why is sam's and marion's relationship illicit?
I didn't get that, he was divorced, she was single, what am I missing?
share@LetThem. It's just the illicitness of sex outside marriage that's being alluded to. Obviously there was a lot of hypocrisy about the 'no extra-marital sex' norm in 1960 but it was real nonetheless. E.g., it took until *1972* for the US Supreme Court to strike down all the laws various states had restricting sale of contraceptives just to married people!
I think we're also supposed to believe that Sam and Marion have to grab hours during the day during business trips so there's a measure of 'hiding from employers' built into these long lunches... in sleazy pay-by-the-hour hotels. So that's two sorts of lower-level illicitness buttressing the major sort of illicitness.
Note that the opening scene fraught with illicitness was not in Bloch's novel and IIRC it was Stefano's invention of it to start the film that convinced Hitchcock that he'd found his writer. In the book, Marion and Sam meet on a cruise and she's visited him once up in Fairvale in the year since and that's all. Marion's super-frustrated by Sam's debts and getting older, etc. but they're not seeing each other enough to be triggering 'no sleazy extra-marital sex' norms.
Another problem that Stefano's invention creates is the nature of Sam's business trips. At one point Sam says he can come down to Phoenix next week as well. I don't find it especially plausible that an indebted small town hardware store would support that sort or amount of business travel. Stefano tried to explain away this problem with some too cute, Lowery-anticipating dialogue about tax-deductiblity (of the trips) but Hitch cut it.
Stefano tried to explain away this problem with some too cute, Lowery-anticipating dialogue about tax-deductiblity (of the trips) but Hitch cut it.
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There's the value of reading the Stefano script again...Hitchcock evidently instructed his writers to "put everything in there" and then he would decide what to cut.
In Ernest Lehman's script for North by Northwest, Thornhill has a few pretty good explanations to tell Vandamm and Company (in the Glen Cove library scene) why he can't possibly be George Kaplan. Hitchcock cut them -- no need to undercut his own storyline!
Indeed, Stefano evidently "sold himself" as a writer to Hitchcock by pitching that the movie open with that "1960 style sex scene," but I've always felt that the thought processes Stefano went through, probably almost required it.
The book opens with Norman and Mother arguing in the house. Then Norman hears a telltale bell ring(Marion's tires triggered it down at the motel) and he goes down to check Marion(well, Mary) in. Chapter Two is a Marion's drive to the Bates Motel, filled with flashbacks to Sam, Lowery and Cassidy, but no cop stop scene, and memories of TWO car switches.
Chapter Three: Mary meets Norman on the motel porch.
Problem: you couldn't OPEN the movie Psycho with Norman and Mother together in the same room. That's all in his mind. Hitchcock would rigorously keep Mother "in the distance" in the movie(up in that window when Marion first sees her); he could NOT start at the motel.
Nor would an opening sequence of Marion driving and flashbacking all the time have worked too well. Oh, it would have worked, I guess...but not well.
So...now the "linear story" starts with Marion. In Phoenix. No flashbacks. We meet Lowery and Cassidy in real time, watch the embezzlement in real time. We get one car switch scene and one "new" cop scene(for maximum suspense.)
But...and here Stefano DID earn his keep...why not start with Sam and Marion "shacking up"(as Stefano phrased it to Hitchcock.) Add in all that illicit stuff and...and this is crucial...manage to shoehorn a classic Hitchcock kissing scene right up front to a story that otherwise could not support such a scene. (Honestly, once Marion hits the road, neither Marion, nor later, Lila, have any time for romance.)
I've always wondered the extent to which the repressed "lack of sex' on American movie screens in the 40s and 50s reflected what was really going on in the bedrooms of America. Psycho went a few steps forward in suggesting that sex outside of marriage was going on.
Another problem that Stefano's invention creates is the nature of Sam's business trips. At one point Sam says he can come down to Phoenix next week as well. I don't find it especially plausible that an indebted small town hardware store would support that sort or amount of business travel.
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Yes, for a "classic," Psycho has a certain amount of simplicity to its plot line that doesn't much survive scrutiny. An impoverished guy can keep making that trip? Plus...I keep trying to figure out where the airport is. Clearly, Sam, Lila, and Arbogast all fly to the Fairvale area. In real life, the small city of Redding, California, is near the fictional Fairvale. Redding doesn't have much of an airport. One would have to drive hundreds of miles to San Francisco or Sacramento to get to a major airport.
Oh, well. Its only a movie.
PS. The script has a scene of Arbogast renting a car in Fairvale, having taken a cab from the airport to follow Lila to the hardware store. Hitchcock just cut this all out and we "went with it." I suppose we could assume(in the movie) that Arbogast rented his car AT the airport.