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The Two Casts of Psycho

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
10 replies | jump to latest

Given the interesting structure of Psycho, it pretty much has not only "two halfs" of a storyline(roughly, Marion's Story and Norman's Story), but two entirely different casts -- with but a tiny few crossovers from Part One to Part Two. Two in fact.

Cast of part one:

Janet Leigh(Marion Crane)
John Gavin(Sam Loomis)
Vaughn Taylor(Lowery)
Frank Albertson (Cassidy)
Pat Hitchocck (Caroline)
Mort Mills(Highway Cop)
John Anderson(California Charlie)
Anthony Perkins(Norman Bates)

Cast of part two

Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates)
John Gavin(Sam Loomis)
Vera Miles(Lila Crane)
Martin Balsam(Arbogast)
John McIntire (Sheriff Chambers)
Lurene Tuttle (Mrs. Chambers)
Simon Oakland(The psychiatrist)
Assorted guys(The DA, the main sheriff, two cell cops, one played by Ted Knight.)

Its interesting to think about not only how DIFFERENT part one and part two of Psycho are from each other, but how different the two casts are.

Now, two actors cross over into both parts: Anthony Perkins and John Gavin. Its almost a "luck of the draw thing." For this to work, Gavin literally has to "fly into" Marion's story(with his visit to Phoenix.) And Anthony Perkins shows up at the very end of Marion's story(really kinda sorta beginning Part Two by overlapping with Marion's story here.)

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As a logistical matter, I can see Hitchcock working closely with his casting director and with actors' agents to book all these folks for limited periods only.

I would assume that Vaughn Taylor, Frank Albertson and John Anderson only worked about two days each, probably moving on to Psycho from another set(maybe a TV show) and then moving on to the NEXT set(maybe another TV show.)

But this: think about how the actors in Part One likely never met the actors in Part Two -- they only saw them when they saw the movie.

I have read something interesting though: Janet Leigh and Martin Balsam had no scenes together in Psycho -- she's gone before he comes in -- but somehow they met during the production and really hit it off. Said Janet Leigh.

And: Anthony Perkins and John Gavin got into "Part One"(Marion's story) because each man had a scene with Janet Leigh. But there no plot reasons for Perkins or Gavin to meet anybody else in part one.

Meanwhile, Perkins only plays scenes in Part Two with Balsam, and Gavin(with a little interaction with Miles.) Though we are told that Norman MET WITH Sheriff Chambers on Sunday morning of the climax day, and we hear Chambers end only of a conversation with Norman. So we can IMAGINE Anthony Perkins acting his unseen scenes with John McIntire.

I'm not quite sure why I'm lingering on this. Perhaps this reason: in many movies, a main group of characters are assembled and pretty much go through the movie together. Think of the characters in Rear Window or The Trouble With Harry in Hitchocck. In Psycho, people come on the screen and then disappear and we never see them again, and the "heroine" baton is passed from Janet Leigh(Part One) to Vera Miles(Part Two.)

Its just another thing that makes Psycho different and unique among film narratives.

[–] [email protected] (5871) 7 years ago

Interesting, never thought of it like there were two casts in the film.

Marion and her sister Lila never had a scene together either. Their stories were so intertwined. Obviously Lila wanted to find out what happened to her sister. But their was no plausible reason for them to meet in the movie. We can only guess what their relationship was like. I imagine they were close.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Interesting, never thought of it like there were two casts in the film.

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Its hard to think of other movies in which that is the case, though I am sure that there are a few.

One Hitchcock scholar noted that Topaz sort of worked that way. The film had one male lead(French spy Andre Devereaux), but moved him through episode stories that each featured actors(Roscoe Lee Browne's DuBois in Harlem, Karin Dor's Juanita de Cordoba in Cuba, the French traitors in Paris) who don't appear in other scenes in the film. However, John Vernon's Rico Parra appears in both the Harlem and Cuba sequences.)

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Marion and her sister Lila never had a scene together either.

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Nope. I suppose flashbacks could have been filmed with Lila relating to Sam the sisters' relationship -- but no real reason for that.

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Their stories were so intertwined. Obviously Lila wanted to find out what happened to her sister. But their was no plausible reason for them to meet in the movie. We can only guess what their relationship was like. I imagine they were close.

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Here is another classic example, I think, of how Psycho "creates an alternate movie in our heads." We meet Marion at some length. We meet Lila at some length. And I think our minds just demand to "create scenes for them together" in which we could see them interact.

There are clues. Both women are headstrong, in different ways. Says Lila "Patience doesn't run in my family, Sam." Bingo!
Marion is presented as sensual and sexually active; Lila is presented(because we're meeting her in maximum stress mode) as sexless and angry. But the movie leaves all sorts of clues that Lila doesn't have a boyfriend -- Marion talks of cooking "a big steak for three"(Marion, Sam, Lila) and no boyfriend comes to help Lila find Marion.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Script pages written but not filmed indicate that Marion and Lila lost their parents early. Marion quit college to support Lila; Lila quit college refusing to be supported by Marion. The two sisters lived together in a rented house in Phoenix.

A plot point in the movie itself is telling: on the weekend that Marion took off for Sam with the cash, Lila was "in Tucson doing some buying over the weekend." Otherwise, surely Lila would have noticed Marion missing -- or Marion would have lied to Lila about where she was going, or Marion might have felt guilt and aborted the crime.

And this: the same Saturday night that Marion was getting killed at the Bates Motel....Lila was likely in a motel too. In Tucson.

Janet Leigh and Vera Miles have no scenes together in Psycho, but they did pose together -- each of them clutching John Gavin for protection and looking in fear at the shadow of Mrs. Bates' chair -- in some corny circa-1960 publicity stills for Psycho. The stills can be viewed at imdb. It IS interesting to see Leigh and Miles side by side and to compare their sisterly attributes(which are there, even as the actresses were not related in real life.)

[–] [email protected] (5871) 7 years ago

Marion and Lila's back story does sound interesting, but obviously no time or place to film it in Psycho.

I never saw those publicity stills with the two actresses and John Gavin. But Alfred Hitchcock's publicity for the film was a classic case of misdirection! He leaves the audience in the dark.

Did you ever see the trailer for Psycho that Hitchcock did? I found it on youtube. He goes through a long explanation hinting of strange events, murder, etc. But in the end he actually tells you NOTHING about the actual story. He just leaves you feeling scared and wanting to see this movie!

[–] movieghoul (213) 7 years ago

For Rear Window, there is a publicity shot of Stewart in his wheelchair with Georgine Darcy (Miss Torso).

ANd it's interesting how actors' schedules dictate how scenes are filmed. THere are many cases where 2 actors do a scene together and yet they were never in the room at the same time! No two shots, and doubles used.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

For Rear Window, there is a publicity shot of Stewart in his wheelchair with Georgine Darcy (Miss Torso).

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I've seen that shot. Its rather incongrous: gangly, aw shucks Stewart in his wheelchair with Darcy draped over him in her leotard, long legs on view. What I've read is that Darcy asked for the photo with Stewart and he said OK...but that it was only for her personal collection.

It got out.

I wonder if it was used to promote the movie?

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ANd it's interesting how actors' schedules dictate how scenes are filmed. THere are many cases where 2 actors do a scene together and yet they were never in the room at the same time! No two shots, and doubles used.

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I expect we'd be amazed how many times that has been done. The only time I've read of was the short "casino baccarat showdown" between Peter Sellers and Orson Welles in the original Casino Royale(1967). Sellers evidently refused to act with Welles, who knows why. So they shot their scenes on different days, never in the same shot.

Which reminds me: one of the personal pleasures I have gotten from some movies is when two stars ARE in the same shot: like when Steve McQueen enters The Towering Inferno about 45 minutes in and joins Paul Newman(who has been in the movie since the opening scene) in a walk into the skyscraper lobby and elevator.

Stars don't really like to share the same shot, I don't think. Bonfire of the Vanities starred Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis, and they shared, as I recall, one very short scene. The rest of the movie, they are apart.

And Rod Steiger noted that in the famous "taxicab" scene in On the Waterfront with Brando, when it came time for Steiger's close-ups, Brando left the stage and Steiger had to emote to a script girl reading Brando's lines. Sounds like Brando-- considered a God in his time, evidently also quite the selfish, self-centered bastard.

[–] movieghoul (213) 7 years ago

Interesting how in some Hitchcock films of the period, characters are disposed of well before the end of the movie. Most notably in Vertigo, where one by one, the supporting cast disappears, and in the last half hour, it's only Scottie and Judy. In North By Northwest, it's Thornhill's mother who vanishes. And, as noted abov, in Psycho we lose the whole cast of the first half.

On a related theme, there's all those significant characters who never appear, starting with the title character in Rebecca. THen there's both Madeleine and Carlotta in Vertigo, Kaplan in NBN, and Mother in Psycho.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Interesting how in some Hitchcock films of the period, characters are disposed of well before the end of the movie. Most notably in Vertigo, where one by one, the supporting cast disappears, and in the last half hour, it's only Scottie and Judy.

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Hitchcock said in interviews, "I always avoid the cliché," so much that the phrase BECAME a cliché from him. But ya gotta admit...he lived it.

Vertigo starts with Midge as Scottie's "anchor figure and reality principle" and by 2/3 into the flim, she's gone (and with it , the reality principle IN Vertigo.) Meanwhile, the damn VILLAIN of the piece, Gavin Elster, disappears, too. I like to point out that if Vertigo were a traditional thriller, Scottie and Elster would "have it out at the end" -- perhaps in that bell tower with a fight to Elster's falling death.

Hitchcock was after entirely different game in Vertigo -- a tale of one man's obsession and one woman's sacrifice to it -- and the plot didn't much matter.

Which makes Vertigo an art film, in the same way that No Country for Old Men is an art film: setting up characters and conflicts that never pay off . (In No Country, neither Josh Brolin nor Tommy Lee Jones ever have a full-on confrontation with Javier Bardem...at least not the one we expect.)

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In North By Northwest, it's Thornhill's mother who vanishes.

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Interesting: she is pretty much replaced by...Eve Kendall. In other words, Mrs. Thornhill is almost Roger's "love interest" for the first act -- but just as a "partner in investigation," sort of like a Thin Man set-up with a skeptical mother(SHE doesn't believe him) and an exasperated son. Roger bids farewell to his unseen mother on the phone in Grand Central Station...and then immediately boards the train and immediately meets Eve.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I suppose one could say that NXNW is "Psycho on a grand scale" in terms of introducing early characters who are on and off and gone as the movie continues -- the cocktail men at the Plaza; the Glen Cove cops; Roger's lawyer(The Chief from Get Smart); and then on to Lester Townsend(on, off and DEAD in one scene) and, as the movie moves on, more cops(on the train; at the auction, driving Roger to the airport.)

And Vandamm disappears for the middle of the movie...but comes back for the final act.

BTW, Eva Marie Saint had an interesting comment about NXNW:

"I get this script from Alfred Hitchcock, and I'm excited, and I keep reading it looking for my character -- and I don't turn up until page 52."

And Anthony Perkins said of "Psycho":

"Did you ever notice how little (Norman) is in it?" True. He doesn't arrive until page 30, and then disappears for large chunks of "Fairvale scenes with Sam and Lila." But when Norman IS on screen...he's unforgettable. (Especially when he's Mother -- and Tony Perkins wasn't even really there; that was stunt women.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

On a related theme, there's all those significant characters who never appear, starting with the title character in Rebecca.

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Rebecca is a big deal all by herself -- rather separate of the run of the nonexistent characters from Vertigo through Psycho.

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THen there's both Madeleine and Carlotta in Vertigo, Kaplan in NBN, and Mother in Psycho.

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The linkage of the "important non-existent character" from Vertigo to NXNW to Psycho(from three different source materials) is an important guide to HItchocck's "auteurism": it is as if the concept was "floating in the air" and he used it for each movie. What was fun -- with Kaplan and Mother at least -- was how long Hitchcock had us believing in them before revealing they DIDN'T exist. Its as if he were saying, "You see how easy it is to make you believe in nothing?"

With Madeline, there's a twist: she really exists, its just that she's not Kim Novak(Judy). And the ONE TIME we see the real Madeleine -- she's dead in Elster's arms atop the bell tower. So we never really meet her.