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The Landmark Horror Elevates the Drama in "Psycho"

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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One of my stray musings about Psycho:

Some years ago, I rented some DVDs with old episodes of the TV detective show "Peter Gunn," which ran in the same 1959-1960 period of the making and release of Psycho. Gunn had that classic cool theme song(that put Henry Mancini in position to own the 60's.) Craig Stevens was the suave Cary Grantish private eye who questioned suspects, romanced ONE beautiful lady, and got into really brutal to-the-death fights with the bad guys.

Anyway, in episode after episode, Gunn would question suspects. And often, the suspects would cut off the interrogation with: "I don't have to talk to you. You're not the police."

And I flashed back to Psycho:

Norman: I didn't think the police went looking for people who AREN'T in trouble.
Arbogast: Oh, but I'm not the police.

And eventually Norman cuts Arbogast off with "Mr. Arbogast, I think I've talked to you all I want to, and I think it would be much better if you were to go, now."

Because he's not the police.

So, it hit me: In 1960, the Norman-Arbogast interrogation probably looked awfully familar to "Peter Gunn" fans.

What made it different?

Well, the acting. Very good -- professionally so by Balsam, surprisingly so by Perkins.

And the lighting --on Balsam in particular.

And the camera angles -- including the big sweep under Perkins' throat.

And the editing -- a nicely cut pitter-patter effect that matched the overlapping dialogue done so well by Perkins and Balsam.

But what probably REALLY made the Arbogast-Norman interrogation different than any Peter Gunn version was this: this rather "routine" interrogation scene took place in a movie where what happened before the interrogation (the shower murder) and after the interrogation(the staircase murder)was shocking, historic, far beyond anything that happened on Peter Gunn and any other TV show. And as I've noted in another post, because of the leftover terror about Mrs. Bates from the shower murder, the Arbogast interrogation was fraught with dread: would he get killed NOW?

Thus, dialogue that might have otherwise disappeared into the mists of time now lives on forever -- in cable TV showings of Psycho, on home DVDs, in high school and college film classes worldwide.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

But what about that OTHER great dialogue sequence in Psycho?

Norman and Marion, in the parlor.

When we (desperately) try to imagine what it would be like to see Psycho "knowing nothing of the story," THIS dialogue is quite different from the Arbogast-Norman interrogation because: we don't know that Marion is going to die five minutes after it, most horribly, in an act of historic screamable terror.

No, all we got "the first time" is: a perfectly calibrated, sometimes compassionate, sometimes disturing dialogue between two wounded, good-looking people. One a woman, one a man(but barely), both seeming to make connection and then losing it(when Norman's language becomes mean and accusatory), and then almost getting it back again.

Here, my feeling is this: taken out of context, this is a very GOOD scene.

But attached -- forevermore -- to the landmark horrors that Psycho would soon portray after the parlor scene is over -- its a GREAT scene. And especially in reviewings of Psycho, in which we know clearly that Marion is talking to a dangerously disturbed homicidal maniac.

The parlor scene(Norman/Marion) and the motel interrogation scene(Norman/Arbogast) are the big dialogue scenes in Psycho(each leading to a landmark murder by Norman of the other person); but frankly , ALL the scenes in Psycho become weighted with portent that wouldn't be there if it WEREN'T for the murder scenes and the horrific finale and explanations.

From the second time one sees Psycho on, EVERY scene ties into the larger terror of the film:

The hotel scene with Sam; the real estate office scene - the "set up" of love and cash that sets Marion on her fateful journey.

The cop stop scene; the California Charlie scene: "Suspense for suspense's sake scenes" that at once endanger Marion towards arrest AND almost save her life.

And indeed, ALL of Marion's scenes are part of the "countdown to her death" -- the last couple of days of human interaction that involve us in Marion's life and are all dashed to pieces -- and slashed to pieces -- in that shower.

"Part Two" of Psycho has been criticized for being "too much routine mystery plotting" but hanging over them are the death of Marion first, and then the death of Arbogast -- with those horrors hanging in our minds, practically each and every word said by Deputy Sheriff Chambers feels suspenseful -- dammit, man, INVESTIGATE. And a certain pain enters in as we know what Sam and Lila don't: Marion is dead, horribly murdered, sunk in her trunk in a swamp.

As a "standalone" matter, Joseph Stefano's dialogue for Psycho IS pretty good -- one of the best dialogue scripts Hitchcock ever got: All-American and noirish in its terse, witty patter; suddenly macabre("I"ll replace that money with her fine, soft, flesh" "It would be cold and damp, like the grave"), sometimes funny.

But it is only because of the larger impact of Psycho -- those murders, that backstory, the all-enveloping feeling not only of horror, but of history being made at the movies -- that Stefano's dialogue has lasted for decades.