could with what he had. His natural warmth and "emotional" qualities as an actor weren't right for the movie, though given that Hitchcock wasn't looking for (not was likely to get) a true A list he had to settle for A- or high B. (That he did get A lister Sean Connery for Marnie did nothing its either its star's or its director's career.)

Who'd have been better as Mitch than Taylor? Seriously. Cliff Robertson? Well, he's be more serious, cooler, somewhat more "high end" than the more "action" type Taylor. Rock Hudson might have worked well but for what I gather was his aversion to that kind of picture; and I doubt he'd have wanted to work for Hitchcock and vice versa. James Garner would have been a train wreck. Too laid back and insufficient backbone for that role.

George Peppard was too much an up and comer when The Birds was in pre-production; a "star of the future" type, he tended to go for classy projects, like a younger Paul Newman. Now here's a wild possibility (and a damn unlikely one): John Gavin as Mitch. He had, effortlessly, all the negative qualities of Mitch without having to even try hard. It might have been a good "ambiguous hero" part for him, as he had some of the natural born arrogance of Dial M's Ray Milland and the bland competence of the (needless to say) the "he never lit up the screen in any movie he ever appeared in" Bob Cummings. Sounds weird at first, I know, but I think it might have worked.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Rod Taylor doesn't bother me in The Birds. He did the best he could with what he had.

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Oh, yes. Again, my weakening communication skills are at fault. Rod Taylor was one of my favorites in the 60s growing up and I liked him "in re-runs" when I was older and saw many of his movies again with more maturity and a sense of what makes a movie actor a GOOD movie actor.

But the character of Mitch Brenner was really a terrible guy...at least until the birds forced him into heroics.

It has to do with his early scenes with Melanie(Tippi) such as his nasty tone when he says "I'm wanted you to see how it would feel to be on the other end of a joke, how about that?" even if his sentiments were "pure"(Tippi was evidently a rich girl practical joker), his tone is downright nasty, mean enough to edge into women-hating Bob Rusk territory(note in passing: in the novel from which Frenzy was based, Rusk was described in a way that screamed "Rod Taylor!" not Barry Foster, or Michael Caine.)

In the bird shop and then later at his mother's house leaning into Melanie's convertible as if it were the witness box in court, Mitch "cross-examines" Melanie in lie after lie after lie. This is "Arbogast-Norman," the love story. Mitch is one of those big-shot lawyers who turns the white lies of conversation into a grilling.

To match his pomposity with age-peer women(what DID he do to Annie to leave her so desperate?), we have Mitch's sacrifice as surrogate husband to Lydia and surrogate father to Kathy. Its all very Oedipal, and not much better a means of "liking" Mitch.

But Rod Taylor was charismatic, macho...he got past the first half of the movie somehow and brought it home as a (thwarted) hero.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

His natural warmth and "emotional" qualities as an actor weren't right for the movie, though given that Hitchcock wasn't looking for (not was likely to get) a true A list he had to settle for A- or high B.

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In Evan Hunter's book on the making of The Birds, Evan said that while Hitchcock mused about Cary Grant for the lead early on, he decided that the effects would overtake any major actor, and that the effects would cost too much to accommodate Grant.

So Hitchcock indeed moved to the "high B list." Indeed , watch this roundelay:

Hitchocck considered Sean Connery for Mitch in The Birds.
Hitchcock considered Paul Newman for Mark in Marnie.

Evidently, Newman said "no" to Marnie, and Connery was never approached on The Birds. But Hitchcock had castings in his mind of different guys all the time(hey, Rod Taylor was considered for Sam in Psycho! This is all true from the record.)

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(That he did get A lister Sean Connery for Marnie did nothing its either its star's or its director's career.)

--

I think Connery had one more Bond film out between The Birds and Marnie and Hitchcock though more seriously of him for Marnie. Still, Rock Hudson and Paul Newman had turned down Mark, so even Connery was a bit lower down the pole in the star pecking order.

But not for long...Goldfinger came out right after Marnie in 1964 and Connery was a superstar from then on; Marnie went into re-release with The Birds as a double-bill, accordingly.

I like to point out that the three major new young male stars of the 60s were Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, and Sean Connery. Whaddya know, Hitchcock got two of them...before stars started refusing to work with Hitch at all.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Who'd have been better as Mitch than Taylor? Seriously. Cliff Robertson? Well, he's be more serious, cooler, somewhat more "high end" than the more "action" type Taylor.

---

I will note that Cliff Robertson was considered for Sam in Psycho, too.

But honestly, Hitchcock "looked at film" on just about every young male actor in Hollywood for Sam in Psycho and Mitch in The Birds. He knew that Stewart and Grant were aging and that the star of Psycho was the psycho and the star of The Birds were the birds. So agents sent him every male imaginable "below star level" for Psycho and The Birds.

---

Rock Hudson might have worked well but for what I gather was his aversion to that kind of picture; and I doubt he'd have wanted to work for Hitchcock and vice versa.

---

As I noted above, evidently Hitch made the big play for Hudson on Marnie, and Universal even ran an ad saying Hudson would be in it. But Rock Hudson said no -- as he did to Ben-Hur and To Kill a Mockingbird! (Oscar winners for their leads.)

---

James Garner would have been a train wreck. Too laid back and insufficient backbone for that role.

---

Yep. Garner is billed above Rod Taylor in "48 Hours" or whatever that movie was called (14 Hours? 52 Hours? Eva Marie Saint is in it), but Garner ultimately seemed "lighter" than the tough Taylor. I can see Garner neither snarling at Tippi nor
being coddled by Lydia.

[–] telegonus (736) 7 years ago

Well, when The Birds was in its casting stages Sean Connery's stardom wasn't much higher than above the "novelty" level even with a James Bond picture or two under his belt. He'd become the Steve Reeves of his field but no more. Connery's icon status as a non-Bond star took several years. Even when Marnie was being cast I think that Connery was somewhat iffy.

Paul Newman had just "arrived" at the superstar level even as it wasn't clear how long he'd last. Just as Newman was too "Method" for Hitch, even later on, Cliff Robertson was rather on the solemn side for anything "pure entertainment".

Big stars were getting serious then. Hollywood wasn't like it is today. Most up and coming players,--I'm thinking of the men in particular--didn't want to go the western-action and adventure route except on rare occasions. "Arriving" equaled the "good stuff" in those days when American films were or appeared to be growing up, as they used to say. Even Steve McQueen, who, as a type, I can see doing at least one specifically right for him Hitchcock picture in his career, but not after 1960.

In such an environment as the early Sixties Rod Taylor was a good choice for the lead in The Birds. He was just serious enough to be a credible leading man and yet had something of the air of a tad old-fashioned leading man, though it wasn't clear when he was cast in the picture that his type was going to become obsolete, just maybe a period of eclipse, to make room for the cooler dudes.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Well, when The Birds was in its casting stages Sean Connery's stardom wasn't much higher than above the "novelty" level even with a James Bond picture or two under his belt. He'd become the Steve Reeves of his field but no more.

---

Or perhaps...Roger Moore.

It remains intriguing that none of the later Bonds could really maintain a standalone star career. Brosnan came closest. But by the time Connery was done with it, big stars like Paul Newman and Mel Gibson didn't want it .

--

Even when Marnie was being cast I think that Connery was somewhat iffy.

---

Indeed. Kinda Roger Moore, and Rock Hudson and Paul Newman had said no. With Princess Grace out of the lead and Tippi Hedren in, it was probably a hard sell to any major man.

Indeed, the feeling about Marnie from 1964 reviews I've read were that this clearly wasn't Grant and Bergman, or Grant and Kelly, or Stewart or Kelly, or Stewart or Novak. Hedren and Connery in Marnie was rather a signal: "Hitchocck won't ...or can't ...cast major stars anymore."

So he went and did it the next time: Paul Newman and Julie Andrews were top level, A-list talent. But to not much avail.

---

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Paul Newman had just "arrived" at the superstar level even as it wasn't clear how long he'd last.

---

Screenwriter William Goldman wrote of some agents and studio execs waiting for a late Newman at a meeting that Goldman also attended (for Harper, which he adapted.). One agent said, "Now, we will wait for Newman...but not in a few years when he's Glenn Ford."

---

Just as Newman was too "Method" for Hitch, even later on, Cliff Robertson was rather on the solemn side for anything "pure entertainment".

----

I think Cliff Robertson got a lead in a Hitchcock-type movie called Masquerade, and then he got an Oscar for "Charly," but he bought that project special to be in it.

An interesting movie, male billing wise, is "Sunday in New York" in The Birds year of 1963. Jane Fonda is the first-billed lead. Then come three men: Rod Taylor, Cliff Robertson(as Jane's swinging airline pilot brother) and Robert Culp. Taylor is billed first. He was seen as the male star.

---

Big stars were getting serious then. Hollywood wasn't like it is today. Most up and coming players,--I'm thinking of the men in particular--didn't want to go the western-action and adventure route except on rare occasions.

----

This issue came to bite Hitchocck big-time when he tried to cast big stars in Family Plot. Its pretty clear than Nicholson, Redford, and Pacino all felt that Family Plot was too frivilous forget the big name Hitchcock had. I remain intrigued that Redford remembered Hitchcock had made the pitch.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Even Steve McQueen, who, as a type, I can see doing at least one specifically right for him Hitchcock picture in his career, but not after 1960.

---

It is a measure of how much more rugged Steve McQueen was than Paul Newman, that Newman could believably play a rocket scientist in Torn Curtain, but its impossible to see McQueen in the part.

Hitchcock did buy an "Elmore Leonard tough guy novel" in the late seventies about a process server; he was planning to ask McQueen or Burt Reynolds to play the lead. Hitch wanted to do a "Dirty Harry" type film. Oh, well, he pulled off a William Castle type film in Psycho over studio objections.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

In such an environment as the early Sixties Rod Taylor was a good choice for the lead in The Birds. He was just serious enough to be a credible leading man

---

....with a certain toughness that James Garner had to develop; Taylor had it naturally.

---

and yet had something of the air of a tad old-fashioned leading man, though it wasn't clear when he was cast in the picture that his type was going to become obsolete, just maybe a period of eclipse, to make room for the cooler dudes.

----

Hitchcock's daughter Pat said that analysts had it all wrong about Hitchocck "hating women;" that when working on his movies, he liked his actresses better than his actors. He could RELATE to women; he was not a "man's man." And so, once Hitchcock lost Stewart(to age) and Grant(to retirement), he had to try to find new men that fit the old model. He connected best to Connery, tried to sign the man to a long-term contract(no go), tried to cast him in Topaz (as the FRENCH lead!) and the unmade Three Hostages.

Though Hitchcock and Rod Taylor clashed on The Birds, I found an article in the LA Times a few years later(researching something else) that said Hitchcock had signed Taylor to a personal contract. I'm figuring: Connery said no, Taylor said yes. But Rod Taylor didn't fit anything else Hitchcock made later. Maybe he was considered for Mary Rose...also unmade.

Speaking of "Topaz," I give you: Frederick Stafford. Possibly the most bizarre Hitchcock leading man. (MORE)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Speaking of "Topaz," I give you: Frederick Stafford. Possibly the most bizarre Hitchcock leading man.

----

Paul Newman was the last major male star to deign to work with Hitch -- and given how much Hitchcock dissed Newman in interviews("He's why I call actors cattle") -- other star males seemed inclined to turn Hitchcock down in all films thereafter.

The problem showed up in the next film, Topaz. The role of a middle-aged French spy with a married daughter was tough to fill. Only Yves Montand had a "name" and fit the role age-wise. (Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon were too young.) But Montand turned the role down.

Hitchcock had storyboards made(I've seen them) of Sean Connery in Topaz, but that didn't work out either. (For obvious reasons, I'd say.)

And so Hitchcock set out "to make a new Cary Grant," just as he had tried to make a new Grace Kelly with Tippi Hedren. Hitch looked at footage of unknown men from around the world -- and came up with Frederick Stafford.

Frederick Stafford was interesting in several ways. He had that WASP-ish name -- but was evidently Austrian, yet playing French. (Was his accent, "French-Austrian?") And I can only think of Fredric March as making the most of that first name(would both Stafford and March be called "Fred" in daily life?)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

But the most fascinating thing about Frederick Stafford was this: though it wasn't "dead on," the actor he most resembled was: John Gavin.

In trying to give us a new Cary Grant, Hitchcock gave us...a new John Gavin?

Wasn't Hitchcock haunted by memories of "the stiff"?

I honestly think that, for Hitchcock buffs "in the know," Frederick Stafford's resemblance to John Gavin undercut his attempt to be taken seriously in Topaz. And thus the movie falls to the character guys SURROUNDING Stafford: Roscoe Lee Browne, John Vernon, Michel Piccoli, Phillipe Noiret.

One film later, for Frenzy, after both Richard Burton and Richard Harris turned the role of Richard Blaney down, Hitchcock again went with a semi-unknown -- Jon Finch -- but Finch was younger, more "hip," more surly in presence than Frederick Stafford.

And one final film later, for Family Plot, Hitchcock got with the quirky New Hollywood program and hired Bruce Dern as his leading man. The signal here was "second tier": evidently, Nicholson, Pacino and Redford all turned Hitchcock down, so he went with Dern, a Nicholson pal who had some of Jack's style.

I linger on

Frederick Stafford
Jon Finch
Bruce Dern

...because they reflect how Hitchocck was finished in being able to land Cary Grant, James Stewart, or even Paul Newman...in the final years of his career. Only Dern was a known quantity, and that was as a rather rodentoid character villain.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

George Peppard was too much an up and comer when The Birds was in pre-production; a "star of the future" type, he tended to go for classy projects, like a younger Paul Newman.

---

Its interesting, telegonus, how you are giving us a Cook's Tour of the "second tier leading men" of the 60's who, weirdly enough, seemed to last only as LONG as the 70's before the Nicholsons and Hoffmans wiped them out: Rod Taylor, James Garner, George Peppard, James Coburn -- they all got runs for awhile and then over. Except Coburn, who kept his movie career going til 1978(when he did his first TV movie) and then returned to movies.

These things are measured "to the nth" degree, but Taylor, Garner, Peppard, and Coburn ALL got top billing in certain films (Hotel, Support Your Local Sheriff, The Blue Max, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), they were "second tier stars," but they WERE stars. Neither John Gavin nor Cliff Robertson ever really got that "high up."
---

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Now here's a wild possibility (and a damn unlikely one): John Gavin as Mitch.

---

Ha! Well, Rod Taylor was considered for Sam.

But by 1963, Rod Taylor had proved himself in "The Time Machine" and was being groomed for stardom. Gavin had blown his shot. Indeed, Rod Taylor and James Garner EACH got TWO Doris Day movies as "the guy." John Gavin would not have rated Doris as a co-star.

---

He had, effortlessly, all the negative qualities of Mitch without having to even try hard. It might have been a good "ambiguous hero" part for him, as he had some of the natural born arrogance of Dial M's Ray Milland and the bland competence of the (needless to say) the "he never lit up the screen in any movie he ever appeared in" Bob Cummings. Sounds weird at first, I know, but I think it might have worked.

---

Ha ha ha. And we thought Hitchcock was nasty in calling Gavin "The Stiff." Well, I don't love the guy's work, but I honestly thought he was right in many ways for Sam: a great chest like Janet Leigh had; tall (to overpower Tony Perkins); and what I called a "scared rabbit" quality that added tension to the story. Gavin made Sam a big guy with a certain fear to him. And as critics have noted, Gavin looked enough like Tony Perkins that, facing each other, they looked like doppelgangers of a sort.

---

7 years after Psycho, producer Ross Hunter gave John Gavin his last "really big movie" to be in. Thoroughly Modern Millie. Its a flapper era musical in which Gavin is a square-jawed rich guy whom Julie Andrews covets. She gets James Fox instead(Mary Tyler Moore gets Gavin -- he's the second lead, again.)

But in a great moment, John Gavin is smoking a pipe and smiling a big toothy grin -- and the bad guys fire an immobilizing dart into his neck that freezes Gavin in that pose.

Yes, he's actually, truly, really...STIFF.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

On the other hand, no matter how charming Norman was his motel was a losing proposition long term.

--

Lila has that stinging line to Sam:

"What would you need to unload this worthless business and move away? Forty thousand dollars?"

Worthless business. A tough assessment. It likely didn't USED to be, before the highway thing.

---

A writer named James Cavenaugh wrote a first script for Psycho and he added to the parlor scene a moment in which Norman hands Marion the paperwork foreclosing on the motel. That would have thrown the story way off-- its one reason Cavenaugh was released -- but, Norman may have had that risk.

---

The land was far more valuable than the business, and a normal person

---

A normal person...

---

would recognize this and probably already be negotiating to either sell it or go into a business partnership,--a mall maybe, an amusement park (yikes!), a summer camp (for girls!), the possibilities are endless--all this beyond Norman, however I think that had the businesses been reversed Sam would have recognized this and done alright for himself.

---

Norman has the great American thing: land. But I think he is so trapped in his own world that, had the dire murders not occurred, he would have closed the motel, stayed up in his house and tried to live off Mother's savings until the bitter end. He might have sold land for farming, but not for neighbors.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Yes, Norman's kindness does seem genuine. It is.

--

Here's something: the actor Anthony Perkins opined that Norman Bates "would be great with children." He's childlike, and likely wouldn't feel any evil feelings(on Mother's part) for children.

---

So is his friendliness in general. The downside is the inner mom, the part of him he can't control, which makes him a kind of psychopath,--not sure if psychosis can be ruled out, however something akin to multiple personality disorder strikes me as nearer to the case--and when Norman has mother on a leash, as it were, he's a decent sort.

----

I think I've opined before that Norman probably met all manner of "safe" guests -- the old couple we heard about, travelling salesmen, maybe even a highway patrolman -- and chatted amiably with them. He's also an intelligent and WITTY man("Stationary with Bates Motel on it to make your friends back home feel envious"..."Commit myself? You sure SOUND like a policeman.")

---
If he had an assistant to work part-time at the desk I doubt that he'd have spoken to him with the casual, desultory cruelty Sam spoke to his counter help.

---

Well, he DID have an assistant in Psycho III...and he killed him -- interestingly enough, he did the killing AS NORMAN. But that guy was a dangerous, criminal lowlife slug. And Norman treated him very well before the villain revealed his true nature.

---

The sort of assurance one sees in Sam, his confidence, even given his dire economic predicament, speaks to his height, good looks, his stud qualities, and nothing can take that away.

---

There are weird moments in Sam's dramatic hotel scene with Marion, in which he drops his debt-alimony-ridden angst and says things like "When you do(get married)...you'll swing!"(Ah...the days when marriage equaled sanctioned sex.) And that fake "How could you even THINK of doing something like THAT(finding someone else.)" You can see the "cool guy act" Sam probably used to get all the girls...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

While we are on the unlikeability of Sam Loomis, let's remind ourselves that even as Hitchcock had "charming villains" he often had UNcharming heroes:

Sam Loomis
Mitch Brenner(a real jackass, you ask me)
Mark Rutland(threatening his wife with arrest to marry her, then raping her as a marital right)
Andre Devereaux(as stiff as John Gavin, and cheats on his wife.)
Richard Blaney(he of the hot-temper and loser's whine.)

and before Psycho:

Scottie Ferguson
Jeff Jeffries
The Professor in Rope (hey there, its Jimmy Stewart)

Bob Cummings in Dial M(well, he's dull, not mean.)

Etc.

[–] movieghoul (213) 7 years ago

ecarle, as long as you're mentioning Stewart, let's not let Ben McKenna off the hook. He comes off as something of a MCP especially in the tranquilizers scene.

And while we're at it, we can throw in all four Cary Grants.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

ecarle, as long as you're mentioning Stewart, let's not let Ben McKenna off the hook. He comes off as something of a MCP

---

An MCP? Oh, male chauvinist pig...well, yeah. Mitch Brenner and Mark Rutland, too. (More than Sam Loomis, IMHO.)

---

especially in the tranquilizers scene.

---

That's a powerful but ambivalent scene to me...Ben knows how horrible this news is, and likely how fragile Jo is...he's trying to help. But it does seem cruel. I like this scene also because it adds Hitchcock's "use the means available" rule -- Ben is a doctor, he figures a sedative is necessary. As for Day's acting on hearing the news? Tony Perkins isn't the only Hitchocck player stiffed on a nomination.

And while we're at it, we can throw in all four Cary Grants.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Let's assume, for the sake of argument(as Arbogast would say) that both Jimmy and Cary played four jerks apiece, all four times.

I'd say Cary GOT AWAY with it better, because he looks and sounds the way he does.

Johnnie is a bounder, maybe a killer. Check. Devlin is so cruel to Alicia for most of their movie that his turnabout at the end somehow doesn't seem ENOUGH.

Better, I like : John Robie. He's grumpy, he's pretty much a hermit, he's an ex-con and he's killed a lot people. But what a ROLE model for self-satisfied self-sufficiency. I wish I could be John Robie.

As for Roger, the most famous of Grant's Hitchcock guys, from start to finish I think he's a better man than the other three. He may start the movie rich, selfish and uncaring but her reveals inner resources for heroism and love that are most admirable, to me.

So...three out of four MCPs for Grant...and I sure like John Robie.

Comparatively, that Mitch Brenner is a smarmy punk.

[–] telegonus (736) 7 years ago

Cary's charm put him the position of making what caddish or bounder qualities his characters may have possessed far more likable or at least acceptable than poor Jimmy Stewart.

Does Grant really "flunk" any of his Hitchcock roles, by which I mean fail to rise to the occasion as performer and in character? That his role in North By Northwest is probably Grant's signature role in a Hitchcock pic speaks volumes; and it's a thousand miles away from his shady dealing Johnny in Suspicion eighteen years earlier.

Jimmy starts out sort of badly, as teacher who "failed" with his students, or who taught them the wrong way. Nor does he "own" Rope the way Cary owns many (most?) of his Hitchcock pix. His broken legged Jeff in Rear Window is a voyeur dominated by two women, one older, one young, who outclass him in wit and style. The Man Who Knew Too Much: a serviceable remake. Vertigo once again shows Stewart in a bad place,--starts out with him nearing falling to his death--while in in RW ends with him that way.

Grant's Hitchcock roles draw on his strengths and good looks, while Stewart's draw more on his ordinariness, the often cranky-moody aspects of his screen persona. When Grant triumphs for Hitch it's what one expects, while when Stewart merely survives it feels like a miracle.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

As to Psycho, no one knew better than homely Alfred the vagaries of looks, money and power. One only has to look at the personal lives of some of the biggest stars and celebrities, and even more, their children's lives, from David Selznick and Jennifer Jones to Debbie Reynolds and the very unlucky in so many areas of her life daughter Carrie Fisher to see how awful things can be for children of the rich, famous and beautiful.

---

Its all a cautionary tale for those of us who live less glamourous lives. Though I sense things are getting better for the children of the new age of stars. Today's stars are a bit less "worshiped" and a bit less "on." I seem to read of fewer tragic children.

There was a book written years ago called "Star Babies" which contrasted the successful acting children of actors -- Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas, Jeff Bridges, Jamie Lee Curtis(Janet Leigh's daughter) -- with the vast array of UNsucessful acting children of actors, the larger group who could NOT match their parents fame. A lot of drugs, alcohol, suicides. Paul Newman's son Scott was one example. The message was clear: you might give up the wealth to lose the pain.

---

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Even if they inherent just one attribute,--looks, say--that still doesn't mean their lives will turn out well. Jane Fonda has not had an easy time of it, and she's been at least professionally successful. Her brother Peter has always struck me as deeply disturbed in some way, with an underlying hostility.

---

There was a cover story in Time Magazine in late 1969 called "The Incredible Flying Fondas" which took note that all three members of this acting family were in important movies that year -- Henry in "Once Upon a Time in the West," Jane in "They Shoot Horses Don't They," and Peter in "Easy Rider," and.....Peter was in the MOST successful movie, the biggest hit, the landmark film(hey, "Easy Rider" belongs right up there with Psycho, as an landmark film, if not nearly as watchable.)

But Hollywood is a crap shoot. Peter's young fame soon faded. Henry's old age caught up with him, and HE faded. (On Golden Pond saved him at the end; with daughter Jane.) Only Jane stayed a major star, and even she had some fallow years thanks to her controversial politics.

What Jane and Peter shared was a mother who had killed herself(she was one of Henry's multiple wives.) Coupled with Henry's reputed coldness, Jane and Peter were evidently "on their own." Peter accidentally shot himself in the stomach. As for Jane, I was always fascinated by how she matched her personality to that of her husband at any given time: for sex director Roger Vadim, Jane was Barbarella. For political activist Tom Hayden, Jane was a Political Rebel. For rich Ted Turner, Jane quit movies and became The Rich Man's Wife.

And now, she's her own woman.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Lowrey has only his inner office air conditioned, but maybe, if they work real hard, the girls in the outer office can EARN their air conditioning. Maybe.

---

This remains an early marker of the casual cruelty of capitalism -- at least back then. Lowery's office is air conditioned, but the "girls" don't get that. In PHOENIX. I expect that modernly, US workplace rules could lead to a violation, there. But in 1960, the pennypinching Lowery can make his "girls" lives miserable. And Marion has been there for ten years!

----

Cassidy flashes his wad and talks about buying happiness.

---

"I only carry as much as I can afford to lose....I don't (declare on taxes)."

---

It's no wonder that Marion robs, on impulse, and out of frustration; and Cassidy was as rude and crude as she was polite and refined. But in the end it doesn't matter: he has power and she doesn't. So she decides to even the score.

---

This precise, concise movie has the logic of a dream in certain ways: Scene One: Sam is too poor to marry Marion. Scene Two: Cassidy shows up with 40K he can afford to lose. Hitchcock had the courage of his simplicity in this one. We accept the speed and directness of the story.

---

In the larger scheme of things Marion has for all intents and purposes "damned" herself, and all she sees are symbols of punishment and damnation in the two men she encounters on her long drive to Fairvale. The cop was caring and yet frightening. He could see her face, she couldn't see his. No, he didn't know the truth about her, but he suspected, suspected something. Charlie's manner of speaking to and his interactions with Marion were unlucky in that he was one of those people who, when one encounters them on a bad day, seem to know how to push every button, every wrong button so as to make one squirm. Under normal circumstances he'd be a minor annoyance, a mere pebble in the shoe. But not on this day.

---

Some critics found the cop and Charlie to be "padding," and in some ways they are; to get Psycho past the 90 minute mark as a feature film.

But Hitchcock-- with confidence in his abilty to hold off on the horror("Because he's Hitchcock," said Bernard Herrmann to Brian DePalma," the audience knows something will happen, and they will wait") -- turns the cop and Charlie scenes into the essence of paranoia: they aren't nearly as menacing as Marion makes them out to be. And they beautifully set up "where Psycho is going."

----

How could Marion have known that she was, to channel Norman's own words, stepping into a private trap? It's not like he killed every guest who spent the night in his motel. He was selective. Marion was, as he guessed early on, in flight.

---

I think we can figure that Marion's beauty attracted Norman's attention first, and then when he sensed her as a woman running away from something -- Mother knew she had a victim who perhaps wasn't that "connected" to other people. Someone who could be killed and not missed. Wrong!

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Durgnat was very sharp on Psycho. His comments on it in one of his earlier books,--Films & Feelings?--are inspired. He picked up on the greatness of the film. There is an underlying Puritan-Calvinist undercurrent in Psycho. Odd, when you consider that both screenwriter Joe Stefano and director Alf Hitchcock were Roman Catholic, but then America is at its moral core deeply Protestant, was and still is. The work ethic still rules, even as it's spread around a bit more than sixty years ago to includes play, and that includes sexuality. It's all in the mix: workouts, gyms, bike rides, mountaineering, skiing, schtupping, getting satisfaction, giving satisfaction, pulling your "own weight", giving back to society something after you've earned your fair share, and so on. Bewildering, and enough to make your head spin. So many rules, mandates, dictates; and all neatly internalized. If you are, for whatever the reason, outside that orbit, it can be simultaneously intimidating and off putting: people running around all the time, chained by rules, regulations and schedules, content in their self-created captivity, and calling it freedom

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Durgnat was very sharp on Psycho. His comments on it in one of his earlier books,--Films & Feelings?--are inspired. He picked up on the greatness of the film. There is an underlying Puritan-Calvinist undercurrent in Psycho.

---
It occurs to me that the "damnation" analysis that I ascribe to Durgnat was specifically Calvinist; I just couldn't remember the term.

---

Odd, when you consider that both screenwriter Joe Stefano and director Alf Hitchcock were Roman Catholic, but then America is at its moral core deeply Protestant, was and still is.

---

I expect so, though I am losing track these days. Hitchcock's Catholicism came through strong in I Confess and The Wrong Man, where the protagonists go through hell and come out of it. What to make of Psycho and Frenzy, where there is no such hope? In The Wrong Man, prayer saves Manny Ballestrero, in Frenzy prayer does not save Brenda Blaney. When I brought this up on another board, I got the reply "Sometimes prayer works...sometimes prayer doesn't." Though even with Brenda, I expect her repeated prayer helped get her through the horror of her predicament a little better. It comforted her.

---

The work ethic still rules, even as it's spread around a bit more than sixty years ago to includes play, and that includes sexuality.

---

Ha. True. Targets of quantity and quality, reported out to us via Internet articles. Are we doing our part? Getting our share?

---

It's all in the mix: workouts, gyms, bike rides, mountaineering, skiing, schtupping, getting satisfaction, giving satisfaction, pulling your "own weight", giving back to society something after you've earned your fair share, and so on.

---

Yikes.

--

Bewildering, and enough to make your head spin. So many rules, mandates, dictates; and all neatly internalized. If you are, for whatever the reason, outside that orbit, it can be simultaneously intimidating and off putting: people running around all the time, chained by rules, regulations and schedules, content in their self-created captivity, and calling it freedom

---

Sobering thoughts. Psycho takes this up circa 1960. Clearly Marion and Sam have over-sacrificed in their working lives, and remain near poverty. Marion makes some breaks -- through sex; through theft.

[–] telegonus (736) 7 years ago

Raymond Durgnat could be so brilliant. He wasn't everyone's cup of tea. As I think back on it I think he called Psycho something like a Protestant or Calvinist work of Dionysian (sic) art. That's pretty close to my take and would have been if I'd never read Durgnat,--insert LOL emoticon. True, though.

Psycho really turns the screws on youth and beauty, its pleasures and its at times extreme discontents. Whether Calvinist or not it does show just how dissatisfying youth and beauty can be, especially it's supposed to bring contentment and happiness and yet by itself it means nothing.

What is it, really? Well, if one doesn't manage one's youth and/or beauty it can kill you. Psycho's young folk all seem to have problems with this, and adding hormonal factors to this, body chemistry more specifically, and youth, as in Norman's case, can be downright dangerous if not properly "regulated". It's not like be brought his youth on himself: it just happened. He didn't know what to do with it.

Leaving aside the psychobabble, on a personal note, I really can't blame him, don't hate him. He wasn't so much sick in the head, though he was that, too, as a tragic case of neglected and mismanaged youth. But then with that mother and her lover, he was "set up" very early on.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Raymond Durgnat could be so brilliant. He wasn't everyone's cup of tea. As I think back on it I think he called Psycho something like a Protestant or Calvinist work of Dionysian (sic) art.

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I seem to recall all those formal terms in his essay "Inside Norman Bates"(a chapter in a book on Hitchcock films) and then, a coupla decades later, the great BOOK "A Long Hard Look at Psycho"(or so he thought -- he never came to IMDb or HERE).

I realize that to the extent I've gotten some "extra book learnin'" since my days at school, reading Deep Think essays on Hitchcock films has helped. Academics like Durgnat bring in their literary/theological/political referents and...guys like me LEARN.

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That's pretty close to my take and would have been if I'd never read Durgnat,--insert LOL emoticon. True, though.

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Well -- great minds think alike.

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Whether Calvinist or not it does show just how dissatisfying youth and beauty can be, especially it's supposed to bring contentment and happiness and yet by itself it means nothing.

Well, if one doesn't manage one's youth and/or beauty it can kill you. Psycho's young folk all seem to have problems with this, and adding hormonal factors to this, body chemistry more specifically, and youth, as in Norman's case, can be downright dangerous if not properly "regulated". It's not like be brought his youth on himself: it just happened. He didn't know what to do with it.

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All well stated. I've lived enough life to know that youth was pretty dangerous in certain ways. Your health is great and your strength is good...but your hormones are raging. And though none of them were the closest of friends, I lost some high school acquaintences to high speed car crashes, drugs and alcohol abuse. They were reckless, felt they were immortal.

Over on the sexual side, well, its a lot of fun but it really messes with the psyche. And can lead to way-too-early parenthood and other life-changing outcomes.

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Leaving aside the psychobabble, on a personal note, I really can't blame (Norman), don't hate him. He wasn't so much sick in the head, though he was that, too, as a tragic case of neglected and mismanaged youth. But then with that mother and her lover, he was "set up" very early on.

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I get where you are coming from(THERE's an old cliché phrase), but I see villainy in Norman too, though not necessarily "human villainy." HIS brain chemistry was evidently messed up to the point where Mother and her boyfriend, and his own sexual confusion(he loved his mother perhaps too much) were ADDED to whatever it is that makes a human being want to slash a woman to pieces(Hitchcock's phrase) in the shower --- there's more than average youthful waywardness there. In other words, Norman isn't James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause." He's a monster with a human front and -- I'll concede this -- SOME compassion and politeness retained from the better side of his humanity. But still...as his face in the cell at the end reveals: a monster.

For those who diss the detail of the shrink scene in Psycho, I always point to Frenzy of 12 years later in Hitchcock, his only psycho film AFTER Frenzy. In that one, we know just about zero of sex killer Bob Rusk's youth, and consequently, the film feels more "lightweight" than Psycho.

Though we get some clues. We know the only photo on Rusk's mantle is of his now-aged mother, she's still alive(Rusk introduces her to Blaney), and he quotes her(and only her) all the time. So Mother was and IS central in Rusk's life(many mothers are, frankly, though not to the point of being the SOLE photo on the mantel.)

Hitchcock gave many interviews on Frenzy where he said Rusk's psychosis was sexual and simple: he was impotent, killed in rage over that impotence, and became potent only while killing(says Inspector Oxford, "Its the killing, not the sex, that brings them on.". Ick. But that's how a lot of sex killers are. And it often IS traced to youth, when their male sexuality malfunctioned in some way.

Some of this traces to Psycho, but only in Robert Bloch's book, in which he reveals that: Norman is impotent, too. Thanks to Mother.

[–] telegonus (736) 7 years ago

As Johnny Carson used to say, I didn't know that. About Norman's impotency. I did wonder how and whether he...oh, never mind. It makes sense re his killing young women with knives without any apparent sexual behavior before or aft. I suspect that he did nothing to the corpses of his female victims, likely treated them as mother would have done. Ugh!

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

There's a "chapter start" late in Bloch's novel where Norman is trying to remember what it is that he is-- important? And then he remembers the word.

And he has memories of mother hitting him hard on the head with a steel hairbrush when she caught him "doing sexual things."

And now he's...well...impotent.

None of this could be said or filmed in 1960, but came 1972 and Frenzy, Hitchcock could get right to it. Unsavory, yes, and frankly, a bit too "direct" about what the problem is for Norman AND for Rusk. And as with all such things, I would believe that not all men with impotency problems convert to killers because of it. There have to be other elements for rape and/or murder to enter in(homicidal tendencies, rage.) For "normal" men, they seek treatment or alternate means of loving. Viagara, modernly.

There is another movie(and book) that presents this type of psycho: 1977's "Looking for Mr. Goodbar," in which Diane Keaton's sexually promiscuous schoolteacher finally picks up the wrong guy in a bar(Tom Berenger.) He can't perform, he goes into a rage and stabs her to death.

Its evidently a banal and terrible element of too many male on female crimes.