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Psycho and The Greatest Lie in the History of the American Motion Picture

posted 3 years ago by ecarle (14979)
31 replies | jump to latest

I have referred to the topic below a few times over my times of posting on Psycho, but I would like to take it out one more time and leave it as a "reference" for future posts and, perhaps, the one statement that I think is most important to make about Psycho...because I think it is also important for the times we live in and the media we consume.

For decades now, articles about Psycho have said something like this, invariably:

"Hitchcock historically took audiences by surprise by killing off the star of the film before it was half over."

The idea is that for first time viewers of Psycho in 1960, they assumed that Janet Leigh was the star of the film and would survive to the end, and were thus shocked when she got killed in that bloody shower at the 47 minute mark (though some wags over the years have had Janet getting killed "30 minutes into the movie" or even "20 minutes into the movie" which would be ridiculous.)

Roger Ebert, in his "Great Movies" piece on Psycho, writes:

"..Psycho continues to work as a frightening, insinuating thriller. That's largely because of Hitchcock's artistry in two areas that are not ..obvious: The set up of the Marion Crane story, and the relationship between Marion and Norman. Both of these elements work because Hitchcock develops his full attention and skill to treating them as if they will be developed for the entire picture.

Ebert details the set up of the Marion embezzlement story, and then writes:

"This is a completely adequate set-up for a two-hour Hitchcock plot. It never for a moment feels like material manufactured to mislead us....every first-time viewer believes this setup establishes a story line the movie will follow to the end."

And then the shower scene shocked everybody.

So said Roger Ebert. So says EVERYBODY writing any sort of article about Psycho today(especially those 60 year anniversary articles in 2020, and the 50 year anniversary articles in 2010.)

But. They're wrong. They're lying. Its a BIG lie. Though perhaps built on an original lie from long ago.

Because Hitchcock made a trailer for Psycho back in 1960. Its pretty famous, in the running for the most famous trailer of all time. It runs for six minutes and yet has not a single shot of film from the movie itself. Its ALL Hitchcock(then a big TV star as well as a famous movie director) giving a "guided tour" of the Bates Mansion and then of the Bates Motel.

And the entire trailer...all six minutes of it...builds up to Hitchcock entering the bathroom of Cabin One and looking at the floor He says:

"Here we are. All cleaned up now. Big difference. You should..you should have SEEN the BLOOD. The murderer crept in here, you see...the victim couldn't hear , the water was running...and......."

Hitchcock pulls back the shower curtain and a naked woman shot from the shoulders up is in there screaming(its not a shot from the movie, its a re-staging with Vera Miles screaming and the word PSYCHO covering her face as the violins screech away.)

And there you have it. Hitchcock was NOT trying to SURPRISE anybody with the shower scene in Psycho. He built the whole trailer to SELL the shower murder in Psycho. Those last moments -- he describes a "murderer creeping in," he says "you should have seen the blood," and he shows the woman screaming.

Its as if the main message of the trailer is: "Come see my new thriller Psycho and see a woman get bloodily killed in a shower!" The trailer sells the shower murder.

And yet...for decades now...folks act as if Htichcock wanted to HIDE the shower murder.

Nope.

But wait, there's more.

In the earlier minutes of the trailer, as Hitchcock moves about the grounds, house and motel, all he talks about are...the crazy mother and the obedient son("You had to feel sorry for him, being dominated by an almost maniacal woman") Marion Crane isn't mentioned by name at all, nor is her embezzlement described.

Indeed, Marion(unnamed) is lumped in with the OTHER victim(Arbogast) whose murder on the staircase is given away in the trailer, too. Hitchcock doesn't give us a name or sex for the staircase murder but he says all of this:

"The second murder took place here (NOTE: "Second murder" prepares the audience for later discussion of the FIRST murder.) The woman met the victim at the top, and in flash there was the knife. The victim tumbled and fell with a horrible crash..the back broke immediately..and its difficult to describe the twisting of the, of the...well, its all too horrible to describe. Let's go upstars."

So a trailer that gave away the shower murder at the end gives away the staircase murder at the beginning and again, Hitchcock's "sales pitch" is clear: come to my movie and see bloody knife murders!

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

CONT

Hitchcock then lumps Marion and Arbogast together and nails down a key plot element:

"Of course, the victim...or should I say victims...had no idea of the type of people they were being confront with in this house. The mother was the WEIRDEST....well, let's go on."

In not naming either Marion or Arbogast, or telling part of their stories, Hitchcock again places the emphasis of this trailer on the "guts" of the movie: a boy and his mother, a creepy house, a creepy motel, victims stumbling onto it and getting killed. THAT's what this trailer is about. Indeed, I've always felt that Hitchcock decided on doing the trailer this way because he realized that the "main arena" of Psycho -- the house, the motel, and various rooms within both -- were the whole "haunted house mechanism" of the movie. (Interestingly he just doesn't have the time to visit the fruit cellar or Norman's room, or the swamp -- this story is FILLED with creepy rooms and places.)

Now, if Hitchcock REALLY were in accord with what Roger Ebert described -- and didn't want to show any clips from the movie -- he could have started the trailer in the set for the real estate office and said something like:

"Here we have a typical real estate office. located in Phoenix, Arizona, where homes are bought and sold. A young secretary here, Marion Crane, was compelled to steal money from her employer and to set off on a drive hundreds of miles to her boyfriend in California....let me show you where she ended up....(dissolve to Bates House and Motel sets.) Marion found this house, and this motel, and the nice young man who ran it, Norman Bates. And suddenly Marion Crane found herself in the middle of a mystery that I dare you to come and see for yourself."

Ah...that would be a pretty DULL trailer, no?

And if Hitch tried to say more, like:

"And suddenly Marion Crane found herself in a mystery that would soon involve horrible murders..."..THAT would tip the hat, too.

So basically, no.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

So Hitchcock found himself compelled to make a trailer that detailed nothing about Marion Crane and her embezzlement at all. After all, he had a horror movie to sell. His FIRST horror movie, made in an era where there were LOTS of cheap horror movies making a lot of money and he wanted to join the crowd.

Indeed, on YouTube you can find a 1960 interview where Hitchcock describes Psycho was follows:

"Anthony Perkins plays a young man who runs a motel. And it turns out that his mother, who he keeps hidden up in a house behind the motel, is homicidal. And you can imagine how badly this turns out for the guests. Its a horror movie."

THAT spelled things out, too. No discussion of Janet Leigh a'tall.

Indeed, between the trailer and those interviews, about the only surprise in Psycho that Hitchcock did NOT give up (and indeed actively lied about in the trailer and interviews) was who MOther really was.

---

That's the set-up for "The Greatest Lie in the History of the American Motion Picture." I say this because it is a lie that has been repeated for DECADES now, particularly on the once-a-decade honorings of the film.

Are there any possible arguments AGAINST this being a lie?

Well, here's a big one:

In 1960 maybe very few people saw that trailer. Maybe they didn't read reviews either(which ALSO gave things away.) Maybe they went in to see Psycho and indeed saw it the way Roger Ebert has described...as the story of Marion Crane to "The End."

I'm sure that happened. But that would have been sheer luck -- the audience member had to MISS that trailer.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I gave this some thought.

Given my age, I was of age to see trailers in theaters for all the Hitchcock movies from The Birds through Family Plot at the theaters. And all of those movies HAD trailers..you can see them on their DVDs.

Well, I only remember seeing the trailer for The Birds back in '63. Again, it stars Hitchcock. And again, there are no scenes from the movie -- though there is footage of the birds screeching and flying as in the film's credit sequence. And Tippi Hedren runs into the room where Hitchcock is speaking at the end to shriek "They're coming!" I was very little when I saw this trailer. It did not scare me. It got me excited to see The Birds.

I never saw trailers in the theater for Marnie, Torn Curtin, Topaz, Frenzy or Family Plot.

So if I never saw THOSE trailers in theaters, maybe a lot of 1960 audiences never saw that giveaway trailer for Psycho either.

As it turns out I DID see that 1960 guided tour trailer for Psycho -- in a theater. In 1965 for re-release. By then, I'd been told so many horrible things about Psycho that I left the theater and waited in the lobby til it was over. My point: that Psycho trailer got some circulation, I suppose.

---

And this: whoever FIRST wrote about how "Htichcock took everybody by surpise by killing off the star" must have been someone who NEVER SAW THAT TRAILER. And that trailer was gone from public view from 1965 to about 1984 -- when it got placed on a VHS documentary with Jamie Lee Curtis called "Coming Soon" which had horror movie trailers on it.

So for almost two decades, with the 1960 trailer out of circulation, writer after writer after writer just kept repeating the lie: "Hitchocck totally took the audience by surprise."

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

RECENT OUTCOMES:

ONE: I notice that IMDb has removed that trailer from its main page. I suppose for a new generation that does not know the plot of Psycho at all (and they are certainly out there), IMDb doesn't want to shoe them this spoiler filled trailer anymore. Good for IMDb. I suppose I'd better start putting "SPOILERS" on my posts about Psycho in the future.

TWO: That 1960 trailer has been in circulation for decades now, and I've been writing about it here, but it seems like nobody feels like its worth a "correction article" "out there." Its the old line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." In other words...Hitchcock DID want to take everybody by surprise with the shower murder...don't believe your lying eyes if you see that trailer.

Which brings me to my final point:

You can use this story about "the Big Lie" about Psycho -- even in the face of irrefutable proof(the trailer) -- and analogize it to ALL of the lies told ALL of the time about pretty much everything in our lives. I'm not being a conspiracy theorist to say that we never know what's really going on -- we simply don't. And courtroom lawyers invariably tell two different stories where only one can be true...or both can be.

Now Hollywood trailers and writings by their very nature OFTEN lie -- usually in the advertising (at least in the old days) usually about the size of things: "SEE thousands of Mongol hordes invade!" (And the movie only has about 40 guys on horses.") But the Psycho trailer TOLD THE TRUTH: a woman would die in a shower by knife, most bloody. (Sure its Vera Miles in the trailer, but when Janet Leigh stepped in the shower in the movie...you were READY.)

The trailer told the truth about the shower murder. Writers have told the lie, ever more.

Its comforting to know that. It happens a lot.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 3 years ago

Even if Hitchcock wasn't trying to hide the shower murder, some audience members technically could have been caught offguard by it-- if they HADN'T seen the trailer.

I assume not everyone who went to see Psycho saw the trailer. Surely some people then as now might have just went to certain movies on a whim or through examining the poster.

Heck, some people who saw the trailer and technically knew about the murder right away could have been caught off-guard when they saw the movie. They might have been drawn into the story and then shocked when the murder happened, because it slipped their mind as they became engrossed in Marion's story. It's happened to me before with movies.

[–] ericlord (29) 3 years ago

A lot of publicity about the new thriller Psycho preceded its release in the UK. The brilliant ad campaign generated mystery and curosity; it gave nothing away about the plot, you just had to come and see it to find out! Everybody had heard about it and keen movie-goers (like myself and my friends) eagerly awaited it and flocked to see it. None of us had any idea what it was about. Indeed, a major part of the publicity centered around the unusual ‘mandate’ that no-one would be allowed into a cinema after the film had started!
The shower murder did came as a big surprise to audiences in the UK.
Could it be that the trailer had very limited circulation, or was not shown at all in UK cinemas?

[–] liscarkat (18429) 3 years ago

Holy crap, it's not that important.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Holy crap, it's not that important.

---

Well, in the scope of world history and affairs...perhaps no.

But in the history of the American motion picture...yeah, I still think so. I think it is The Biggest Lie in the History of the American Motion Picture(until I hear a bigger one, which I am sure there is.)

Consider:

Psycho is a movie that, for probably 50 of the years since its release 62 years ago, every year gets an article somewhere that talks about "Htichcock surprising the audience by killing the star off before the film is half over" or "Hitchcock shocked the world when the story of Marion Crane's embezzlement was destroyed by the violent shower murder." "Hitchocck took the audience by surprise..."etc.

That's a LIE.

And we have the proof. A 1960 trailer in which pretty much the entire POINT of the trailer is to lead up to, and promote, Psycho as having a "shower stabbing" in it. (Telegraphed by lines along the way spoken by Hitchcock: how in the staircase murder, "in a flash there was the knife,' how in the bathroom "the murderer crept in" and "you should have SEEN the BLOOD."

No Psycho got a HARD SELL in 1960 as "the movie with the shower stabbing in it."

The PROPER statement over the decades should have been this:

"In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock rallied audiences the world over by daring them to come to Psycho and see a bloody shower stabbing....audiences proved their desire to be scared and their bloodlust and accepted the invitation."

THAT's what Hitchcock REALLY did with his Psycho trailer in 1960. And that's how it changed movies. Everybody wanted to be scared like they'd never been scared before.

Honestly, do you think they would have lined up around blocks to see a movie about a secretary stealing some CASH?

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

A bunch of critics in the 60s and 70's NEVER SAW that 1960 trailer...it didn't emerge again til the 80's. So they wrote about how the movie seemed to be about Marion stealing the cash and blah blah blah (Ebert's recitation of this canard was very Ebert-like, he often "followed the crowd" that came before him; see also how he would always reference some WWII movie with various different types -- it wasn't a real movie, just a critic's construct. But I digress.)

---

The importance of "the Big Lie" about Psycho DOES extend to more profound levels, I think.

First up: The Man Shot Shot Liberty Valance (1962) -- SPOILERS:

John Ford's simple but powerful parable is about these elements:

Everybody thinks that James Stewart is "the man who shot Liberty Valance" -- a notorious evil outlaw(Lee Marvin.) Stewart becomes a hero and a US Senator.

But only Stewart knows that John Wayne is REALLY "the man who shot Liberty Valance" -- from the shadows when the amateur Stewart was aiming. Stewart became the hero and Senator; Wayne lost his woman (Vera Miles) TO Stewart and lived a life in ruin.

So Stewart fesses up to some reporters at Wayne's funeral: "I am NOT the man who shot Liberty Valance. John Wayne shot Liberty Valance."

And the reporters refuse to print the story and change decades of history. One reporter gets this famous line:

"This is the West. When the legend becomes fact...print the legend."

And that's what happened to Psycho (a movie set in the West.)

Hitchcock in 1960 told audiences his new movie was about a shower murder. That's the fact.

Critics have for decades said that Hitchcock's shower murder took the audience by surprise. That's the legend.

And no critic wants to UNDO the big lie of 50 or so years. So they keep printing the legend.

---
CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Though it is only within the world of "the movies," The Big Lie about Psycho to me extrapolates out to the Big Lies about everything. The term "Fake News" was coined by an unliked man; but there most certainly IS...and always has BEEN..."fake news."

"Hitchcock wanted to surprise audiences with the shower murder" is fake news.

In the world of the movies, we saw "fake news" written by Citizen Kane and ordered by Michael Corleone in The Godfather ("We have newsmen on the payroll, have them write a story about a crooked cop mixed up in the mob.")

Etc.

Anyway, no, 62 years later perhaps The Big Lie About Psycho "isn't that important," but it stands there, a blatant lie passed along over the decades, from generation to generation.

And I'm looking to leave a little legacy here ABOUT that Big Lie. I hope to keep this here for reference in other posts.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Elizabethjoestar wrote:

Even if Hitchcock wasn't trying to hide the shower murder, some audience members technically could have been caught offguard by it-- if they HADN'T seen the trailer.

---

Ha. Yes...it rather undoes my whole theory about Hitchcock's trailer...and I did reference that up-thread. In fact, I reviewed my own youth and exactly which Hitchcock trailers I DID see from 1963 to 1976 and his final film, Family Plot.

The answer: I saw almost NO Hitchocck trailers from 1963 to 1976.

Here's what I saw:

1963: The Birds.
1963: Re-release: The Man Who Knew Too Much and The Trouble With Harry (my parents took me to see that double bill; thanks, one of them is about a child kidnapping!)

1965: 1960 Psycho trailer for re-release.

And then: NOTHING.

I never saw trailers for Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz, Frenzy, or Family Plot at the theaters.

So I can figure that a fair number of 1960 audiences did NOT see the Psycho trailer. For one thing, movie going was at a low ebb, a lot of people wouldn't have gone to ANOTHER movie to SEE that Psycho trailer. Word is that Psycho brought a lot of people out to see movies who hadn't gone in a long time.

----

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I assume not everyone who went to see Psycho saw the trailer. Surely some people then as now might have just went to certain movies on a whim or through examining the poster.

---

Yep. I agree with that, too.

I will "stipulate" that a LOT (millions?) of people went to Psycho and indeed were fooled by the Marion Crane embezzlement plot, and indeed thought(as Janet Leigh believed they would) that the story would be: Anthony Perkins or John Gavin? Which one will Janet Leigh choose?

But even if that is TRUE(and I am sure that it IS true):

a. Htichcock's INTENTION (via the trailer) WAS to tell people that the movie had a shower murder in it(and he threw in the staircase murder to boot -- he gave away EVERYTHING but the ending.)

b. I'll bet a bunch of people showed up and lined up(you can see footage on YouTube of NYC crowds) because they DID know there would be a shower murder, and a staircase murder, and they wanted to SEE them. They wanted to dare the bloody shocks Hitchcock promised them.

A sidebar: One thing I've never been able to find out in my years of Psycho study -- were there TV commercials in 1960 that promoted the movie? And if so, did they feature the shower scene(even that re-staging with Vera Miles?)

The only "experts" I could ask over the years were my parents, and friends of my parents. The answer: YES, there were TV commercials and YES, they had the shower scene.

Hmm.

A bit of "lived history." I remember TV commercials for movies in the 60s and 70s, but they were usually shown ONLY on local channels during local sales time. Movies got released in different parts of the US in different months back then, so the networks couldn't run nationwide commercials.

I recall, in 1968, seeing very scary commercials on LOCAL TV for "Night of the Living Dead"("Most shocking movie since PSYCHO!")...you could practically hear the local channels 16 mm projector spinning and wheezing as the cocmmercial played.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

As I recall, the Big Event -- a commercial played on nationwide network television, with the "stereophonic sound" polish of a national broadcast versus a local TV 16 mm projector -- came with Jaws in 1975. I saw a commercial for Jaws on NBC and I was doubly excited -- about Jaws and about movies finally being promoted on network TV.

(Trivia says that is was ANOTHER 1975 movie that got nationwide ads -- Breakout with Charles Bronson, but I remember Jaws.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

ElizabethJoestar wrote:

---

Heck, some people who saw the trailer and technically knew about the murder right away could have been caught off-guard when they saw the movie. They might have been drawn into the story and then shocked when the murder happened, because it slipped their mind as they became engrossed in Marion's story. It's happened to me before with movies.

---

Another very good point. I can't say that happens with me, from childhood if I've seen a trailer or read a review --I'm usually bracing to see something I saw or read about finally happen in the movie.

But I'm sure it can happen. And Psycho DOES get you all wrapped up in Marion's story thanks to Htichcock's techniques and Janet Leigh's acting(including, for us guys, her beauty and sexuality). And then Anthony Perkins arrives and - in the beginning -- he's so nice and modest. And he's handsome.

Consider Hitchcock's ego in his "Psycho" trailer -- its only HIM on the screen, ever. For six minutes. Not one shot of his two beautiful leads(Leigh and Perkins) and the other handsome man and pretty woman(Gavin and Miles); let alone My Man Arbogast for us Character Actor Fans. Nope, Hitchcock rolled the dice on his TV fame, his setting(he KNEW that mansion and motel were made for history) and....telling everybody about the gory murders in his new movie.

--

I will also add that Hitchcock himself rather "played both sides" with the surprise of Psycho. He instituted that "No one can come in after it starts" policy because he knew Janet Leigh would be gone midway and people would wonder where she was. He told Truffaut "I made that beginning on the long side" to misdirect people (OK,maybe Ebert read THAT.)

But the trailer is the truth.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

A bit more about that 1960 trailer:

"Modernly" -- with the internet -- trailers for new or coming movies are released with all the fanfare of the movie itself. Everybody wants to get that first taste of the new Batman(again and again and again) or to figure out what they will see in the new QT movie. And those trailers are freeze-framed and studied, inch by inch , moment by moment, and analyzed on the net. ("Look! Paul Dano as the Riddler is like the Zodiac!")

Well, how in the hell would the Hitchcock Psycho trailer been analyzed?

In his own, old-fashioned way, Hitchcock "set the pace" for modern trailer analysis. Like when he points to the painting of the wall of the parlor and says "This picture was very important BECAUSE...well, let's go to Cabin One." Pretty broad, yes? Almost clumsy, yes? Well, it was 1960 and showmen like Hitchcock knew how to get the audience pumped up on the most basic educational level, like a tent barker. ("YOu have to come to the movie to see why that picture is so important.")

No, its pretty clear to me that Hitchcock , armed with a great horror movie and audience participaton event, surrounded by William Castle's gimmick shockers, the history of Diabolique and Roger Corman and old Frankenstein movies on TV ....went BIG in selling Psycho for what it was: his first horror movie.

With a bloody shower murder.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

"Post script."

It occurs to me that "The Biggest Lie in the History of the American Motion Picture" remains so ("Hitchcock intended to surprise his audience with the shower murder and killing off the star early")...the lie is, 60 plus years later, FINALLY becoming the truth. Of sorts.

New generations are being exposed to Psycho without knowing anything about the storyline. The "Hitchcock tour guide trailer" is no longer being shown in any public manner(though it can still be found in the deep recesses of the Internet.)

So "new" audiences for Psycho WILL think the movie will be about Marion Crane til the end, and WILL be surprised when she exits more horribly at minutes 47-48.

There's proof right here on this "PSycho" page in swanstep's link to "Popcorn in Bed," a YouTuber "reactor" show with a cute young 20-something woman who watches movies while we watch HER. She watches Psycho and we get to experience her (1) trying to figure out where the embezzlement story is going(to Sam?); (2) getting shocked by that shower scene and Marion's demise, and (3) experiencing the remaining shocks (staircase, fruit cellar) for the very first time.

NOW -- and in the years to come -- Psycho will work the way that Roger Ebert said it did.

Which raises this issue:

Must a spoiler warnng be placed on Psycho now? SPOILERS on a 60 year old movie?

From posts I've read on this topic, the answer is often:

"NO. The movie has been out there for 60 years, how can it be spoiled?"

but also (particularly NOW with Psycho):

"YES. Its been so many years since Psycho was released and talked about that new generations no nothing about it. SPOILERS must be warned about.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

But actually the best answer is:

"Don't go to any chat board on a movie you have not seen...until you see the movie."

I learned that lesson long ago on the old IMDb boards.

Out of curiosity, I went to the Million Dollar Baby board BEFORE I saw Clint Eastwood's Best Picture winner.

And some cruel little punk decided to reveal two major twists at the end of the film in the HEADING of his post.

So I knew those twists were coming when I saw Million Dollar Baby.

"Never again." I never go to a board on a movie I haven't seen yet.

Psycho can now, indeed, be SPOILED but I hope that its new viewers will watch it before reading on it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

ericord wrote:

A lot of publicity about the new thriller Psycho preceded its release in the UK. The brilliant ad campaign generated mystery and curosity; it gave nothing away about the plot, you just had to come and see it to find out! Everybody had heard about it and keen movie-goers (like myself and my friends) eagerly awaited it and flocked to see it.

---

Ah...the kind of poster I most love to find at this Psycho board -- someone who saw it IN 1960! Went through the experience "first time." I myself was so young then I didn't even know what Psycho was. It came to me in later years (re-release, TV).

Very enjoyable to read your remarks!

---

None of us had any idea what it was about. Indeed, a major part of the publicity centered around the unusual ‘mandate’ that no-one would be allowed into a cinema after the film had started!

--

You know, I've read most of the "print ad" materials for Psycho and its true -- they didn't seem inclined to say ANYTHING about the plot at all. Indeed, the poster famous did NOT have the motel in it...let alone the Creepy Mansion(which became the center later of the ads for Psycho II and Psycho III.)

Basically, I guess one went on the title(PSYCHO), and the way the word was brutally slashed(as if by a knife) and the overall atmosphere of "Hitchcock's First Horror Movie.")

Plus Hitchcock hinted at "shocking secrets" and I loved this tagline: "Don't give away the ending. Its the only one we have."

---

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

The shower murder did came as a big surprise to audiences in the UK.
Could it be that the trailer had very limited circulation, or was not shown at all in UK cinemas?

---

It is very possible that the trailer did not make the trip to the UK. I keep wondering if the trailer was not "pulled" after awhile once somebody realized the shower murder worked best as a surprise.

Now, I saw the trailer in a theater. But it was in 1965 for the first US re-release of Psycho.

By 1965, Paramount figured that the story and shocks of Psycho were known to many. The poster said "Psycho and the Shower-Bath Scene are Back!" As a young newbie to Psycho in that year, I wondered what "The Shower-Bath Scene" was. I got told. I got scared.

One OTHER poster for the 1965 re-release of Psycho airbrushed an arm and a hand with a knife in it onto Tony Perkins! Again, they weren't even trying to hide the twist anymore! They wanted to sell "Tony Perkins the Psycho."

[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

Straw Dogs (1971), with its portrayal of an ineffectual professor taking bloody revenge for the rape of his wife, outraged critics even more. (p. 515)

But Susan George's wife *never tells* the Hoffman's professor that she's was raped! She does hint at it once but he doesn't get it and realistically there's no way he *could* get it from a stray, elusively dark comment. It's actually very important in the film then, that the whole 'defense of home' climactic sequence has *nothing* directly to do with defending or revenging the raped wife. Rather, in some sort of parody of liberal highmindedness and eggheaded fixation on abstract principles, Hoffman's professor directly defends just the right to a fair trial/to not be subject to mob justice of an intellectually challenged guy, Niles, who may have just killed a teen girl (*we* know that he in fact just did kill her, albeit with the diminished responsibility of his handicap). His wife is mostly just out of the loop of Hoffman's character's motivations in the scene. His underlying violent masculinity or territoriality may have been unleashed in the scene but the professor is not enacting revenge either for his wife's injuries or for anything else. We see the wife (Susan George) at the end of the film in a shattered state and apparently bewildered by what the situation has pulled out of her husband that defending her never could. Or something. [Cont'd]

[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

(Cont'd) Anyhow, perhaps because there *were* lots of rape-revenge narratives around during the '70s, and because Straw Dogs (1971) has one of the most infamous rape scenes of all time, and because Straw Dogs is a grueling film that most viewers are only going to watch once, Straw Dogs (1971) frequently gets misremembered as a rape-revenge film.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Not a big 'lie' exactly but I've been struck over the years by the way that many people seem to misremember and mischaracterize Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971) as a rape-revenge thriller. Here, for example, is Kirsten Thompson and David Bordwell in their college textbook, Film History: An Introduction (2nd Edn): After discussing critical responses to The Wild Bunch (1969) they say,
Straw Dogs (1971), with its portrayal of an ineffectual professor taking bloody revenge for the rape of his wife, outraged critics even more. (p. 515)

---
But Susan George's wife *never tells* the Hoffman's professor that she's was raped! She does hint at it once but he doesn't get it and realistically there's no way he *could* get it from a stray, elusively dark comment. It's actually very important in the film then, that the whole 'defense of home' climactic sequence has *nothing* directly to do with defending or revenging the raped wife.

---

Well, there you go. Not quite the "big lie" of the "Psycho myth," but definitely in the same ballpark in an unfortunate manner: those two critics "got it wrong" -- Hoffman is NOT avenging the rape of his wife. Its an understandable mistake, personally I think that I, too, misremembered the plot (thinking Hoffman WAS avenging the rape) until I saw the film again years later and realized: no, he didn't. That said, "there is something in the air" as to how the brutish local guys have humiliated Hoffman through the film(and hanged his cat!) and perhaps he SENSES something happened with his wife. Maybe even consensually -- one of the rapists was her former lover.

Movie critics are in the unfortunate position of getting it wrong from time to time, and its in print unless and until a correction is entered. Hell, I MYSELF misunderstood a key plot point in the recent LIcorice Pizza, about the Bradley Cooper scene, wrongly reported it(at that film's board) and got my head handed to me. Moviechat is definitely the place for plot corrections!

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

It would be interesting to try to pinpoint "who wrote the first wrong analysis of Psycho" ("Hitchcock wanted to take the audience by surprise with the shower murder")...but I can't think of the place. Ebert certainly got it wrong; I think his essay was for one of his "Great Movies" books, probably in the 90s.

Of course there is the corollary: "Hitchcock killed off the star of the movie before it was half over." That's true on its face, and perhaps even if you know the shower murder is coming, you still FEEL the impact of the star(and supposed protagonist) Janet Leigh leaving the movie. But Tony Perkins takes over as the star quite well.

"Killing off the star early" is actually a dangerous proposition --if fans of the movie came to see the movie BECAUSE of the star. Let's say you are a Tom Cruise fan, you can't wait to see his newest movie, you pay your money and you show up to see it -- and he gets killed 40 minutes in, and now you are watching a movie WITHOUT the star you came to watch.

I suppose Psycho survived that because Janet Leigh wasn't THAT big a star(had Doris Day got it, yikes) and Anthony Perkins, though not full top level, was star enough. (Plus of course, by then, HITCHCOCK was the star, directing the movie and making his presence felt.)

It would be "spoiler-filled," but I've got a little list going of "early exit stars" in movies, and some of them were fairly big. I'll spoil one who wasn't -- in the movie "Executive Action," Steven Segal and Kurt Russell were the stars -- Segal playing an anti-terrorist commando and Russell a brainy bureaucrat. They are flown up to sneak into a hijacked jet in flight and -- Segal doesn't make it, gets enough time to tell Russell "You can do it!" before getting sucked out of the plane to his doom. I expect that the producers had hoped to get a bigger action star(Arnold? Sly?) for the Segal role but...he had to do. And it DID have impact.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Back to Straw Dogs:

It is telling of the "art" of the film and the director's rather callous attitude towards his lead actress that Hoffman does NOT learn of the rape, defends his home for other somewhat "anti-woman" reasons(he is defending a mentally disabled man who DID accidentally kill a young woman, and wasn't misplaced affection part of it?), his beef is with the other men without being ABOUT the wife, and his wife is reduced for much of the climax to an unhelpful whiner (though she comes through at the end.)

That unsavory mix of plot lines made Straw Dogs controversial THEN, and pretty hated(in some quarters) now.

Sidebar: On YouTube, you can see a 72 year old Alfred Hitchcock IN 1972 get ANGRY (his face, his voice) when an interviewer asks him is his new movie Frenzy, (about a rapist-KILLER) "was influenced by Straw Dogs."

"..But I NEVER copy my films off of other films!" Very angry. And true. Hitchcock had finished filming Frenzy before Straw Dogs came out in December 1971. Still, the two films share that 60s/70s R-rated cusp of using rape for titillation and terror.

This drifts further from the "Psycho Big Lie" but I'll add one more 70's movie with a rape. In Death Wish(1974), thugs led by Jeff Goldblum(likely embarrassed today) kill Charles Bronson's wife and rape his adult daughter. Charlie goes vigilante and kills muggers all over NYC...but he NEVER finds the creeps who attacked his family. It leaves the movie without a payoff...and makes the muggers who DO get killed by Bronson look like innocent bystanders (a bit.)

I suppose misconceptions about Straw Dogs and Death Wish could have reached Psycho Big Lie proportions if the wrong versions were repeated year after year after year, but it seems that misconceptions were cleared up pretty quickly with those films.

STill...great example about Straw Dogs, swanstep. Movies ARE misunderstood by their critics sometimes.

Its just that Psycho has been misunderstood for DECADES now...

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

bump

[–] DmitriKnipper (202) 2 years ago

There's another "big lie" regarding Hitchcock and that is he always wanted blonde leading ladies to the point of obsession. Not exactly; what Hitchcock said that interested him was a sleek, high-fashion, cultured woman getting progressively rattled and disheveled as the story of the film proceeds (think Madeleine Carroll in The 39 Steps, Tippi Hedren in The Birds, Alida Valli in The Paradine Case, Tallulah Bankhead in Lifeboat, etc.) - Hitch never ever specified she has to be a blonde.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

There's another "big lie" regarding Hitchcock and that is he always wanted blonde leading ladies to the point of obsession. Not exactly;

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True. I think it is ironic that Hitchcock, who ostensbly "only" cast blondes as his heroines, introduced a very famous redhead -- Shirley MacLaine -- to audiences with The Trouble With Harry. He wasn't the first to discover her, but he was the first to USE her.

Brunette heroines in Hitchcock include Ruth Roman in Strangers and Karin Dor in Topaz. Possibly Margaret Lockwood in The Lady Vanishes?

And then there were a few actresses where "bright blonde" wasn't their hair color, but a "blond-ish" brown hair seemed to be the order of the day. For instance, while I certainly see Grace Kelly as a blonde, I don't see Ingrid Bergman(Hitchcock's OTHER favorite leading lady) as being a blonde. Same goes for Teresa Wright in Shadow of a Doubt and Julie Andrews in Torn Curtain...they aren't brunettes, they aren't blondes, sort of "nice brown hair."

--

What Hitchcock said that interested him was a sleek, high-fashion, cultured woman getting progressively rattled and disheveled as the story of the film proceeds (think Madeleine Carroll in The 39 Steps, Tippi Hedren in The Birds, Alida Valli in The Paradine Case, Tallulah Bankhead in Lifeboat, etc.) - Hitch never ever specified she has to be a blonde

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No, he seemed to go for elegance first. That said, of the above ladies, I"d say that Carroll and Hedren were DEFINITELY blondes, and Valli and Bankhead were not.

THAT said, I have to note that Hitchcock sure had a run of blondes in the 50's and 60s. Grace Kelly made three films in a row for Hitch, and when she retired to become Princess Grace, its like Hitchcock kept casting blondes to make up for it. After the "Shirley MacLaine break"(the first film after Grace's run) we have, in order...Doris Day, Vera Miles(perhaps more brown haired), Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint, Janet Leigh,and Tippi Hedren.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I think Hitchcock started casting blondes for the same reason Quentin Tarantino has "foot scenes" in his movies: fans and critics started to notice it, drew attention to it and "the filmmaker decided to turn it into a trademark."

In his final few films, Hitchcock seemed to make sure that every blonde had a brunette counterpart:

The Birds: brunette Suzanne Pleshette with Tippi Hedren (Pleshette was more earthy and sexy, you ask me.)

Marnie: brunette Diane Baker with Tippi Hedren (Baker was more pretty and sexy, you ask me.)

Topaz: brunette Karin Dor(mistress) with Dany Robin(wife.)

Frenzy: red headed Anna Massey(girlfriend) with blonde Barbara Leigh-Hunt(ex-wife.)

Family Plot : Brown haired Karen Black(disguised as a blonde in one scene) with blonde Barbara Harris.

[–] DmitriKnipper (202) 2 years ago

Great points, ecarle. I always get a bit irked when people, who probably only have a superficial knowledge of Hitch films, go on about "his thing for blondes" granted that there certainly were several notable ones. But not exclusively.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Thank you, DimitriKnipper.

Well, I think with any public figure (and Hitch remains one for the ages now) , there are "surface takes" versus the reality of things.

I honestly think this business about Hitchcock wanting to surprise audiences with the shower murder is a huge, gigantic LIE...passed on from one generation of lazy writers to the next. The trailer ABOUT the shower murder proves them wrong.

As to the blondes. Well, he used a lot of blondes, and while Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly tied as most used Hitchcock heroine, it is the REALLY blonde one(Kelly) who lives on as "the Hitchcock blonde." I'd say it is possible that once Hitchcock lost Kelly to retirement, he set out to cast blondes in an attempt to recreate her.

But he discovered redhead Shirley MacLaine and he used all other other hair types.

I "buried the lede," but I think both Suzanne Pleshette(especially) in The Birds and Diane Baker in Marnie had more "star quality and audience empathy" than the near-unknown Tippi Hedren(a ...wait for it...blonde.)

[–] roger1 (3647) a year ago

(aka ecarle)

Bump...because I wish to keep this concept out there, and this OP is in danger of "floating off the board".

"The Big Lie" about Psycho is as good a guide to the Big Lie about so many other things in life to this day.

Its not that I am a conspiracy theorist who believes EVERY major event reported in our lifetimes is a lie as to what really happened(JFK's murder, the moon landing, 9/11) , but rather that on a smaller scale -- as here -- we have definitive PROOF that the story on Psycho is a lie.

"The big lie about Psycho" matters in movie history, and it matters in life.