What Was the First Scene Shot for Psycho?
Here's a topic I've mused on...that leads to a second topic. If I may....
Isn't it interesting to think about how a movie begins its shooting , in earnest? Maybe some second unit work is done first, or some inserts, but eventually you gotta put your actors on the set and start making your movie. One thing I read about Hitchcock is that when someone wanted him to film Janet Leigh speaking as part of the first scene shot of Psycho, Hitchcock replied: "No, don't you know that the first shot you take in a movie should never have your lead actor in it?"
But what was that first scene?
One book says that the first scene shot was the cop questioning Marion off of Highway 99 near Gorman in the Grapevine Hills north of LA.
One book says that the first scene shot was Marion driving up to the porch of the Bates Motel for the first time, in the rain. (During which Hitchcock supposedly admonished someone not to set up Leigh for the first shot.)
I'm guessing: the first scene shot for Psycho -- on location at least -- was indeed the scene with the cop.
Because if you look at it: Janet Leigh wasn't there. Outdoors, 70 miles north of LA, near Gorman. Her car is parked, and the police car comes up alongside and parks well behind it. We get a nice location long shot of the cop getting out of his car and walking up to Leigh's car -- I'm pretty sure that cop IS Mort Mills, and not a stand-in. But Leigh isn't visible in the shot.
Detective work: Eva Marie Saint narrated a doc on NXNW in which she showed how Hitchocck and his cast filmed all their location work FIRST: NYC, Chicago, Rapid City and Mount Rushmore. Then they went back to Hollywood and finished the film at the MGM soundstages.
So we can figure that Hitchcock filmed the comparatively meager location scenes of Psycho first, too: The cop stop, near Gorman. California Charlie's, about four blocks from Universal Studios. Anything else? Likely not. All the Phoenix stuff was done second unit.
With the location work done, Hitchcock likely settled in for soundstage work(the interior of the Bates House, Cabin One of the motel ; the parlor -- the "soundstage" version of the Bates Motel exterior), and perhaps finished up with some backlot work out at the "outside"Bates Motel and House. And swamp.
So: the first scene filmed in Psycho was the cop stop, but not with Janet Leigh there. The first "actors acting" scene filmed for Psycho was Leigh arriving at the motel.
Which brings me to the next question:
Did Hitchcock himself travel up to Gorman to supervise the cop stop scene?
After all, he didn't go to Phoenix to supervise the second unit float over Phoenix and background plates of Phoenix streets.
But I've read that Hitchcock WAS in Gorman to direct the cop scene. He was in a car, bundled up, between shots. And I can see where maybe he felt he should be there. He had one actor to direct -- on movement; how to walk up to the car. He had some compositions to capture -- that tumbleweed in the foreground on one shot; the sweeping vista of the Grapevine Hills(still exactly the same decades later) behind the cop's car and behind him.
I've always noted that in the famous story told of how Hitchcock had the flu and let Hilton Green direct part of the murder of Arbogast, Green said firmly "He only let me film the part leading to the murder, not the murder itself." (Green and company famously shot close-ups on Arbogast's feet and hands that didn't work for a victim.) But it was important for US to be told that Hitch, and only Hitch, supervised the actual taking of Arbogast's life. That was A-list work.
So Hitchcock was there to direct Mother rushing out at Arbogast seen from above? Did Hitchcock go up there and look down to get the shot and staging exactly right? Or did he send someone else? I believe he went up there -- because of a photograph of him "way up there" to capture the overhead shots of Cary Grant on the rooftop at the climax of To Catch a Thief.
Flash to Frenzy, made when Hitchcock was old and tired(and during which his beloved Alma suffered a stroke). Word is that he let his assistant director direct some of the soundstage dialogue scenes.
But when it came time to film the arrival of the potato truck at the highway diner, Hitchcock pulled two or three allnighters, dusk til dawn like a party animal, to supervise the footage of Rusk escaping and going into the diner, and of Babs body ejecting from the truck.
Thus: it would seem that Hitchcock made sure that he was THERE to direct "the big scenes" in his movies. Second unit not apply. (And frankly, I have to think that Hitchcock personally directed a re-shoot of EVERYTHING Hilton Green shot -- the shots of Arbogast in the foyer looking around are just too dynamic in their angling, composition, and size of Arbo in the shot.)