MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > NOT OT: SPOILERS "The Apartment" at 60

NOT OT: SPOILERS "The Apartment" at 60

posted 4 years ago by ecarle (14979)
19 replies | jump to latest

There are a few "Psycho at 60" articles on the net this week. One of them is at a site called The Guardian. I read that article and found a headline link to ANOTHER article: "The Apartment at 60." So I read that, and I liked it. The article poses the question: "Is The Apartment Billy Wilder's Best Film?"

I'll answer that: yes. Yes it is. To me. And its connections to Psycho are part of that.

But first I'll pause for some outrage and "tut tutting." The Apartment? Wilder's best? Better than...Double Indemnity? Better than...Sunset Boulevard? Better than..The Lost Weekend? Better than...Some Like It Hot?

Let's stop at Some LIke it Hot. That came out the year before The Apartment, in the summer of 1959. And Some Like It Hot has the "rep" as "the greatest comedy ever made." The AFI put Some Like It Hot at the top of its comedy list, and Psycho at the top of its thriller list, and THEY only came out a year apart.

Indeed, Hitchcock and Wilder both kinda peaked in 1959 and 1960. North by Northwest and then Psycho for Hitch. Some Like it Hot and then The Apartment for Wilder. All four were summer movies(back long before the "summer special effects blockbuster.") All four pushed the envelope on sex(yes, NXNW too -- Grant and Saint on the train.) Psycho used its screamable shocks and ultra-violence to be the biggest hit of the four -- the biggest pushing of the envelope of the group. And yet: Psycho was linked to Some Like it Hot in its use of cross-dressing and sexual confusion. (With Tony Curtis, then-husband of Psycho's Janet Leigh, in a cross-dressing man-as-woman role first turned down by...Anthony Perkins!)

Some Like It Hot and The Apartment both star Jack Lemmon for Wilder -- he would become Wilder's favorite leading man. Some Like It Hot was the bigger hit -- but The Apartment won Best Picture, and Director(Wilder) and screenplay(Wilder, half of it)...The Apartment was more "prestige" than Some Like It Hot.

And BETTER than Some Like It Hot -- says I -- in one big way: The Apartment is much more emotionally gripping than Some Like It Hot, much deeper in what it has to say about the American "grind" and much more delicate a balance of comedy and drama.

The emotion of The Apartment is what puts it above the other Billy Wilder classics for me, but in a very special way: it is a 1960 movie and so I "connect" to it in a way different than to Double Indemnity(a 40's film) or Sunset Boulevard(a 1950 film and hence with one foot in the 40's, too.)

There's just something about that 50's/60s cusp. I was a little kid then, but I remember it with a certain wonder and nostalgia. Looking at it as a grown man,I see it as a "time of attempted change." Simply put, The Apartment(like Psycho of the same year) just feels more MODERN than the Billy Wilder films before it, a bit more able to take a look at what people are really like, what sex is really like, what love is really like. And in its own weird way, that goes for Psycho too. Come to think of it -- isn't Arbogast really more of a Billy Wilder character than an Alfred Hitchcock character? (Tough, urban, cynical, witty.)

Psycho and The Apartment are very "linked." Not only did they both come out in 1960, they both came out in JUNE of 1960(in NYC at least.) You could have seen Psycho one day and The Apartment the next day(or vice versa.) The fictional Roger Sterling(John Slattery) on Mad Men, DID.

Psycho and The Apartment were both in black and white in a year when most movies were in color(especially the epics like Spartacus and Exodus and The Alamo.)

And came Oscar time, when Psycho was nominated for only four Oscars(Director, Supporting Actress for Leigh, B/W Cinematography and B/W Art Direction)...The Apartment won three of those categories(Director -- Wilder bested Hitch; and the two B/W categories.)

One reason Hitchcock didn't beat Wilder(and Hedda Hopper wrote in a trade paper that SHE wanted Hitch to win that year) was that Psycho didn't get a Best Picture nomination. Which was criminal. That said, if a 1960 movie OTHER than Psycho had to win Best Picture...I'd say The Apartment is the right choice.

Psycho and The Apartment can and should only be matched up so far as it goes. Both made in 1960 -- they have the same basic clothing and hairstyles and car shapes, etc. Both being in black and white, they "feel" similar. And both films rather focus on "the little people" -- the struggling drones who work hard in dull jobs while other people are more rich and obnoxious(Fred MacMurray's Sheldrake in The Apartment; Frank Albertson's Cassidy in Psycho.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

At the center of The Apartment's power, I'd say, is Fred MacMurray as the villain of the piece, the "big boss" Sheldrake who is just as pleasant and befuddled as MacMurray in The Shaggy Dog and My Three Sons(which started in 1960) except...he's a psycho. The key to MacMurray's performance is that he is so evil he has no idea that he IS evil. At the end of the film, when he's telling his lover Shirley MacLaine about how that nebbish Jack Lemmon quit a big job that MacMurray had given him -- MacMurray simply can't UNDERSTAND why Lemmon would do that(because Lemmon's as decent as MacMurray is not), or why MacLaine would even care about Lemmon(turns out -- she realizes then and there -- she LOVES Lemmon. More than the rich MacMurray. And she leaves MacMurray and we can figure MacMurray will never really understand why.)

"The Apartment" is rather like "Its a Wonderful Life" and "The Shawshank Redemption" in that, you have to go through 80% of the film in abject emotional pain before that happy ending FINALLY comes at the end. (As James Stewart said of Its a Wonderful Life and the audience..."you have to earn that happy ending.") And its final line "Shut up and deal" is a nice classic doppelganger to the final line of Some Like It Hot, one year earlier("Well...nobody's perfect.")

I've always felt that, for a " comedy drama," The Apartment really isn't much of a comedy. There aren't big laughs in it. A comedy bit where Lemmon keeps waiting for Grand Hotel to start on his TV network movie -- but it never starts, there's always another commercial first -- seems rather rote and silly (TV movie shows were NEVER like that.) A scene of Lemmon trying over the phone to re-schedule the trysts of three married men over three nights in Lemmon's apartment is more tedious than funny. But I get it ..its 1960, those scenes were funny THEN. (Which means, alas -- the movie has dated. Much moreso than Psycho.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Actually I think the funniest bit belongs to Jack Kruschen as Lemmon's next-door apartment neighbor, a medical doctor living in a rather dumpy apartment building(?) The doc (all warm Jewish vocal mannerisms) has been hearing non-stop schtupping through his bedroom wall and thinks that Lemmon is a sexual superman("Some nights, you got a Twi-nite double header going on in dere.") And this being 1960, the doc also thinks that Lemmon is rather a sexual swine. The suspenseful irony: if the Doc learned what Lemmon's secret REALLY is(he's loaning out the apartment to married men for trysts), he'd REALLY detest Lemmon. As do we -- and the movie is really about Lemmon renouncing all that.

Jack Kruschen got a Best Supporting Actor nomination for The Apartment. Martin Balsam did not for Arbogast. I think that Arbogast is a more "dynamic" character than the doctor(less "schtick"), but in the end, Kruschen's character is a fine one. He goes from comic to dramatic when called upon to save MacLaine's life after a suicide attempt and he gives Lemmon the stern advice of a lifetime "Be a MENSCH." (A good man. Lemmon takes the advice.)

I'd give Martin Balsam the Best Supporting Actor nomination given to Chill Wills for The Alamo -- if only because Wills ran history's most egregious Oscar campaign("Pray for me to win like people prayed for the fighters at the Alamo to live,"..."I'm asking all my cousins to vote for me" -- to which Groucho Marx replied in a Variety ad: "Pleased to be your cousin. Am voting for Sal Mineo for Exodus.") The 1960 winner for Best Supporting Actor was Peter Ustinov for Spartacus. Fair enough -- he steals that movie, along with Charles Laughton.

But Balsam should have at least got a nomination.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I recommended The Apartment to a married couple and got back the report that they hated it "because Jack Lemmon was such a whimpering wimp in that thing." Fair enough. Jack Lemmon was interesting -- one of the biggest stars of the 60's, but, in retrospect, rather a neurotic, indeed wimpy kind of guy. That peaked with Felix in The Odd Couple and then REALLY peaked with his depressing failure in "Save the Tiger." His buddy Walter Matthau soon outdistanced Lemmon as a "guy" and likeable.

But in The Apartment, Lemmon is still kind of new and different, and we like him. He's a wimpering wimp at the beginning of the movie...but not at the end. He stands up to Sheldrake, he quits his job(that takes courage), and he goes all in professing his love for MacLaine(they never kiss in the entire movie, but still, he wins her heart.) Its one of the few times that the "Jack Lemmon schtick" was winning.

Shirley MacLaine. Recall that Hitchcock, the Lord of Blondes, gave Shirley MacLaine, a redhead, her screen debut (in the Trouble With Harry.) Hitch knew a unique personality when he saw it -- and Wilder in The Apartment rather perfected it. From The Apartment on, Shirley MacLaine was a big star in the 60's, one of the biggest.

In The Apartment, we certainly "get" MacLaine. She sees though MOST of Fred MacMurray's lies, but not all of them(he really WON'T divorce his wife for MacLaine.) She goes back to him(standing up a date with Lemmon), she almost kills herself over him(over THAT swine? How sad.) Horrible suspense at the end: MacMurray's wife wants to divorce HIM...so NOW he's available for MacLaine, but she doesn't know the truth. At film's end, much like Lemmon quits his job with MacMurray, MacLaine quits..MacMurray. And we could not be happier. Miss MacLaine earned HER Oscar nomination for the long, silent shot of her deciding to dump MacMurray for Lemmon -- we see her realize who she REALLY loves.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

If I'm going to take a time machine back to June of 1960 to see Psycho with a full house NYC audience screaming their heads off...maybe I should take an extra day to see The Apartment, down the block. Likely with another full house, laughing a lot, crying a little and applauding with grateful enthusiasm at the end.

Great year. Wish I was there.

[–] Doghouse (447) 4 years ago

"And yet: Psycho was linked to Some Like it Hot in its use of cross-dressing and sexual confusion. (With Tony Curtis, then-husband of Psycho's Janet Leigh, in a cross-dressing man-as-woman role first turned down by...Anthony Perkins!)"
---
I don't recall ever being aware of that. Fascinating. Here's a fun fact to go with it: Perkins (along with Robert Morse), had an extended cross-dressing sequence in The Matchmaker, which was released the month before Some Like It Hot went into production. Throughout that film, Perkins is as antic and unrestrained as I've ever seen him. Although the cross-dressing isn't central to the plot, something that is concerns multiple characters pretending to be something they're not (of which the drag sequence is merely an aspect). I wonder if Perkins felt Wilder's project would be just too similar in tone. He elected to go cavort in the forest with Audrey Hepburn in Green Mansions instead.

By the time Psycho came around, he'd also played the naval Lt. and young father in On the Beach and the college athlete in Tall Story (vamped by kittenish Jane Fonda). One hates to draw inferences that reflect on his private life at the time, but it was, after all, the late '50s, and people had all sorts of wacky ideas about matters of masculinity and sexuality.

In any event, Psycho was, of course, nothing like either The Matchmaker or Some Like It Hot in tone, and Perkins had put sufficient ground between it and the last time he donned a wig and dress.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

"And yet: Psycho was linked to Some Like it Hot in its use of cross-dressing and sexual confusion. (With Tony Curtis, then-husband of Psycho's Janet Leigh, in a cross-dressing man-as-woman role first turned down by...Anthony Perkins!)"
---
I don't recall ever being aware of that. Fascinating.

--

I've read it enough places -- including Perkins' turn-down of the role. And one of the versions suggests that once SLIH was such a huge instant classic hit -- the next time someone came with a cross-dressing movie -- and it was HITCHCOCK - he had to say yes to that one.

The casting of Some Like It Hot has lots of "possibles" that are impossible to prove, but it seems that Wilder always started with Frank Sinatra . I'd say "what!" but after seeing Curtis and Lemmon , anything's possible. With Sinatra as the "big star" of the movie, the female lead was to be for Mitzi Gaynor. Which left "the other guy" -- and Perkins was considered, and Tony Curtis was considered. I think when Sinatra dropped out, Wilder made the shift to MM(his 7 Year Itch star) as the "big star" and the male leads could be "lesser." Which is when Lemmon entered the picture.

There are also rumors of Bob Hope and Danny Kaye in the leads -- but I expect Wilder knew those two lacked the youth and virility of Curtis and Lemmon.

One irony for Anthony Perkins is that he always felt that Psycho screwed up his hopes to be a "movie comedy lead" -- whereas SLIH might have gotten him that rep.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Here's a fun fact to go with it: Perkins (along with Robert Morse), had an extended cross-dressing sequence in The Matchmaker, which was released the month before Some Like It Hot went into production. Throughout that film, Perkins is as antic and unrestrained as I've ever seen him. Although the cross-dressing isn't central to the plot, something that is concerns multiple characters pretending to be something they're not (of which the drag sequence is merely an aspect).

---

I saw The Matchmaker years ago -- its literally Hello Dolly without the music, yes? And I do recall Perkins in drag , and he WAS directed to be antic(like Michael Crawford in Hello Dolly.)

---

I wonder if Perkins felt Wilder's project would be just too similar in tone.

--

Possibly. And yet when Psycho came calling...he knew he had to do it. Boy was he right.

--

He elected to go cavort in the forest with Audrey Hepburn in Green Mansions instead.

--

It is sometimes said (even by Hitchcock himself) that Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh were "minor stars" when they made Psycho, and while true in some ways(Perkins wasn't Cary Grant; Leigh wasn't Audrey Hepburn) they both had "cachet." Leigh had had a long career; and Perkins seems to have been in demand for all sorts of movies. Like Green Mansions WITH a big female star: Audrey Hepburn.

But it wasn't very good, either. I think one other reason Perkins took Psycho was that he felt he had nothing to lose -- his movies weren't working. He was actually ready to become a stage actor exclusively.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

By the time Psycho came around, he'd also played the naval Lt. and young father in On the Beach

--

Fourth-billed, over the title, behind Peck, Gardner and Astaire -- which is one reason that top billing in Psycho lured him in, too.

---

and the college athlete in Tall Story (vamped by kittenish Jane Fonda).

--

Really a fascinating movie. Its one movie before Psycho -- and Perkins looks and sounds exactly like Norman Bates(except for a more cropped college basketball star's haircut.) Tall Story is a revelation -- Perkins was handsome, but his tics and "weirdness" played against this "romantic jock" role. Put the same actor and almost the same performance into Psycho and -- Anthony Perkins found his "niche."

There's also the issue of Jane Fonda(debuting for Joshua Logan, a friend of her father Henry) being dead-set on an "MRS degree" --- a total homemaker/mother in waiting. Not the Jane Fonda we would later know(but hey, this was her "sexpot" period and, boy did she have it.)

There's also the fact that the movie ends with Perkins and Fonda -- married -- taking a shower together and kissing away. That's TWO shower scenes for Tony Perkins in 1960 -- and both times he gets in there with a woman.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

One hates to draw inferences that reflect on his private life at the time, but it was, after all, the late '50s, and people had all sorts of wacky ideas about matters of masculinity and sexuality.

--

Well, we are told that movies like SLIH and Psycho and a few more toyed with sexual identity. Hollywood certainly already had many gay artists in front and behind of the camera, we can assume they enjoyed getting SOME of that out there. What remains interesting about Psycho is that Perkins -- who admitted later to gay relationships even as he moved on to marriage with a woman, and children -- isn't necessarily playing a gay man in Psycho. Hitchcock said "the feminine nature of the character" was a clue to Norman = Mother, but that's different. And Norman certainly seemed to have a lust for Marion(the peephole.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The irony about Psycho, as opposed to SLIH, is that whereas the men in SLIH have to dress as women ALL the time, Norman only really dresses up to kill -- and that wasn't Anthony Perkins as Mother in either of the murder scenes(a different woman was used both times -- a tall stuntwoman for the shower and evidently a little person to attack short Balsam -- though she looks tall to me.) Perkins only had to don ma's duds for the fruit cellar scene -- but by then audiences were terrified of what that MEANT, and the look on Perkins face(blood-thirsty with delight at killing.)

I'll go a little further and say that there are so many times when I watch Psycho that I never imagine Anthony Perkins committing those murders. It IS Mother -- I imagine a woman, not Perkins. Hitchcock's fakery of mental hypnosis was that powerful.

---

In any event, Psycho was, of course, nothing like either The Matchmaker or Some Like It Hot in tone, and Perkins had put sufficient ground between it and the last time he donned a wig and dress.

--

All true. And he knew he had turned down a classic in SLIH, and hadn't gotten one yet. As Perkins said "there weren't that many masters in those days, and if someone like Hitchcock crooked his finger and invited you to work with him -- you went."

Sad how that only worked up through Paul Newman and Julie Andrews with stars...and then never again. (Well, the cast of Family Plot kinda/sorta had stars, but not really.)

[–] liscarkat (18388) 4 years ago

Well thought out post, but I have a couple of comments:

"The Apartment is much more emotionally gripping than Some Like It Hot, much deeper in what it has to say about the American "grind" and much more delicate a balance of comedy and drama."

First of all, "Some Like it Hot" makes little, if any attempt to be emotionally gripping. It's a light, silly comedy. Second, "Some Like it Hot" intentionally has nothing to say about the American "grind". And lastly, "Some Like it Hot" does not balance comedy and drama, because it's all comedy. Yes, "The Apartment" addresses emotions, the grind, and comedy/drama more than "Some Like it Hot" does, but that's because none of those things were Wilder's purpose in "Some Like it Hot".

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

First of all, "Some Like it Hot" makes little, if any attempt to be emotionally gripping. It's a light, silly comedy. Second, "Some Like it Hot" intentionally has nothing to say about the American "grind". And lastly, "Some Like it Hot" does not balance comedy and drama, because it's all comedy. Yes, "The Apartment" addresses emotions, the grind, and comedy/drama more than "Some Like it Hot" does, but that's because none of those things were Wilder's purpose in "Some Like it Hot".

--

Thank you for responding.

I agree with all three of your contentions, very much. And its odd -- though The Apartment won the Best Picture Oscar for 1960, Some Like It Hot seems to have the "higher respect" in movie history as "something special"(such as the AFI voting it the Number One Comedy of all time.) Ben-Hur in 1959 swept a lot of the awards and Some Like It Hot(was it even nominated?) had no chance.

Still, I think what I am saying is that in the end, I'm more interested in The Apartment BECAUSE it is gripping, and about the "grind," and about a very painful path to "true love"(or something like it.)

Truth be told "Some Like It Hot" had its own "seriousness" as noted at the time and more recently:

The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre murders early in the film were -- for 1959 -- pretty violent(there is blood, and George Raft kicks a dead victim's cigar out of his mouth) and it is established that the ONLY reason Curtis and Lemmon would DARE dress up as women is to avoid certain, brutal death at the hands of "the mob" (established over the decades as the scariest murderous force in movies this side of psychos.) Just as Wilder took some heat for putting suicide in The Apartment(an attempt), he took some heat for the "tasteless" insertion of the bloody St. Valentine's massacre in SLIH.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

And: in the final minutes of SLIH, Wilder puts in some surprisingly heartfelt sentiment, as Tony Curtis(in female garb, wig and face) approaches MM and gently says "Don't cry...no man's worth it...." kissing her ("woman to woman") and "doing the right thing" much as Lemmon will(without a kiss) in the next movie. Or is it as MacLaine will in the next movie (doing the right thing.)

[–] swanstep (2715) 4 years ago

The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre murders early in the film were -- for 1959 -- pretty violent

They're *still* way too violent for pre-high-school kids.... as I found out to my cost a few years back when screening SLIH for my nieces (who'd previously dug Bringing Up Baby & Kind Hearts & Coronets). They were terrified & we had to find something else; The Princess Bride IIRC.

I've had a few movie disasters like this, particularly with comedies. E.g., I'd remembered Jim Carrey's Ace Ventura movies as much more kid-friendly than they were. Oops! (Never have I moved so fast to grab the remote control and punch 'exit'!)

[–] telegonus (736) 4 years ago

Wow, Swanstep! I was seven years old when I went to see Some Like It Hot first run with my mother and sister on Cape Cod, in Hyannis, and I remember it very well from its opening scenes to the very end, with Joe E. Brown's famous closing line. It didn't frighten me in the least, and I got what a child of seven can "get" of the comedy. I liked the goofy fun of it all; and Marilyn Monroe was an eye-opener for even a little boy, or this one anyway. Also, this and the previous year's A Night To Remember are likely responsible for my lifelong fondness for black and white films and television. Back then, black and white was still common for even major motion pictures, and this would continue through the middle Sixties (Dr. Strangelove, Fail-Safe, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?).

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre murders early in the film were -- for 1959 -- pretty violent

They're *still* way too violent for pre-high-school kids.... as I found out to my cost a few years back when screening SLIH for my nieces (who'd previously dug Bringing Up Baby & Kind Hearts & Coronets). They were terrified & we had to find something else; The Princess Bride IIRC.

---

Hmm. You never know what level of violence -- whether "post R rating" or "pre R rating" will disturb the very young.

I think that Wilder making that St. Valentine's Day massacre SO brutal (and in addition to the blood, the machine guns are so LOUD, the gun flashes so BRIGHT) was to indeed make an incontrovertible case that Lemmon and Curtis HAD to dress like women to escape such an end (and they're hiding in a giant birthday cake when a FINAL massacre of similar loudness , bright flashes and blood climaxes the film.)

Appropos: back in the 70's, CBS had some sort of Sunday culture show and they did a half hour on Bernard Herrmann and his music. They used the Arbogast murder as one example -- the clip. I later saw that show on 16mm in a college class and -- upon Arbogast being attacked -- a college age woman in the room screamed and ran out of the classroom. She didn't come back until the next class the next week -- evidently with an agreement to be "warned" if any film shown in the class would be so violent, so she could be excused. I recall the Professor excusing her again one time(at least.)

---

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I've had a few movie disasters like this, particularly with comedies. E.g., I'd remembered Jim Carrey's Ace Ventura movies as much more kid-friendly than they were. Oops! (Never have I moved so fast to grab the remote control and punch 'exit'!)

---

Hah. Yes, in my case I've spent many years watching whatever I want to watch on cable TV(no kids in the house)...therefore when having child guests I've had to "re-calibrate" my threshold for sex, violence, cussing. Etc. Its funny -- even the "mildest" movies seem to have something questionable. I believe that modern Disney animated films put one mild cuss word in to secure a "PG" rating(some kids won't go to Gs.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Wow, Swanstep! I was seven years old when I went to see Some Like It Hot first run with my mother and sister on Cape Cod, in Hyannis, and I remember it very well from its opening scenes to the very end, with Joe E. Brown's famous closing line.

---

Telegonus...a gift of the age you are to have THAT memory. I can't recall how when/where you saw Psycho...but you did, didn't you? First run in 1960?

---

It didn't frighten me in the least, and I got what a child of seven can "get" of the comedy.

--

For me the one that way(at roughly the same age) was: The Birds. Other than closing my eyes when the farmer with the pecked-out eyes was discovered(Hitchcock gives us plenty of warning; my mother told me to close my eyes) -- I found the rest of the movie not much more disturbing than a Godzilla picture, and I fantasised about WANTING some birds to come to my school and chase me(as long as they didn't hurt me.)

And yet I've read many a review of The Birds that links it to Psycho was "a terrifying film." Eh...Psycho isn't that terrifying anymore either, but the attacks on Marion and Arbogast will never seem "quaint." They are brutal, viscious, merciless, MEAN. One doesn't have to scream at them to be disturbed by them(and by who commits them, and in what guise.)

I suppose all human beings have different thresholds of violence and fear as children.

---

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I liked the goofy fun of it all; and Marilyn Monroe was an eye-opener for even a little boy, or this one anyway.

---

MM in those dresses(with some weight on her body which, while unacceptable today, is absolutely arousing)...there was a poster made that I recall on a few walls in the late 60's. Also, Monroe's ferocious physical attack on Tony Curtis(who is feigning impotence) on the yacht...oh, yeah..

---

Also, this and the previous year's A Night To Remember are likely responsible for my lifelong fondness for black and white films and television. Back then, black and white was still common for even major motion pictures, and this would continue through the middle Sixties (Dr. Strangelove, Fail-Safe, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?).

--

It is discomfiting today to either read about -- or hear directly -- younger people saying "I won't watch a movie in black and white." So much movie history gone to them -- though Van Sant made that color Psycho to help. (Yikes.)

I recall making the mental note as a kid that a movie was in black and white and often it told me "this is serious, this is going to be a downer." Or a horror movie. So often when trailers ran at the drive-in that I went to with my parents as a kid, you'd get a segue from a nice Technicolor preview of a musical or Western to : black and white horror. I didn't see the Psycho trailer at a drive-in, but I recall knock-offs like Shock Treatment (where Roddy McDowall cuts off an old lady's head offscreen with hedge clippers) sending me diving.

Of course, a rich tradition of black and white films goes far beyond horror. I like the 60's b/w films for their modernity -- especially the Panavision b/w films like "The Apartment" and "The Fortune Cookie"