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Psycho and The Film History That Is TV Guide

posted 4 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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I was thinking about TV Guide recently as an offshoot of "Psycho" ponderings.

This: Somewhere in my teen years and forever after, TV Guide did NOT matter to me, and I don't think I've even looked inside a TV Guide in 30 years. Its a physically bigger publication now -- it is "regular magazine size" -- but back in the day -- its heyday -- it was this rather small, thick and squat publication...a booklet. I'm going to guess each page was six inches tall and four inches across. Maybe.

I went looking for those dimensions and found a few internet articles singing the nostalgic praises of the TV Guide of the 60s'. I was reminded in my readings of the glossy "article pages" on either side of the pulp TV listings within had articles by notable authors (along with fluffy TV star interviews.)

But one of the articles talked about how, in the author's childhood home, the delivery of TV Guide in the mailbox weekly --roughly a week AHEAD of the shows to be broadcast -- was a big family deal, with the father "mapping out" which shows he would watch, which movies would be on, and any conflicts to confront(no VHS/DVR back then -- you had to CHOOSE which show to watch.)

I'm also reminded that Seinfeld had an episode about George's father and his "TV Guide collection." How silly. Except -- I had one, too. But pretty much only selected issues. Like when Hitchcock movies were on.

Indeed, once I had my "Hitchcock jones"(it came around 1966-1967, as Rear Window, Vertigo, NXNW, Psycho, and The Birds all got network broadcast -- less Psycho), I USED TV Guide to find out when a "Hitchcock was coming" so that I could see it and it to my list. In 1967, TV Guide added a weekly film review column to critic Judith Crist, given that there were 6 nights with theatrical motion pictures on the 3 main networks, and Crist's list would tell me if "a Hitchcock was coming" as well as other major films.

Here's an imaginary list of the films Crist would list each week:

The Birds, Saturday, NBC
The Sons of Katie Elder, Sunday ABC
Charade, Monday NBC
Dr. Strangelove, Wednesday, ABC
Viva Las Vegas, Thursday, CBS
The Apartment, Friday CBS

Those are actual movies that DID play on those actual networks on those actual nights. Somehow I remember that. I also remember that NBC got pretty much ALL Universal films(hence all Hitchcocks) -- except that ABC often got in the winning bid for bigger Universal hits: Frenzy, The Sting, and Jaws all went to ABC.

Anyway, a young film buff could use the Judith Crist "list of movies" every week to learn about the major(older) movies of the time. She wrote little bitty thumbnails of the movies coming that week. I remember three for Hitchcock films:

NXNW: "If you haven't seen Eva Marie Saint skittering down Mount Rushmore in high heels...you owe yourself the pleasure."

THE BIRDS: "A dull and plotless tale beyond the birds and the beaks, but once Hitchcock's fine feathered fiends take the screen, it is marvelous."

TORN CURTAIN: "Thrown off with a slickness that Hitchcock rarely demonstrated but...mediocre Hitchcock is still better than the best of most other directors."

Thus, a "film mentality" is developed. But meanwhile, armed with Hitchcock/Truffaut and the list of ALL Hitchcock films, I scoured TV Guides to see when a Hitchcock film might turn up locally. You could find them popping up on the Early Show, the Late Show..sometimes on a Friday night at 11:30, sometimes on a Saturday afternoon. I recall tracking down movies like Strangers on a Train, Suspicion, and Saboteur in those slots. It was a big win the week I found Lifeboat on a distant, static-fuzzy station.

Psycho was its own special deal with TV Guide, and while some of what I'm about to say is repeating myself...I decided to add a little something...for posterity.

Psycho NEVER made it onto "Judith Crist's Weekly List," even as every movie Hitchcock made from The Birds on DID, as well as Rear Window, Vertigo, The Trouble With Harry and The Man Who Knew Too Much '56 when they got re-released to TV.

Psycho famously was scheduled to debut on the CBS Friday Night Movie in September of 1966, but was pulled before it could air (some affiliates, like in San Francisco, had already banned it, but the nationwide news of the knife murder of a US Senate candidate's daughter led to the "total ban." ) Judith Crist's list wouldn't debut til a year later, anyway, and Psycho NEVER got returned to network showings like Vertigo and The Man Who Knew Too Much, so Crist never reviewed it.

That 1966 CBS showing was early in the "new season" of the CBS Thursday Night/Friday night movie, so Psycho got an advertisement in the Friday night listing: one half page, vertically down the side of a page, at the border: Vera Miles screaming. "Alfred Hitchcock's suspense classic...on the CBS Friday Night Movies. Right after Hogan's Heroes."

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

But TV Guide gave Psycho something else important that Friday: a "TV Guide close-up" - a half page (bottom half) in-depth discussion of something that night that TV Guide editors decided was a "big deal."

The TV Guide close-up on Psycho had a great posed photo of Anthony Perkins -- in his gray jacket, arms around himself, looking behind himself -- made slightly grainy. The words "Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO." And some paragraphs of description I still know by heart:

"In Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 shocker, called 'the blackest of black comedies' by one reviewer, withdrawn and nervous Norman Bates(Anthony Perkins) runs a rundown rural motel just down the hill from an aging American Gothic mansion. The arrival of Marion Crane(Janet Leigh) -- who has just stolen $40,000 -- compels Norman to talk to Marion about his loneliness and his aging, possessive mother."

"The film was nominated for four Academy awards(Hitchocck's direction, Janet Leigh's acting, plus art direction and cinematography.) Bernard Herrmann's score and John L. Russell's cinematography contribute to the atmosphere of unrelenting suspense. Screenplay by Joseph Stefano."

The cast of characters was then listed. Here I first read "Milton Arbogast: Martin Balsam." (TV Guide was WRONG.) Here I also read "Dr. Richman: Simon Oakland," and I SWEAR I guessed that character was a psychiatrist and that he must be used to deal with the "psycho" in some way. I could SEE it. Milton Arbogast? I had no idea who he would be. But I knew that Marion Crane must be "the woman who gets stabbed 200 times in the shower" because kids had told me about that.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I detail that "TV Guide close-up" because by the time Psycho reached TV (and then didn't) in 1966, it was already a "forbidden thing" to me, described as horrifying and terrifying and all the rest(in the wake of its 1965 re-release) and I USED that TV Guide close-up to develop my first real sense of the movie. I could SEE "a rundown motel down the hill from an aged American Gothic mansion." I could picture Marion Crane as "bad"(thieves of 40 thousand dollars were in my youthful estimation) and I knew that once Norman talked about his "aging possessive mother" -- it would be off to the showers for Marion. The photograph of Perkins as Norman Bates was spooky to me -- I had already been told he was the REAL killer -- this is what a REAL psycho looked like.

But Psycho was pulled (they put on Sinatra and Tony Curtis in "Kings Go Forth" instead --- rather wasting a big star vehicle on a last-notice show). And life went on.

I've spoken before about how about a year later in the fall of 1967, in Los Angeles, as I lived it(and evidently in about five other American cities around the same time, less NYC in summer) Psycho made another run at a TV airing. I'll "short cut" the memory of the billboard all over Los Angeles that scarily announced "Psycho was coming!_(Norman with his hand over his mouth, the house, the scary slashed logo.)

I'll ADD that one of those billboards was positioned outside of the LA Coliseum, so thousands of football fans had to walk under it -- into the game and out of the game -- and that gives you a sense of how many people saw that billboard.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

But to the new information about TV Guide. Well, two TV Guides...and one newspaper.

The long horizonatal "PSYCHO" billboard became a print ad in THREE places: (1) The "regular" national TV Guide (in its LA edition) (2) The Los Angeles Times local TV Guide(twice the size of the regular TV Guide, and included in the Sunday paper 6 days before the TV debut of Psycho on Saturday. (3) The Saturday TV pages of the Los Angeles Times.

And in all three instances, the PSYCHO add took up the equivalent of one full page of advertising -- spread across the bottom half of two pages.

That was pretty "dominating." It left an impact on anyone thumbing through the TV Guide, or the Los Angeles Times.

It was an event. And in the 1967-1968 TV Season, Psycho with is "Los Angeles local ad" outpaced the print TV Guide ads for two other Hitchcock movies that broadcast that season.

In September of 1967, TV Guide had a "quarter page ad" -- Cary Grant running from the crop duster for "Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest on the CBS Friday Night Movie."

In January of 1968, TV Guide had a "quarter page ad" -- Jessica Tandy assaulted by birds in front of the fireplace for "Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds on NBC Saturday Night at the Movies." (This ad even had a tagline: "Birds of a feather flock together -- TO KILL!)

But here is the point. "Psycho" with its local, full page, two page spread of ads ended up looking -- literally -- much BIGGER than North by Northwest and The Birds (which had the kind of small ads that networks could afford on a nationwide basis) and so to THIS TV Guide reader...Psycho was a much, much, bigger deal as a movie and an event.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

As a reader of TV Guide heading into my last childhood years, these ads -- much like movie ads for theatrical releases in the LA Times -- gave me a sense of the "spectacle" of movies, their special place. So much of a TV Guide was given over to tiny sentences listing "the usual fare" (2--Hogan's Heroes --8:30) that to see Psycho slammed across a couple of pages -- it mattered more.

By the way, the November 1967 TV Guide with the big Psycho ad ALSO had that same "TV Guide close-up" from 1966, verbatim, with Tony Perkins still hugging himself in his jacket. Thus Psycho took up almost three full pages of valuable TV Guide space.

And the NBC Saturday Night at the Movies that night was "Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man" with Paul Newman in a cameo as a punchdrunk fighter. And the local CBS channel brought a formidable opponent to "Psycho" locally that night at 11:30 : "Written on the Wind" (Sirk, Dorothy Malone winning an Oscar; Rock Hudson and Lauren Bacall -- to no avail, I suppose.)

Why do I remember these things quite so clearly?

Because I have those TV Guides in a box.

PS. "Movies on network TV" were a big thing at least to 1980, when ABC showed "Jaws" from 1975. But as the 80's progressed and VHS and cable became prevelant -- with UNCUT movies for language, sex, and violence -- broadcast TV gave up on movies. And so, evidently, did TV Guide.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I recall Hitchcock getting a good TV Guide page was for "Frenzy." ABC , 1975. The original 1972 Frenzy poster got half a page; the movie itself got a "TV Guide close-up" half page about the Big Hitchocck Comeback of 1972, with a photo of Jon Finch securing his tie in three mirrors. Alas, the "Frenzy" that ABC showed had all the sex and violence cut right out of it. It was false advertising to show that version.

Family Plot got a half page ad ("NBC Saturday Night at the Movies") in 1977 -- the year after its theatrical release in 1976! -- and then -- all the way in 1981 -- Family Plot got one more NBC showing(to honor Hitchcock's final movie a year after his 1980 death) and a "TV Guide Close-Up" detailing same.

And that was the end of Hitchcock in TV Guide. To my knowledge.

[–] liscarkat (18388) 4 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I happen to have an original copy of "TV Guide" on my desk right now, Issue No. 804 from August 24, 1968. The cover is a two-tone blue-and-black photo of DeForest Kelley, William Shatner, and Leonard Nimoy. The magazine measures exactly 7 3/8 inches tall, 5 1/8 inch wide, and 3/16 inch thick. Judith Crist's "This Week's Movies" column features "Cinderfella", "Casanova's Big Night", "Blue Hawaii", and "The Yellow Rolls-Royce."

--

There ya go!

I used to have a lot of issues -- not just the Hitchcock ones. I kept the Hitchocck ones, but I honestly don't know if I have them anymore . In a box somewhere.

BTW, Alfred Hitchcock himself made the cover of TV Guide -- as a TV star -- at least twice. And gave interviews.

[–] liscarkat (18388) 4 years ago

I only have the 1968 "Star Trek" one described above and maybe one other, somewhere around the house. I wish I had the thousands my family got from the '50s to the '80s and tossed at the end of each week. My favorite "TV Guide" writers were Judith Crist and Cleveland Amory.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I only have the 1968 "Star Trek" one described above and maybe one other, somewhere around the house.

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I'm pretty sure that one of the Psycho KABC TV showings was in a "Star Trek" TV Guide; November 1967 or February 1968. I guess Star Trek was popular with TV Guide fans.

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I wish I had the thousands my family got from the '50s to the '80s and tossed at the end of each week.

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I only held onto the Hitchcocks and a few others -- I think maybe "Duel" (the Spielberg TV movie) for awhile.

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My favorite "TV Guide" writers were Judith Crist and Cleveland Amory.

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Cleveland Amory reviewed weekly TV series. He was witty enough, but I recall him running aground trying to review LInda Ronstadt's "You're No Good" on some show. He complained about a young woman "wailing oncha no good, atcha no good, uncha no good." Old man-ism got him.

In addition to her weekly list of theatrical movies on TV, Judith Crist would write a couple of pages summarizing ALL the movies coming in a given seasonal year -- on ABC, NBC, and CBS -- in the "Fall Preview Issue." I read these articles assiduously each year to get a sense of movies -- and to read about which "big ones" were coming that year.

Recall that even with all the hit TV shows of the 60's and 70s, the showings of theatrical movies were EVENTS and treated as such(to get big ratings during sweeps months). There was no other way to SEE The Sound of Music or The Sting until HBO and VHS came along.

Two Hitchocck movies -- Vertigo and The Man Who Knew Too Much '56 -- have some sort of record. They played on NBC in the late sixties; ABC around 1970, and on CBS one last time in 1973 before Hitchcock pulled them (and three other films) for over ten years. I know. I watched all of those broadcasts. (Rear Window played NBC and ABC, but was pulled due to legal issues before it could get to CBS.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I've done a little musing about those two "local LA" Psycho showings back in November 1967 and February 1968, to wit:

How could local KABC-TV afford two showings of Psycho AND the purchase of those billboards all around LA AND those big print ads in the TV Guides?

My guess: KABC-TV was one of only a handful of local stations owned BY ABC ..so maybe ABC threw in the big bucks(Psycho was never going to get a network showing across "middle America.")

Did Hitchcock WATCH one or both of those KABC - TV showings? My guess: Maybe. He was famous for watching TV at home in Beverly Hills with Alma(he discovered Vera Miles and Tippi Hedren on TV), why NOT watch Psycho? But maybe it was past his bed time.

Did Hitchcock make money PERSONALLY off those Psycho broadcasts? (Must have; he had heavy ownership of the negative. CBS paid $800,000 for Psycho and never showed it - Psycho COST $800,000 to make. Note in passing: ABC paid 2 million to show Frenzy three times -- and only showed it once, heavily edited. Frenzy cost 2.8 million to make -- it made a lot back from TV.)

And this note: in 1967 and early 1968 when those Psycho showings rocked LA, Hitchcock was actually kind of hiding out from work. Torn Curtain came out in the summer of 1966, and he had not worked on a movie since 1965. The TV show went off the air in '65, too. Marnie and Torn Curtain had underperformed; other projects were killed by Universal. It would not be until the end of 1968 that Hitchcock rather grudgingly put Topaz before the cameras.

One more note about those two late night Psycho LA showings. Director Tim Burton grew up in LA, and he watched a lot of the "Saturday night horror movies" broadcast locally. Burton said(paraphrased), "I think there was a kind of cool, eerie energy to all those TVs tuned at the same time to horror movie late at night." I'll bet Psycho played that way.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Judith Crist's "This Week's Movies" column features "Cinderfella", "Casanova's Big Night", "Blue Hawaii", and "The Yellow Rolls-Royce."

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That refresher of a REAL Judith Crist movie column reminds us that network broadcast TV in the 60's wasn't exactly where you were going to find Fellini and Bergman films. Or even indies like, say "David and Lisa" (which DID play local LA TV.)

The list above includes a Jerry Lewis, an Elvis...a pretty old Bob Hope(SOME movies from the 40's and 50's made it onto network) and one fairly recent(1965) "all-star vehicle" (literally -- The Yellow Rolls Royce, with Hitchcock alums Shirley MacLaine and Ingrid Bergman, plus Rex Harrison and Omar Sharif and George C. Scott and ...Art Carney? In anthology stories as new characters bought the same RR over time.)

The networks generally bought "packages" from studios with a few "big ones" (say, The Apartment or The Bridge on the River Kwai) and a whole buncha programmers ("Palm Springs Weekend," "Made in Paris.") Actually, Kwai (the highest rated movie on TV before The Birds came along) and Ben-Hur and The Sound of Music were "special purchases" negotiated separately.

But there you have it. Bona fide Best Pictures and classics ...and a whole lotta Jerry Lewis and Elvis and surf movies.

Hitchcock was...somewhere in between.

[–] liscarkat (18388) 4 years ago

Taking a look inside that '68 "TV Guide" and reading Crist's column led me to seek out "The Yellow Rolls-Royce", which somehow I had never seen. Not a great movie, but sufficiently entertaining for a couple of viewings over a lifetime. And yes, Carney was in it as Scott's minion/sidekick.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I feel that some of my "personal" memories are not for public view, and this one's "borderline," but: what the heck.

I believe that The Yellow Rolls Royce came out in the summer of 1965. At least that is when I saw it. The occasion was special: in our family (movie fans of a certain stripe), kids got occasional "special dates" with mom or dad. Just one kid, one parent. A fine dinner. And a "quality movie." The idea was to prepare us for the dating world some years away, and to get a taste of an "adult night out."

One of mine was..."The Yellow Rolls Royce." Just my mother and me. Funny, it wasn't the kind of movie I liked at the time(comedies, thrillers and Westerns were my style.) But I watched it with an "appreciation" that someday I WOULD like a movie like this. (Indeed, as I recall, part of the "date" -- other than training on how to eat out -- was to see a movie OTHER than kid stuff or genre.)

And it was "educational." I believe Rex Harrison's story ended with him finding his wife(was it Jeanne Moreau?) in the Yellow Rolls Royce in the parking lot at a horse race -- with her lover. They didn't SHOW what was going on in the car, but I understood, and I understood the look on Harrison's face.

A preview of adulthood ahead.

Also I liked the George C. Scott/Shirley MacLaine story. It was a "Godfather preview." Scott is a gangster who leaves moll Shirley MacLaine behind in a gorgeous European coastal location(with henchman Carney as her bodyguard) and the Yellow Rolls Royce, and she falls in love with Alain Delon. But of course. Scott's gone off to kill a mob rival...but he better not find Delon when he gets back! Carney is the "man in the middle."

Almost a thriller, that one.

Hell, might as well mention the third and final one: Ingrid Bergman and Omar Sharif in a WWII romance -- the Yellow Rolls Royce is drafted into military action and gets strafed, etc..

I realize now that I was getting some "Hitchcock training": Shirley MacLaine and Ingrid Bergman. I'd be seeing more of THEM.