A movie that is practically perfect as is, rumors of a Psycho uncut version have been floating around for ages, but now Hitchcock fans can see it for the first time on home video.
https://www.slashfilm.com/psycho-uncut-version-alfred-hitchcock-classics-collection/
Thank you for this information!
We've had another poster(maybe more) "keeping up the hunt" for a US copy of this "uncut" version. I recall that one such version was in a very expensive box set. Perhaps this set(which clearly has extras in previous Psycho Special Edition DVDS) will be less expensive.
I myself felt that one "cut" bit looked suspicious: the knife coming down two more times into Arbogast, who is below the frame. The shot looked to me like someone had "rewound and re-played the film a couple of times"(like when a dog's single lick of Spencer Tracy's face in Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World was "repeated" over and over to suggest multiple licks.)
But a few weeks ago, I was looking at some old Hitchcock TV/film interviews on youtube, and during one(from the 70's) I think, they showed the Arbogast murder clip -- and there were the multiple stabs, STILL looking like a rewind but...CLEARLY there in 1970something.
So I'm thinking maybe the multiple stabs were real. (Irony: "censored" stabs that we never see; the killing and Arbogast are all below the frame.)
Meanwhile, the other two "cut" bits were DEFINITELY for real:
ONE: Norman at peephole. His POV of Janet Leigh removing her bra. The "uncut version" show Leigh getting the bra farther off of her body, revealing a lot more back and a bit of "side boob." (Such a term!) But no nipples.
TWO: Norman in Cabin One, cleaning up Marion's body. A close-up on his hands as he moves from the bedroom into the bathroom -- he has blood on both palms. Its a much longer "travelling close-up" in the uncut version. More time to really take in the reality of it: That's MARION'S blood -- on Norman's hands.
Looking forward to this new DVD. It can sit next to all the others.
"That's MARION'S blood -- on Norman's hands."
It's always been the one part of the movie that struck me as a bit of a cheat. If you think about it.
Would Norman have had time to clean the blood that his hands were surely covered in, AND dry them, before returning downstairs and discovering Marion?
He touches so many things too. Including his face. He'd be leaving bloody prints everywhere, even before he touched Marion's body or the bathtub.
I suppose he might have had time, overall. It's just that he remarks about the blood and then we immediately see him rushing out of the house. Where is Norman seeing this blood? On himself, but seeing it as mother? But that leaves him no time to clean up before rushing down to the motel. Or did "mother" clean herself off with a towel as soon as she entered the house and this is how Norman discovered the blood.
Somehow I don't see "mother" being all too bothered about being covered in blood or in any hurry to conceal it. Least of all from Norman. Then again, he is insane.
It probably is more of an enigma than a cheat. But it's the closest thing to one in the movie. That and the person seen moving at the window of the house when we know it's not Norman.
The transition from the drain closeup to Marion's dead eye is accomplished with a dissolve, which has long been "film grammar" denoting an indeterminate passage of time. Even when viewers don't take conscious note of cuts vs. dissolves vs. fade-outs/fade-ins, that "grammar" has a subliminal effect on their understanding. Norman's cries of "Blood, blood" heard from the house could have come five minutes after the murder or forty-five. Doesn't much matter except to impart an awareness to viewers that enough time has passed for Norman to have effected both the psychological and physical changes necessary to become himself again.
As for where he saw the blood, it could have been on the dress "Mother" was wearing and then left in a heap on the floor after Norman removed it while still in his altered state. The bloody knife may have been left in the kitchen or bathroom sink. Part of the pathology of Norman's psychosis requires that he discover evidence of "Mother's" misdeeds so that he can protect her by concealing it and cleaning up.
"Enigma" is an apt word, because the mechanics and duration of Norman's transformations are rightly left vague. All the doctor says is that, "When danger or desire threatened that illusion, he'd dress up." By the time we have an opportunity to consider what he's said and how it comes to bear on what the film has shown us in earlier scenes, it's over. Yet, even when we do consider it, we find that Hitchcock has given himself cover with that very vagueness.
"That's MARION'S blood -- on Norman's hands."
It's always been the one part of the movie that struck me as a bit of a cheat. If you think about it.
Would Norman have had time to clean the blood that his hands were surely covered in, AND dry them, before returning downstairs and discovering Marion?
He touches so many things too. Including his face. He'd be leaving bloody prints everywhere, even before he touched Marion's body or the bathtub.
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Well, Psycho remains a bit vague on the gory details that's its bloody knife murders would REALLY entail...but key to the shower murder is that it happens in a SHOWER...much of the blood goes down the drain(other than some splattered in the tub) and we can figure that the shower water washed the blood off of Mother's/Norman's hands as he killed his/her victim.
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I suppose he might have had time, overall. It's just that he remarks about the blood and then we immediately see him rushing out of the house. Where is Norman seeing this blood? On himself, but seeing it as mother? But that leaves him no time to clean up before rushing down to the motel. Or did "mother" clean herself off with a towel as soon as she entered the house and this is how Norman discovered the blood.
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Critic Pauline Kael wrote: "A great movie is not a perfect movie" and I suppose Psycho illustrates it. For all of its greatness in all directions and at all levels, there are little weak spots along the way. I've always felt that one of them is "Oh, God Mother! Blood! Blood!" Perkins line reading isn't the best, and exactly WHAT we are supposed to be imagining is hard TO imagine (though also, clearly, Hitch is still "playing his game" with the audience, protecting the twist, making us imagine that Norman is talking to a separate, living mother.)
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Somehow I don't see "mother" being all too bothered about being covered in blood or in any hurry to conceal it. Least of all from Norman. Then again, he is insane.
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The screenplay of Psycho extends the scene where Norman sinks Marion's car in the swamp to include his return to the house, where he finds Mother's clothes on the floor outside her room in a "bloody heap." (This, from the same high angle as the Arbogast murder and Norman carrying Mother later.)
Norman then burns the clothes in the basement furnace(THIS item ended up in Psycho II.) and the sequence ends with smoke emerging from the chimney of the famous house.
Hitchcock opted to "lose" this material in favor of a final shot of Marion's car slurping into the swamp. Perhaps he wanted to save that high angle on the landing for Arbogast's murder. And how could you SHOW bloody clothes in black and white, anyway?
It probably is more of an enigma than a cheat. But it's the closest thing to one in the movie. That and the person seen moving at the window of the house when we know it's not Norman.
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I think I need to respectfully clarify "the person seen moving at the window of the house." It IS Norman. And this evocative shot(from Marion's point of view when she first arrives at the Bate Motel and looks up there at the window) helps "feed the whole trick." We see -- pretty clearly -- the figure of an old woman in a flowered dress with white hair glide across the window. Pretty quickly, we see Norman emerge from the house. TWO characters have thus been established, and "the woman in the window" MOVES.
We will never see the woman in the window MOVE again. Arbogast sees a woman sitting. Sam TELLS of seeing a woman sitting in the window. The "sitting" woman is the REAL mother(dead.) But because we saw her MOVE...ONCE(Norman)...she stays "alive in the window" for the rest of the movie.
I daresay that the detail and precision of moments like this(not to mention how weird and spooky Mother LOOKS gliding past the window) contributed to people beliving in Mother...and contributes to Psycho being a classic.
To me, the "big cheat" about Mother is that old woman's voice we hear. But it turns out that a MAN(Paul Jasmin) did that voice at least some of the time. So Norman could have, too.
The transition from the drain closeup to Marion's dead eye is accomplished with a dissolve, which has long been "film grammar" denoting an indeterminate passage of time. Even when viewers don't take conscious note of cuts vs. dissolves vs. fade-outs/fade-ins, that "grammar" has a subliminal effect on their understanding. Norman's cries of "Blood, blood" heard from the house could have come five minutes after the murder or forty-five.
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Hello, doghouse and -- hey -- I don't think I've ever thought of THAT before. The dissolve indeed denotes the passage of time. And hey...it COULD be forty-five minutes.
At the same time, I think we are meant to believe that Norman "sees Mother enter in her bloody clothes" pretty quickly after she commits the murder. That's how it plays to me. Norman would indeed run out of the house to check out the murder scene without stopping to deal with Mother right then. Seems to me.
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Doesn't much matter except to impart an awareness to viewers that enough time has passed for Norman to have effected both the psychological and physical changes necessary to become himself again.
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Well, in certain ways, we get enough time just with the footage of the blood going down the drain and the camera spiraling out from Marion's eye and over to the window...for Norman to have gotten up the hill, dropped the dress(dropping the dress and the wig are all that Norman needs to do to become Norman again), and returned to "Norman-hood." (Returning, as the shrink tells us "as if out of a deep sleep" to Norman-hood.)
By the way, the record shows that, without the camera on and in rehearsal, Hitchcock timed with a stopwatch how long it took Perkins to run up the hill, enter the house and(with imaging) go upstairs and get dressed as Mother. Hitchcock used this amount of time to "cover" for Norman getting dressed to kill via footage of (1) Marion writing down her numbers in the bedroom and entering the bathroom of Cabin One and (2) Arbogast snooping around the Bates Motel office and parlor, and climbing the hill. The timed footage of Marion and Arbogast "doing things" covered how long it took Norman to get up to the house and "dressed to kill"(he had to come down to the motel kill Marion; more time needed.)
As for where he saw the blood, it could have been on the dress "Mother" was wearing and then left in a heap on the floor after Norman removed it while still in his altered state. The bloody knife may have been left in the kitchen or bathroom sink. Part of the pathology of Norman's psychosis requires that he discover evidence of "Mother's" misdeeds so that he can protect her by concealing it and cleaning up.
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Yes. I suppose it would have been "borderline comedy" to actually SEE Norman "enacting" his "innocent Norman" confronting Mother over her crimes. That's a good point that a bloody knife would end up in a sink for cleaning rather than on any surface of the Bates house where the blood would stain. Norman probably had to "gather himself up" to deal with things -- Mother did the killing, Norman did the cleaning.
All of this points to what I describe as how "Psycho is one movie on screen...and another in your head." Hitchcock openly invites us to IMAGINE all sorts of things we don't see -- Norman and Mother's dialogues up in the house; the clean-up and disposal of ARBOGAST's body; the further details of hiding the evidence of the shower murder, etc. Its a movie that we can "direct" in our heads. (We are also invited to contemplate both the past and post-capture future of Norman Bates.)
"Enigma" is an apt word, because the mechanics and duration of Norman's transformations are rightly left vague. All the doctor says is that, "When danger or desire threatened that illusion, he'd dress up."
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That well crafted line for the doctor suggests to me: Marion was desire. Arbogast was danger. Different "triggers" -- but each led Norman to don that dress and wig and become Mother(in what order..who knows?) It remains intriguing to me that Norman "felt"(for lack of a better word) that he needed to dress up to kill the invading Arbogast -- I suppose "only Mother" had the guts to kill. With Marion(as per the shrink), Norman's sexual arousal triggered "Mother" to punish the woman for arousing him...("that triggered the jealous mother and MOTHER killed the girl" I can recall did the shrink actually use the word "triggered?").
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By the time we have an opportunity to consider what he's said and how it comes to bear on what the film has shown us in earlier scenes, it's over.
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And...a "new movie" begins in our heads...in which we can PICTURE Norman dressing up and creeping up on his victims. I salute Hitchcock for NOT filming that as flashbacks. Thus, "Mother" remained alive as the killer in our memories even as we imagined Norman NOW as the killer.
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Yet, even when we do consider it, we find that Hitchcock has given himself cover with that very vagueness.
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Yes. He played a very "precise" game to protect his twist(Mother moving in the window; Mother's voice; timing Perkins runs up the hill)...but kept things pretty vague about exactly how and why Norman and Mother "traded off in Norman's mind."
Unlike thrillers that "don't play fair" or "don't explain things," Psycho DOES play fair, and DOES explain things. But it never explains itself entirely. The mystery has lasted for decades now.
Norman's cries of "Blood, blood" heard from the house could have come five minutes after the murder or forty-five.
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Side-bar: there is another more "direct" moment in Psycho where Hitchcock toys with time:
Late night. Sam and Lila talking to the Sheriff at his home about the disappearance of Marion and Arbogast. The Sheriff calls Norman and they talk. The Sheriff hangs up and his discussion with Sam and Lila continues to the end: "If that woman you saw in the window was Mrs. Bates...who's that woman buried out in Greenlawn Cemetary." (A BRILLIANT line, further protecting the twist.) End scene.
Now Hitchcock DISSOLVES to Norman in his motel office, the phone receiver in his hand. He hangs it up on the main device(remember those?)
Bottom line: since Chambers talked for about three minutes AFTER hanging up on Norman, we are BACKING UP IN TIME to Norman hanging up the phone. While Norman carries Mother downstairs...Sam and Lila and the Sheriff are still talking in Fairvale, likely.
"Now Hitchcock DISSOLVES to Norman in his motel office, the phone receiver in his hand. He hangs it up on the main device(remember those?)"
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Actually, the dissolve reveals the receiver already back in its cradle, but with Norman's hand still gripping receiver and base, in the manner you would if you were going to carry the phone to another part of the room. It could be toying with time if he's only just hung up, or it could suggest that the sheriff's questioning has so unnerved Norman that he's been frozen in that position for those three minutes while considering his options. And the dissolve leaves it vague enough to interpret it either way.
The important thing is that it provides a visual connection to the conversation so viewers will intuit the thinking that Norman soon articulates: "He came looking for her and now someone will come looking for him."
--"Now Hitchcock DISSOLVES to Norman in his motel office, the phone receiver in his hand. He hangs it up on the main device(remember those?)"
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Actually, the dissolve reveals the receiver already back in its cradle, but with Norman's hand still gripping receiver and base, in the manner you would if you were going to carry the phone to another part of the room.
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Ya got me, doghouse! (Your turn...but its usually more you than me. Ha.)
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It could be toying with time if he's only just hung up, or it could suggest that the sheriff's questioning has so unnerved Norman that he's been frozen in that position for those three minutes while considering his options. And the dissolve leaves it vague enough to interpret it either way.
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Nice analysis. Hitchocck often spoke about "playing with time," but with Norman and the phone "together," this certainly connects to the very invasive and unnerving call that Norman has just received in the dead of night (also: he elected to hang around the parlor after Sam left after Norman buried Arbogast -- he didn't go straight to bed?)
The important thing is that it provides a visual connection to the conversation so viewers will intuit the thinking that Norman soon articulates: "He came looking for her and now someone will come looking for him."
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Yep. And a great line THAT one is. Psycho is such a model of concision -- lines, scenes, shots. (Even the shrink scene is more concise than it is in the book; and the long silent scene of Norman cleaning up the shower murder and burying Marion is broken up into concise segments..)
Tarantino said "I didn't go to film school. I went to films," and surely one can learn narrative from them. "Psycho" is a great education in how to structure a story, and the scenes within it...and how to connect those scenes.
"And...a "new movie" begins in our heads...in which we can PICTURE Norman dressing up and creeping up on his victims. I salute Hitchcock for NOT filming that as flashbacks. Thus, "Mother" remained alive as the killer in our memories even as we imagined Norman NOW as the killer."
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It occurs to me that, in all the years of discussion on this and the old board about Simon Oakland's long monologue, the notion of illustrating his explanation with flashbacks is one that's never even crossed my mind. Hitchcock being such a visual director, one might logically expect him to give audiences such a "show" along with the "tell," and indeed, I'll wager that many other directors might have done just that. Yet, aside from Stage Fright's infamous "flashback that lied," I can't off the top of my head recall other instances of his employing the device. Leave it to Hitch to turn it on its head when he did use it.
That said, I'm in complete agreement that just a guy talking for five minutes was the way to go for preserving the mystique of Norman's transformations.
That said, I'm in complete agreement that just a guy talking for five minutes was the way to go for preserving the mystique of Norman's transformations.
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Hi, doghouse...yes, its sort of funny that not only do I SUPPORT "just a guy talking for five minutes" I think a lot of directors could have "covered the exposition" WITH shots of Norman dressing up, sneaking into the bathroom; running up the hill out the back motel exit, dressing up, and hovering behind Mother's door waiting for Arbogast to arrive...and it would ruin a lot of the mystique and mystery of the film.
For one thing, I don't think we would have wanted to see Norman in that "Mother dress" too much -- he is terrifying in the fruit cellar THAT ONE TIME(with that one FACE.)
But...again...with the shrink's explanation ..we SEE Norman do those things(in our imaginations) and to a certain extent, we DON"T see Norman doing those things. "Mother" lives on as a separate monster in our minds.
I suppose with Stage Fright, the flashback that lied was part of the "gimmick" -- though Hitchcock told Truffaut he regretted doing that, as I recall. I don't see the problem, its done a lot nowadays -- the "fake" version, the "real version" or "SEVERAL versions."
By the way, the "explanatory flashbacks" while someone explains the crime was a staple of how "Murder She Wrote" ended...not a great idea for "Psycho."
PS. It may be gone now, but someone on YouTube once interspersed the psychiatrist's speech with QUICK CLIPS from the movie, so that when he said "he was moved by her"(partlor scene clip), he was aroused by her(peeping clip) and "mother killed the girl"(shower murder clip) , etc. I think Arbogast on the stairs was just a" blip clip" on the line "the private investigator, too."
"But...again...with the shrink's explanation ..we SEE Norman do those things(in our imaginations) and to a certain extent, we DON"T see Norman doing those things. "Mother" lives on as a separate monster in our minds."
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I like that. I'm sure Hitch never imagined years of sequels, prequels and TV series, but by leaving those images unseen except in imagination, he enabled not only Mother but the whole story to live on.
Those "explanatory flashbacks," which were quite popular in whodunit programmers going back to the dawn of sound and remain a staple of Christie adaptations and their imitators, are the cinematic equivalent to "closing the book:" all questions answered; all mysteries solved; the story itself laid to rest with finality along with the victims.
I was referring to Sam speaking as if there was someone in the house unable or unwilling to come to the door when he went out there. And we know that Norman was down by the swamp when Sam was there.
As for the dissolve. Hmmm. Yes dissolves are mostly used for a transition and location. But even in the movie's opening shot craning into the lover's hotel room there are dissolves. So it's not always the case.
In this case it's a match dissolve between two objects within the same location. Not a dissolve to a separate location and time. Or a match dissolve on the same object covering a time transition (like a soft version of the jump cut). Sure it's likely a little time passed. But how much? And how would that have played out in the other hinted at murders? It's lucky that nobody else ever came along and discovered one of Mother's victims before Norman did
The thing that really makes it hard to square completely away is that Norman does the cleaning up after Mother. I can't fit Mother taking the care to wash off all blood from herself (shower running or no shower running, plunging a big knife into someone, with force, over a dozen times will make a bloody mess of you) without getting blood other places too then dumping the bloody dress on the floor for Norman to discover. Why wouldn't mother burn the dress herself if she's concerned about cleaning herself up?
I suppose it's as enigmatic as the whole idea of how Norman transitions back and forth with Mother.
Yep, Martoto, there are definitely exceptions to a dissolve denoting passage of time.
In the case of the film's opening shots, Hitchcock covers those dissolves, which were done because he couldn't accomplish his pans and zooms across the city skyline in a single shot, with title overlays during them: "Phoenix, Arizona;" "Friday, December the Eleventh;" "Two Forty-Three P.M." I believe he did this to distract from those dissolves, and I daresay most viewers never notice them.
It's the fact that the dissolve does not look like the conventional time saver, much like the opening shot dissolves, that makes me doubt that it is.
Hitchcock was clearly enamoured with the overlapping imagery for its own sake and its psychoanalytical connotations. A match cut would have highlighted this too. But we've just had 72 or whatever cuts in as many or fewer seconds. Plus it's accompanying a push in and a zoom out. It's trying to smooth over a visual idea that's restricted somewhat by the technology. Much like the opening shot.
It's like a little stylistic threshold or interlude showing that we're passing through to a different world.
It's the fact that the dissolve does not look like the conventional time saver, much like the opening shot dissolves, that makes me doubt that it is.
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Certainly, a dissolve can be used for things other than the passage of time. As doghouse points out, the opening shot of Psycho has several dissolves to "cover" changes in camera position as the camera moves down to the hotel room(the final dissolve is from the real Phoenix location footage to a building and a window on the backlot at Universal; it is an "awkward" dissolve, but to me the jarring nature of the visual is a forerunner of the "jagged" murder edits yet to come.)
Psycho has a historic dissolve at the end that some people evidently didn't even see: Mother's skull face, oh so lightly superimposed on Norman's leering face in the cell. (His close-lipped smile ends up with Mother's rotted teeth superimposed on it -- NOW he looks like Mother!) The "genius" here is that the dissolve is almost subliminal -- a lesser filmmaker would have lightly "shock dissolved" into a clear shot of Mother's skull face, clear as day, replacing Norman's face. WRONG.
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Hitchcock was clearly enamoured with the overlapping imagery for its own sake and its psychoanalytical connotations.
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In Psycho, this is demonstrated not only by the mother-over-Norman cell dissolve at the end, but by the end of the opening hotel room scene. Marion tells Sam "you have to put on your shoes" and leaves him rather alone and stranded. He looks down at his feet, and looks forlorn. A dissolve begins to the next scene(real estate office) and a "man materializes" at the right side of the screen: its Alfred Hitchcock himself, in his cowboy hat outside the real estate office, in the window, as Marion walks in. The dissolve is: "Forlorn Sam - LEFT; Ominiscent Hitch -- RIGHT.)
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A match cut would have highlighted this too. But we've just had 72 or whatever cuts in as many or fewer seconds. Plus it's accompanying a push in and a zoom out. It's trying to smooth over a visual idea that's restricted somewhat by the technology. Much like the opening shot.
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Hitchcock rather thrived "restricted somewhat by the technology." The opening shot defeated him -- he wanted a single-take helicopter shot to swoop down over Phoenix into that window. But what he DID get -- a series of left-to-right pans and dissolves, and Herrmann's rather bleak and sad opening music -- was melancholy and powerful in its own, different way.
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It's like a little stylistic threshold or interlude showing that we're passing through to a different world.
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Yes, it has been aid that Hitchcock "created his own cinematic world," and a lot of it was near invisible. Dissolves, fade outs, changes in POV (like when Arbogast says "Let's all talk about Marion, shall we?" and Sam and Lila look at US.) And what critic James Agee called "Hitchcock's little air pockets of silence."
And this: Rear Window, To Catch A Thief and The Man Who Knew Too Much '56 all have a lot of "fade outs to black" during their run times. In Rear Window, these match Stewart's immobilized, bored napping. But in To Catch A Thief, these fade-outs give the entire movie a languid "dream-like" feel. Man '56, a little less so...as when the Morocco night caller brings night to a close.
shareI was referring to Sam speaking as if there was someone in the house unable or unwilling to come to the door when he went out there. And we know that Norman was down by the swamp when Sam was there.
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Oh, OK..I misunderstood.
I think this "part" contributes to the GREAT "game with the audience" that Hitchcock told Truffaut he was playing.
FIRST; We DO see Mother alive and moving past the window(from Marion's POV; this IS Norman.)
SECOND: We see mother SITTING motion
less in the window (from Arbogast's POV; this is "dead mother.")
THIRD: We only HEAR ABOUT Mother in the window(Sam tells the sheriff; but we "make a mental picturization of it in our mind") Since we see nothing here, we can IMAGINE Mother in the window -- maybe even moving a little -- but "ignoring" Sam.
Hitchcock keeps changing the game as to how and when Mother is actually seen; when she is moving(only when Marion sees her -- and when she is KILLING), and when she is not moving(one other time in the window; in Norman's arms).
It's lucky that nobody else ever came along and discovered one of Mother's victims before Norman did
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Yes. Consider Sam yelling Arbogast! while Norman is down at the swamp with the detective's car already sunk.
What if Sam got there say , 20 minutes or a half hour EARLIER? Sam might have caught Norman dragging Arbogast's body down the stone steps to his car. Which would lead to: (1) Norman as Norman..."giving up" or (2) Norman running up to the house to dress like mom, get a knife, and "wait for Sam." ANYTHING could have happened.
Earlier in the film, when Norman is cleaning up the shower murder, there is a great bit where we HEAR a car and SEE bright headlight lights pass over Norman on the motel porch. He drops the pail and mop. The car(which we never see, this is all "imagination effects") drives on. "Relief."
But WHAT IF...that car had a new potential guest for the motel? I expect Norman would have dropped the pail and mop, closed the door to Cabin One, and checked his new guest in "down the row."
All speculation, all imagination...but "Psycho" powers these daydreams...
In this case it's a match dissolve between two objects within the same location. Not a dissolve to a separate location and time. Or a match dissolve on the same object covering a time transition (like a soft version of the jump cut).
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Of some interest in American studio films: for many years, "the passage of time" was conveyed through dissolves pretty much , all the time.
But eventually, directors employed CUTS from scene to scene; the audience could pick up that it was later on in the story.
I believe that Psycho(1960) is all dissolves between scenes, but Hitchcock's Family Plot(1976) is all CUTS between scenes. The big comparison here is Arbogast canvassing motels and boarding houses for Marion(DISSOLVES) in Psycho, and Madame Blanche canvassing "Adamsons" in "Family Plot"(CUTS)
And Psycho has one big fade out: Marion's car disappears in the swamp...the fade in to Sam's hardware store is one WEEK later(Saturday to Saturday.)
And Psycho has one other fade out -- shorter but horrific: On the knife coming down on the screaming Arbogast on the foyer floor. (Unlike with the shower murder, where we see the killing to and past Mother leaving the bathroom, all the way to Marion's death, we leave Mother killing Arbogast "in mid murder" on a fade out.)
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The thing that really makes it hard to square completely away is that Norman does the cleaning up after Mother. I can't fit Mother taking the care to wash off all blood from herself (shower running or no shower running, plunging a big knife into someone, with force, over a dozen times will make a bloody mess of you) without getting blood other places too then dumping the bloody dress on the floor for Norman to discover. Why wouldn't mother burn the dress herself if she's concerned about cleaning herself up?
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The novel(which we can't really use as our guide to the movie, but this is interesting) has Mother "fainting and collapsing" after each murder, as if the act of killing drains her and renders her helpless and unconscious after her rage and frenzy. What's REALLY happening is that Mother has gone back to being dead, and Norman goes back to being Norman.
In the movie, we have no idea about Mother's state after each murder. But the rather wooden way in which Norman yells "Mother! God! Blood!" -- with no RESPONSE from Mother(usually she talks back to Norman), creates, for me, a vision of a woman who knows she has killed and is now presenting herself to Norman to "take over and clean up." Blood all over her? Maybe.
But what REALLY happens (we realize) is this: Norman drops the dress off his body to the floor, likely throws the wig down , too(maybe it got bloody, maybe Norman has MULTIPLE wigs) runs down the hill. All the blood is left on his clothes and the wig and the discarded knife.
As to how much more blood should be on NORMAN after that killing -- we see none. The blood on his hands comes from handling Marion's corpse.
Later, after Arbogast has been killed, we see Norman in his sweater and slacks. Again, should have he been bloody? Not if the dress and wig were tossed away.
But frankly, even if Norman SHOULD have been bloodier (certainly possible in real life), this is a 1960 movie, and Hitchocck seems content to leave the gory details alone. This is "sanitized bloody murder."
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I suppose it's as enigmatic as the whole idea of how Norman transitions back and forth with Mother.
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"Enigmatic" is a great way to describe both Norman Bates and the classic movie he inhabits(original only.) What's funny is we actually SEE Norman when he is transitioning, we don't know it on a first viewing but we look on a second viewing:
THE SHOWER MURDER: Norman has peeped on a nude Marion and likely "been aroused." Now the long walk up the hill to his house(with a travelling close-up on his troubled face); the walk into the house, the decision NOT to go up the stairs(thus Mother can come down and get past him to kill); his seating in the kitchen. We SEE all that, but we can never know quite when he BECAME Mother. (Physically, he had to leave the kitchen, go upstairs, put on the dress and wig, grab the knife, go down the hill.)
CONT
THE STAIRCASE MURDER: We see Norman walking down the row of motel rooms, towels in hands. He REACTS to the sound of a car approaching...and scurries on down to a darkened corner of the motel(and to a route to the hill and house behind the motel; but we don't know that until Lila uses it.) Once Norman disappears into that corner , we never see him again until AFTER Arbogast is killed, but figure: once he saw Arbogast driving up(again), he knew a confronation was inevitiable and that Arbogast would want to "talk to Mother." He changed into Mother shortly thereafter -- SHE would kill Arbogast, as Norman evidently could not, AS Mother.
This mystery remains about the shower murder though: Norman turned into Mother to kill Arbogast solely to be able to "kill an invader." Norman turned into Mother to kill Marion WHY? Because Marion aroused her son? Because Marion might take that son away?(She said she was going back to Phoenix, alone.) Or just to DESTROY a beautiful woman(which is a sex crime, a "rape substitute.")
Not that it's important, but there's one more Psycho fade-out/fade-in, which I remember because it's my favorite in the film: Marion surrendering to sleepiness her first night on the road (complemented by reduced tempo of Herrmann's insistent theme before coming to a halt), followed by the fade-in to the peaceful yet somewhat desolate view of her car parked alongside the lonely highway. It's very much a visual echo of those in Rear Window of Jeff drifting in and out of sleep in his wheelchair.
It gets me to thinking about how much stylistic trends influenced scene transitions from one decade to another. The iris-out/in of the 'teens and '20s seemed to have become obsolete along with silent films. By the '30s, everything else was in vogue: fades; dissolves; optical wipes of all imaginable permutations. By the late-'60s, straight cuts were customary for "serious" films like '68's Bullitt, in which I think there were only two dissolves, while the same year's lighter The Odd Couple was full of them.
Hitchcock seems to have clung to fades well into the '60s as other directors were abandoning them.
Not that it's important,
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but it is, it is!
---but there's one more Psycho fade-out/fade-in, which I remember because it's my favorite in the film: Marion surrendering to sleepiness her first night on the road (complemented by reduced tempo of Herrmann's insistent theme before coming to a halt),
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yet another example of how Herrmann's score matches EXACTLY with what Hitchcock wants to impart visually
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followed by the fade-in to the peaceful yet somewhat desolate view of her car parked alongside the lonely highway. It's very much a visual echo of those in Rear Window of Jeff drifting in and out of sleep in his wheelchair.
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Yes...perhaps "sleep" was a motif that intrigued Hitchocck. It is necessary here to the plots of both Rear Window and Psycho...but it helps contribute to the "dream-like" feeling of both films, too. And both the phrases "dream-like" and "feeling" are important to what Hitchcock pulls off here.
If we are paying attention, we should know that Marion wakes up in her car on a Saturday morning...that "relaxed and empty day of the week." That contributes to the feeling, too -- as does the inordinate amount of time Hitchcock takes to show us the cop car driving up, backing up, being parked, cop emerging...all in "sweet time."
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It gets me to thinking about how much stylistic trends influenced scene transitions from one decade to another. The iris-out/in of the 'teens and '20s seemed to have become obsolete along with silent films. By the '30s, everything else was in vogue: fades; dissolves; optical wipes of all imaginable permutations.
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And recall how director George Roy Hill brought things like "screen wipes" and "iris effects" from the 20's and 30's back to his 1973 period piece "The Sting." It was part of the wonderful entertainment value of the film -- buttressed by Hill's clever decision to use turn of the century ragtime music on a 1930's tale("No one will notice," he told folks-- he was right.)
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By the late-'60s, straight cuts were customary for "serious" films like '68's Bullitt, in which I think there were only two dissolves, while the same year's lighter The Odd Couple was full of them.
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Interesting comparison of Bullitt and The Odd Couple. "I did not know that." They were two of the year's very biggest hits -- evidently sharing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place with 2001. The Odd Couple was a play with a pretty amateur movie director on it, maybe he felt he HAD to dissolve.
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Hitchcock seems to have clung to fades well into the '60s as other directors were abandoning them
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Its interesting to me. I have noted elsewhere that in the 60's, both Capra(with Pocketful of Miracles) and Hawks(with Man's Favorite Sport?") had trouble fitting their 1930's genre film styles into the "swinging sixties."
But Hitchcock, being the supreme stylist that he was, seemed to "get away" with hanging on to certain techniques, because these devices(fade outs, dissolves) continued the feeling of "the Hitchcock touch" THROUGH the sixties, and people wanted that. Still, Hitch "got with it modernly" and gave us freeze frames(the ballerina in Torn Curtain, dying Brenda in Frenzy) and zoom shots(on Rusk behind Babs in Frenzy)...too. Hitch's ability to grow with the technical trends of the time(freeze frames) relected one reason he lasted past Capra and Hawks. But his "classical style" was saluted, too. (Frenzy and Family Plot were filled with it.)
Note in passing: Hitch was on record as HATING one shot in "Bullitt": the "unfocussed flowers" in the foreground when Jackie Bisset berates McQueen late in the film. And yet , Hitch sort of used this technique to reveal Rusk to Babs in Frenzy.
Marion surrendering to sleepiness her first night on the road (complemented by reduced tempo of Herrmann's insistent theme before coming to a halt),
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One more thing about the above "moment." It demonstrates how Hitchcock "expands and compresses time" to his fancy.
Marion's drive from Phoenix to California(the side of the road where she sleeps, near Gorman north of Los Angeles) boils down to (1) one shot of Marion's car driving out into the desert at sunset and (2) a very BRIEF version of Marion on the road at night, a POV of the car headlights ahead of her, and then she gets sleepy, etc.
This is a "compressed" version of the much, much longer and more detailed drive north from California Charlies' to the Bates Motel.
Its sort of the reverse of how the burial of Marion goes on forever but we never see Arbogast's burial. Marion's "first night drive" is quick; her second night drive(day into dusk into night, with rain) is much more dramatic and extended.
But in BOTH cases, Hitchcock rather "cheats the distance." Its a very long way from Phoenix to Los Angeles(west); its a very long way from Bakersfield(Cal Charlies') to the Bates Motel(near Redding.) north. Hitchcock collapses both into -- some great work with Janet Leigh on a soundstage intercut with second unit POV shots(and voices of Lowery, Cassidy and Caroline!)
With the better definition and sound and the skosh longer peeping, one realizes that Norman probably saw Marion's tits and was sexually aroused. It triggers the viewer's imagination more and adds to the psychiatrist scene when he describes what happened to Norman and Mother because of it.
shareIt triggers the viewer's imagination more and adds to the psychiatrist scene when he describes what happened to Norman and Mother because of it.
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Well, I think in either version, we are meant to know that Norman saw Marion totally nude...for the moment or two between her disrobing and putting on the robe. Titillating enough. But yes, seeing more OF Janet Leigh might enhance the imagination...
In a Hays Code era where nudity was verboten, merely suggesting that it WAS happening(or HAD happened) had to suffice.
Another Hitchcock example: In Vertigo, James Stewart "rescues" Kim Novak from her suicidal dive into SF Bay. Dissolve to: Stewart's apartment at night. Novak sleeping in his bed. Novak's CLOTHES hanging. Its pretty clear: Stewart undressed the unconscious Novak, saw her naked, carried her to bed. All implied, none of it shown.
I wasn't sure what Norman saw with the edited version as she puts on here robe very fast. The peeping scene didn't last very long for my imagination to run wild. Even with the uncut version, I didn't think he saw her nude or it would be more extended. If you thought Norman saw Marion totally nude, then what differences did you get from the uncut version?
With Vertigo, it's more obvious that Scottie undressed her completely. He wasn't looking thru a peephole.
#releasethesnyderversion
shareAvailable in the UK in September:
https://store.hmv.com/store/film-tv/blu-ray/psycho-(2)
Love the cover, much better than crappy cover I own, and the Uncut version looks worth buying for any fan of the film!
Love the cover, much better than crappy cover I own,
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In November of 1967, on big billboards all over Los Angeles and in the several TV Guides that serviced the region, the "local debut" on TV of Psycho(November 18, 1967) was advertised using three elements from that cover.
The only element NOT used was: that photo of Janet Leigh in her undies.
Rather, the billboard/ads played up: (1) That slashed PSYCHO logo(scary and brutal unto itself, "the greatest movie logo of all time" in my estimation) (2) That particular photo of Anthony Perkins with one hand over his mouth and one hand upraised, fingers splayed and (3) that VERY evocative publicity photo of the Bates Mansion in late afternoon light, looking very spooky indeed...with Perkins shadowy figure(and huge shoulders) giving off a scary "Frankenstein's Monster" effect.
And what is interesting is...that with Janet Leigh(who dominated the theatrical poster for Psycho in her bra and half-slip) removed, I think that Psycho takes on a more "classic horror movie" feel -- the eerie house and the Frankenstein-ish Norman; the slashed logo; Norman's terrified pose, etc. And Anthony Perkins -- Norman Bates -- becomes the star.
It is a billboard..and a print ad...that I have not forgotten, decades later...and here it is reproduced on a DVD cover...
Far out!
shareWhat other black and white films would you want to see in Blu-Ray or 4K UHD?
How about uncut version of ...
https://youtu.be/1hRWS3AJv_A
https://youtu.be/mkTX9rbeu58