MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > The Six Names on the Psycho Poster

The Six Names on the Psycho Poster

posted 6 years ago by ecarle (14979)
3 replies | jump to latest

Movie posters for famous movies can take on a life of their own.

What they look like, how they live on in posterity.

I'd say the "Jaws" poster might be the best one that comes to my mind in this moment. A direct and distinct statement of the story: that tiny, pretty disguised-nude woman swimming on the surface of the ocean. That great big, phallic shark zooming up right at her, jaws wide open. The movie in a nutshell. Terrifying elegance -- the poster for Jaws II was clunkier with its female water skier and the shark looming up behind her. Wrong.

Indeed, the original Jaws poster ended up used over and over in 1975 and beyond for political cartoons, it became a "movie" unto itself. And this: though that scene opens the movie, it doesn't happen that way. We famously never see the shark. But we remember the poster.

How names land on a poster is important, too. With Jaws it was: Roy Scheider(lower left), Robert Shaw(higher center), Richard Dreyfuss(lower right.) Implying that Scheider(first, lower) and Shaw(next, higher) were co-equal stars...and Dreyfuss had to settle for third. (All three names, exactly this way, appear on screen in the Jaws opening credits too -- the three men SHARE the lead credit.)

The Psycho poster of 15 years before Jaws suffered from being of an earlier age for movie posters. Its a little bit clunky in the presentation, with kind of "tabloid" paste ups of Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh(in bra and slip), John Gavin(shirtless) and sometimes Vera Miles(screaming.) Leigh's photo is bigger than anyone else's -- first-billed Perkins is actually rather small in the poster photos. Gavin shirtless dominates as much as Leigh in bra and slip (indeed, some newspapers airbrushed a tee-shirt on Gavin's bare torso!)

Saving -- and dominating -- everything on that poster was that great, great, greatest logo of all time for PSYCHO. The word slashed all the way horizontally and vertically down the C. Hitchcock paid as much for that logo($9000) from the artist who designed it for the hardcover Robert Bloch novel as he paid for...Robert Bloch's novel!

But the six names on the poster matter, too. The Psycho cast has gone down in movie history, and perhaps how they are billed is a matter of history as well:

Anthony PERKINS
Vera MILES
John GAVIN

co-starring Martin BALSAM and John McINTIRE

and Janet LEIGH as "Marion Crane."

Of interest:

Nobody is above the title. Only Hitchcock:

Alfred HITCHCOCK'S

PSYCHO

This versus Grant, Saint, and Mason above the title for North by Northwest; Stewart and Novak above the title for Vertigo and...wait for it...Henry Fonda and VERA MILES above the title for The Wrong Man.

Hitchcock gave Vera Miles a demotion in billing for Psycho....placing her in what was, essentially, an ensemble with no one deemed to have the marquee star power of James Stewart or Kim Novak (or Doris Day, for that matter.)

Anthony Perkins was pleased to learn that he would be first-billed in Psycho. He'd been fourth-billed in 1959's "On the Beach"(above the title, but after Peck, Gardner, and Astaire.) He was usually second-billed. But Psycho gave him top billing -- just not the biggest picture on the poster, however.

Janet Leigh -- was she a "bigger" star than Anthony Perkins when Psycho came out in '60?

Should the billing have been:

Janet Leigh
Anthony Perkins

in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho?

or

Anthony Perkins
Janet Leigh

in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho

or(more in tune with the poster as we have it):

Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO

starring Janet Leigh
Anthony Perkins

Hitchcock eliminated any such conflicts by giving Leigh billing commensurate with her unique screen time in the movie:

"...and Janet Leigh as Marion Crane."

...thus ceding top billing to Anthony Perkins, and giving second billing to Vera Miles...which made her look like the female lead of the picture, when in reality, she is not.

John Gavin was rather an "ingénue star," nothing special, a Rock Hudson knock off, but he'd had a huge hit in Imitation of Life and was being promoted strongly by MCA, so he landed third billing:

Anthony Perkins
Vera Miles
John Gavin

...even as Gavin is the "hero" of the piece.

Perkins, Miles, Gavin, and Leigh all get the biggest type in the poster as actors, and equally so...even with Janet perched on the "other side of the co-starring cast."

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And what OF that co-starring cast? Well, Psycho has a lot of supporting players, but only two of them made the poster:

"co-starring Martin Balsam and John McIntire."

Balsam's billing is interesting. Of course, he should be on the poster. Arbogast is one of the five main characters in Psycho, and for my money, more interesting than two of the five(Sam and Lila.) I'll bet he gets more LINES than Miles or Gavin. In short, Arbogast is kind of a lead role, but Balsam wasn't a leading man, so into the "co-starring" slot he went.

And yet: With all those other supporting actors (other than John McIntire) not on the poster, can it be said that Martin Balsam "lucked into character stardom" by being cast as Arbogast? In 1959, I don't think Balsam was a bigger name than, say, Simon Oakland(the shrink) or John Anderson(California Charlie)..its just that he landed a role that was really a lead. (Hey, put Frank Sinatra in there and you've got a really big name, and he could have played it.)

When Van Sant remade Psycho in 1998 with recent Oscar nominee William H. Macy (Fargo) in the role, he was dutifully moved up in the credits to a lead credit:

starring

Vince Vaughn
Julianne Moore
Viggo Mortensen
William H. Macy

and Anne Heche as Marion Crane

(I can't remember if Philip Baker Hall as Sheriff Chambers made the 1998 poster. Maybe just the five above.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Which brings us to the "luckiest guy to get on the 1960 Psycho poster."

John McIntire.

I mean the billing is: "Co-starring Martin Balsam and John McIntire." So the psychiatrist and California Charlie and Tom Cassidy and Mr. Lowery and the highway cop DON'T get on the poster, but the little-seen Sheriff Chambers DOES?

From my analysis, this was for two reasons:

ONE: By 1960, John McIntire was a "name" who had been in notable movies going back through The Asphalt Jungle and The Far Country.

TWO: Unlike the shrink, Cassidy, Lowery, the cop, and California Charlie: Sheriff Chambers gets THREE scenes: at his home, in front of the church, and in the DA's office with the psychiatrist.

I suppose whoever did the "poster name count selection" in 1960 for Psycho used McIntire's having three scenes as the main reason to elevate him above the rest.

And that's it. Six names on the poster. Some posters have had more names, some have had fewer(Jaws.) But the organization of the six names on the Psycho poster is its own exercise in specific choices being made(by Hitchcock? By agents? By studio workers?)

Nobody above the title.
First billing for Anthony Perkins.
Special billing for Janet Leigh.
Second billing, and female lead billing for Vera Miles (There are photos of 1960 theater and drive-in marquees stating: "Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho starring Anthony Perkins and Vera Miles." And that's it.)
Third billing for John Gavin(the hero.)
Supporting actor billing for a lead character(Martin Balsam)
Respectful billing for a minor character(John McIntire.)

And this: look sometime at the sheer number of Psycho posters that criss-crossed the world in different languages in 1960. No matter what the language ("Psychose," "Psyco"), those six names were always and only the six names on the poster. Must have made them all mighty famous for awhile.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

But this:

There are actually EIGHT names on the Psycho poster. I've just been covering the actors' names on the poster.

But this is interesting: of the two other names on the poster, one is obvious:

Directed by Alfred HITCHCOCK.

And one is fitting:

Screenplay by Joseph STEFANO.

But...hey...where's Bernard HERRMANN?

Nowhere to be found. I guess great composers didn't "rate" in 1960?