How Marion Wraps the Money in the Newspaper

I was watching Psycho the other night -- just part of it -- and I came upon the scene in Cabin One in which Marion Crane tries to decide on a hiding place for her $40,000 in cash. The scene goes on a bit too long in "process" before hitting the reason for being: our first hearing of Mother's voice: loud, ugly, accusatory -- and a bit over-articulate("You tell her she'll not be feeding her ugly appetite with MY food -- or my SON!" "...the cheap erotic fantasies of cheap erotic minds!")

Anyway, somewhere in there, we get the payoff for that Los Angeles newspaper that Marion bought at California Charlie's and that was visible with the word "OK" when Marion checked in at the Bates Motel, and decided that she was FROM Los Angeles -- telling Norman "Los Angeles" when he suggested she need only write down her home town's name. (How wonderfully interlocking and complex this all is.)

Now: Marion decides to hide the $40,000 IN the "OK" Los Angeles newspaper, and Hitchcock gives us a marvelous bit of business well executed by Janet Leigh.

She opens up her big suitcase and lays the newspaper on top of her clothes. She opens the newspaper wide, but not all the way open. The paper is "thick" this way.

Now she lays two separate "dollar bundles" side by side on the newspaper. ($20,000 each -- less $700 for the car?)

Now, she uses her hand like a "blade"(karate chop style), to create creases on either side of the cash bundles. Then - she carefully -- in THIRDS -- folds the newspaper over each bundle of cash from either side, so that the bundles are covered. THEN, the folds the entire newspaper back together into one rectangular package that covers both bundles of cash -- one atop the other --within the paper.

Then she puts the paper on the nightstand next to her bed --where it will be ready to be the very profound "second to last stop" on the camera move en route from Marion's head on the bathroom floor to the house out the window ("Oh, God, mother blood blood!") As part of that camera move from the bathroom (famous) to the house(famous), the pause on the newspaper is to say: "Funny how little all this money means now...to a dead woman who can't use it."

And of course, the newspaper with the money pays off as a great final grim suspense joke -- Norman almost forgets to take it(Sam and Lila would have found it!) but sees it, doesn't open it, and tosses it in the trunk of the car with Marion. Down to the swamp it goes.

Add the "Los Angeles OK newspaper with $40,000 in it" to the brilliant plot tropes that make Psycho the masterpiece that it is.

But REALLY add in that nicely executed maneuver by Janet Leigh...wrapping up the money with her karate chop hand(with all the attendant "yummy" sounds of paper crackling and folding that equals "the sex appeal of money.")

I wonder who ran her through that maneuver in rehearsal...and how many times?