A Line That Links "Family Plot" to "Psycho"

I was watching "Family Plot" again the other evening.

It remains as I remember it -- too slow and awkward for "Hitchcock at his best" and yet filled (in his last film) with structure and visual ideas and themes and wit that could only come from a Great Man(old and in poor health, yet. Amazing). I still like it, flaws and all -- and the second hour is much better than the first, which is good: it gains momentum and suspense as it goes along.

For some years now, I've made the case the "Family Plot" is a 'structural" remake of Psycho, compared thus:

Psycho:

Investigators following one story about a missing person(Marion Crane) push into ANOTHER story with great danger (a motel and house hide a psycho killer) and the better the investigators do at their job, the more their chances of getting killed increase. (Arbogast does get killed, Lila and Sam almost do.)

Family Plot

Investigators following one story about a missing person(missing heir to a fortune, Eddie Shoebridge) push into ANOTHER story with great danger(Arthur Adamson is a jeweler with a secret life as a murderer and a professional kidnapper), and the better the investigators do at their job, the more their chances of getting killed increase (Madame Blanche almost gets killed -- she DOES get killed in the novel.)

Both stories brim with suspense and irony --the closer the investigators come to solving the mystery, the closer they come to death -- though Psycho obviously plays in a more powerful, landmark bloody, supershocker manner.

But still, pretty much the same plot, the same structure: two stories merging into one.

And watching Family Plot the other night, I caught THIS line:

The set-up: kidnapper Arthur Adamson and his girlfriend accomplice Fran have knocked Madame Blanche out and locked her in a secret room, intending to kill her later. Adamson and Fran know that Blanche has a boyfriend who is an amateur detective/cab driver. The lines:

Fran: What about her boyfriend, the cab driver?

Adamson: She managed to find us, which means he'll find us too.

Aha. Flashback to Psycho, when unseen Norman is talking to an unseen mother about her recent killing of Arbogast the snooping detective:

Norman: He came after the girl, and now someone will come after him.

Side by side:

He came after the girl, and now someone will come after him.
She managed to find us, which means he'll find us too.

And there you go. Psycho and Family Plot, knotted.

Family Plot even has a matching montage to Psycho: Arbogast canvassing Fairvale area motels and boarding houses becomes Blanche canvassing various establishments run by "Adamson." As Arbogast finds the Bates Motel, so does Blanche find Adamson Jewelry.

I would like to add:

Even as Family Plot has the structure of Psycho one way(two stories merge into one, an investigastion leads to lethal dangers) the film right before it -- Frenzy -- has a DIFFERENT match-up with the structure of Psycho.

Psycho:

A first victim is killed as an early surprise(Marion in the shower.) Second act ends as a second victim is killed in a scene of great suspense( Arbogast, on the stairs.) Third act climax: the killer is captured.

Frenzy:

A first victim is killed as an early surprise(Brenda Blaney in her office.) Second act ends as a second victim is killed in a scene of great suspense(Babs Milligan, and stairs are involved here, too.) Third act climax: the killer is captured.

In this way, you can say that Psycho has TWO structures, and one of them is also in Frenzy and the other is also in Family Plot.

Stories can be like that. Consider this about Psycho:

Some see it as "three acts": (1) Marion's (2) Arbogast's (3) Sam and Lila's (which ends in the cell and the swamp). Norman is in all three acts.

Some see it as two acts: (1) Part 1 stars Marion(with Norman) (2) Part 2 stars Norman(with Arbogast, Sam and Lila as a group.)

I favor 3 acts, personally -- because I think Arbogast's story IS an act all its own, 20 minutes in length, and the most suspenseful, funny and scary in the movie. Grouping Arbogast with Sam and Lila does him a disservice, I think.

A non-Hitchcock movie with a very clear cut structure is Jaws. Two parts:

PART ONE: An Alfred Hitchcock movie: deadly menace attacks Your Town, USA. Shock killings occur, some of them in broad daylight, by the beach.

PART TWO: A Howard Hawks movie: Three men in a group set out on an adventure to kill a killer shark. Male bonding and buddy comedy ensue. Hitchcock shows up again at the end with one final shock killing.

The "line" between Part One and Part Two in Jaws is one shot, from the POV of Police Chief Brody: a slow zoom past a small bridge and to the open sea beyond. The shark has just killed again near shore and gone to sea. He must be followed, chased and killed. Part Two awaits.