A Tale of Two Staircases: Psycho and The Untouchables(1987)

Now, DePalma -- so world famous for "borrowing" Hitchcock scenes and motifs -- here borrowed a bit from all of Hitchcock's staircase scenes(Arbogast's included) but added things that weren't Hitchcock: slow-motion; gunplay; and an homage to Eisenstein's Odessa Steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin -- principally a baby carriage bouncing down the steps amidst all the carnage. (Ah, but Hitchcock had borrowed from Potemkin, too, in the Arbogast murder on the stairs -- the slash on Arbogast's face is presented much like the broken eyeglasses and blood on a woman's face in the Odessa Steps sequence.)

To the extent I disliked how DePalma handled suspense set-pieces in his films, I mainly complained about how OVERLONG the build-ups were. Example , just how long it takes that bucket of pig's blood to fall on Carrie, in Carrie, with the slo-mo camera crawling forever back and forth, up and down , to show us the rope, the bucket, the bad guys, the good guys.

I wrote that if DePalma had filmed the Arbogast staircase murder in Psycho, it would have taken the detective ten minutes in slow motion to get up the stairs, and five minutes in slow motion to get down the stairs. Hitchocck filmed the sequence with a much greater sense of concision and split-second timing. I like the timing on the Arbogast murder.

DePalma's staircase scene, nonetheless, surprised me: it takes FOREVER for the woman with the baby carriage to drag that carriage up the steps, one at a time, about two minutes per step. And when the gunfire finally unleashes and people start moving, that's in slow motion.

But somehow, this time, it works. The lady dragging the carriage up the steps is so aggravatingly slow that I had audience members yelling "C'mon!" -- for Kevin Costner's Elliott Ness needs woman and baby to clear the way before Al Capone's henchmen appear with a bookkeeper who is a "human MacGuffin" -- capture the bookmaker, capture Al Capone's tax records, put him away.

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A question: is this the same Chicago train station in The Untouchables where Grant and Saint disembarked in NXNW? I dunno. I know that Chicago has/had at least two big stations. I wonder.

The Untouchables uses Union Station which is the *only* intercity rail link in Chicago these days. Up until the late 1960s, however, the less grand (on one level, no big staircases) LaSalle St station was also used for some important intercity links, including the (famous in movies since the '30s) 20th Century Ltd to/from NYC and the (famous in Blues and skiffle songs) Rock Island Line to/from points west (including the Golden State Limited to CA). Rewatching the NbNW scene now it's clearly LaSalle St Station that's intended and was used (both for live shots and for back projection plates). Note that when LaSalle lost intercity service the station buildings there were demolished. The current LaSalle Station is unremarkable, indeed it's a relatively minor, albeit terminal node in Chicago's commuter train system.

Thanks to ecarle for encouraging me to sort this out! In the '90s I caught the 20th Century Ltd many times always arriving at Union Station, and up until now I mentally pasted NbNW into that location even though I knew something was off about the level of the platforms (shown in NbNW at street level and evidently as more centrally into The Loop, which didn't fit Union Station). Glad to have that misimpression corrected.

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The Lodger is the big one.

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Aha. I've only really seen that once. Otherwise, I've seen some clips a few times.

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The Psycho-ish main staircase is featured repeatedly with many angles the same as Psycho

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"Self plagiarism is style" just could be the most self-aware statement Hitchcock ever made.

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and there's one Vertigo-ish show-off shot directly down the stair-well tracing the Lodger's hand around the perspective receding spiral of the railing.

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Yes, I recall that. The Vertigo bell tower stairwell is its own kind of effect, isn't it? Spiraling around and around(thought in a "square shape" in a dizzying simile to the dizzying spiral patterns of the Vertigo credit sequence. Moreover, that bell tower stairwell famously does the " Vertigo effect" of dollying up and zooming away, along with a great swish of Herrmann music for the effect. Another great "Hitchcock frisson."

And also: a much more gigantic version of the Vertigo bell tower and stairwell anchor the climax of Tim Burton's "Batman"(with a climactic cliffhanger pattened off of NXNW on Rushmore) -- yet another reason I LOVE that particular Batman movie. (That and Jack. And Michael.)

And also: to go along with the famous bell tower stairwell in Vertigo, we also have the opulent staircase at the McKittrick Hotel which looks like the Psycho house staircase on steroids. Detective Scottie McPherson takes on that staircase much as Detective Arbogast will take on the Psycho staircase....but survives.

Self-plagiarism. Style.

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The semi-surprise that the foppish/matinee idol-ish Lodger is actually a super-rich dude is cinched at the end of the film by having him descend a grandiose, curving, marble staircase in his mansion.

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Interesting that a grandiose staircase can be its very own atmospheric statement, yes? I am thinking of the one in Notorious, and for some reason, the one in Saboteur at the ball(I think.)

By contrast, the Bates House staircase is actually rather stark -- its the carpet all the way up on each step that makes it a bit more opulent than it is.

Now HERE's some trivia:

I researched various Hitchcock reviews on microfiche over the years. And I found one for The Birds(Newsweek, I believe) that said:

"Hitchcock sets one suspense scene on a staircase. But since he already gave us practically the same, scene, on practically the same staircase, in Psycho...the effect falls flat this time."

Hmm. No doubt the critic was noting Tippi's ascent to attic room in The Birds, but both the ascent AND the staircase are quite different than those in Psycho. Arbogast's ascent was a straight single shot(cut to and from) looking down on Arbogast in the near distance as he walked. Tippi is covered in a series of tight close-ups and inserts: her face, her hands, etc.

And indeed, whereas the Psycho staircase goes straight up, the Birds staircase takes a turn.

As does the staircase in Frenzy. Indeed, the walks of Tippi in The Birds and Jon Finch at the end of Frenzy are far more of a "matched pair"(close-ups, inserts) than the Psycho Arbogast climb to either of those two...

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