MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > "My Psycho is Not Your Psycho" PART TWO

"My Psycho is Not Your Psycho" PART TWO

posted 2 years ago by ecarle (14979)
27 replies | jump to latest

(The other thread had narrowed down tightly, I start this second thread -- intended to be shorter.)

Back to the timeline:

1968

This turned out to be a bit of a "busy year" on the Psycho front.

February: I actually got to see it as far as Marion driving in the rain to the Bates Motel. The KABC Saturday night movie, Saturday February 17, 1968. I voluntarily turned the TV off once my parents got in from a night out. In retrospect, maybe I didn't need too; I "self policed." Within a couple of years I could pretty much see any movie I wanted to and stay up as late as I wanted to.

Summer: A "bookstore browse" of Hitchcock/Truffaut(then a pretty new book) that actually created tension within me as I neared the pages on Psycho and a certain REAL fear when I first looked at the stillls of the two murder scenes. Especially Arbogast with his slashed face, open mouthed look of terror -- and the finishing off on the foyer floor.

Note in passing: I've re-seen a fair number of 50's horror movies(for kids) and a lot of them have that same shot of the monster jumping on a victim and killing them. Maybe not stabbing the victim with a butcher knife, but certainly strangling them or biting them, etc. It was a pretty standard shot.

What made that shot so scary in Psycho? I think it was because we were far more terrified IN GENERAL by what had come before -- the shower murder; the clean up of Marion's body; the screeching violins and sudden attack on Arbogast at the top of the stairs. And this: there was just something borderline OBSCENE about how strong and merciless that "old lady" was pining down the detective. Her buttocks were obscenely up in the air, and if you looked at a still frame, you could see "old lady shoes" on her (a "cheat," actually, Norman had no time to put those on and was not wearing them in the fruit cellar.)

So the combination of "seeing some of Psycho" and those scary Hitchcock/Truffaut photos had increased both my "need to see it" jones and my fear of the material(which was based on still frames that lasted longer on the page than in the movie; you could look at them long enough to get a real fear going)

NOVEMBER 1968

My family took Esquire magazine and in this issue was a two-page spread with still frames from movies. I think the topic was "sex and violence."

I remember that they printed two frames of Psycho: Marion screaming in the shower, and Shadowy Mother -- full on, not the low angle -- knife upraised outside the shower.

I had seen the shot of Mother in Hitchocck/Truffaut, but here it was bigger, more detailed. I took in the details: the bun of gray hair. The flowery dress. The rage expressed in the knife raising.

And maybe most of all : the flowered pattern of wallpaper on the bedroom wall behind Mother. That flower pattern spooked me then -- it was like too many motels I had REALLY been to, and weirdly, it was like wallpaper at my grandmother's house(which was, upon the death of my grandfather, a fairly spooky place.)

I think Hitchcock and his Oscar-nominated art directors were on to something with that "sweet but creepy" wall paper.

In Stefano's original screenplay, there is a "rhyme" to Norman's eye peeping at Marion undressing in Cabin One. Near the end, when Sam and Lila are talking in Cabin One, the screenplay has the camera go up to one of those flowers in the wallpaper and we see: AN EYE. Clearly Norman's eye. Spying on Sam and Lila.

This effect was no doubt cut because it told us "Norman knows now who Sam and Lila are, and what they are really here for." Similarly a shot was cut of Norman finding a "Sam Loomis, Fairvale" registration in the glove compartment of the truck. No need for Norman to know too soon!

As it turned out, that "eye in the flower in the wallpaper shot" made it into Psycho II. It was creepy there, but not in a good enough movie to make the most of it.

---

In that same November 1968 Esquire article with the two photos from the shower scene was a still frame of the bank clerk getting shot in the face in Bonnie and Clyde -- which had shaken me when I saw it at the theater months earlier.

I suppose we can figure that Esquire writers saw the movies starting to take on new levels of violence...inaugurated by Psycho, now carried forward in Technicolor with Bonnie and Clyde and going....where?

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Some other 1968 developments "alongside" Psycho:

Four movies:

Bonnie and Clyde: I saw it in the theater and I have reported. Bonnie and Clyde was not R rated, but that was a year away, and once the R ratings came in, I "negotiated" with my parents to see R rating movies, usually with the arguments "the critics say its really good" or "all my friends are seeing it." I negotiated to see Bonnie and Clyde. Note: I wisely negotiated only to see R-rated VIOLENT movies. I didn't negotiate to see SEXUAL R-rated movies. Midnight Cowboy(then an X) or Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, or Carnal Knowledge. Saved those for later at revival theaters when I was older. Coming negotiations would be for The Wild Bunch(1969), Dirty Harry(1971) and Frenzy, which almost accidentally turned out to be a sex movie, too.

Wait Until Dark: A late 1967 release, I saw it in early 1968 (around the same time I saw some of Psycho.) One review I read said "the most screaming in a theater since Psycho" and I was on my way. I don't even think I had to negotiate, it was an Audrey Hepburn movie, after all. Dropped off with male friends. The third act was nothing but screaming -- and a famous "big scream' in the middle of it all. I guess Wait Until Dark scared me, but it was more like being extremely in suspense, extremely hating the evil psycho villain(Alan Arkin) and going nuts with everybody else at the climax. I DO remember my leg bobbing up and down uncontrollably.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Rosemary's Baby: A Paramount Picture -- 8 summers after Paramount's Psycho -- and certainly famous fast. It was ruled out by the parents because it had sex, nudity and Satanism. I suppose you can say this was another classic horror movie...but as its designer Richard Sylbert said, "Its the greatest horror movie without horror in it." I saw it years later on the big screen and dutifully admired it but -- no shock jump scenes, no on screen murders. Entirely different kind of horror. But this: one year after the movie, an English teacher assigned the NOVEL Rosemary's Baby to my class. She was "hip." My parents had a brief discussion over this with me present -- my father voted "Aye" and I found myself being ushered into a world where Psycho would no longer be verboten.

Targets: In 1971, Newsweek critic Paul Zimmerman called Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show "the greatest debut of a young American director since Citizen Kane." Rather embarrassing praise and technically WRONG: Bogdo's debut had been 3 years earlier with Targets, the tale of a mad sniper(based on Texas Tower killer Charles Whitman) mixed with the tale of an old horror movie star(Boris Karloff.) The two stories converge at a drive-in movie theater with patrons being gunned down.

I'm reminded that while the killing of Charles Percy's daughter led to the cancellation of Psycho on CBS in September of 1966, two other 1966 summer atrocities also contributed: the killings in Chicago of nursing students in their apartment (with a knife) by Ugly Richard Speck and Charles Whitman's mad sniper attack(yep, a mass shooting "back in the day.") Targets mixed the Charles Whitman story, Boris Karloff and a fair dose of Psycho in the tale of a "pleasant looking boy next door psycho."

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Night of the Living Dead: "The most terrifying movie since PSYCHO!" wrote a critic's blurb on George Romero's seminal zombie movie. I recall reading a Readers Digest attack on the movie that made the movie so horrible("They devour human flesh on screen!") that I self-censored that movie: I had NO desire to see it, Psycho sounded quite bad enough, that you.

In the early 60's, Psycho had had direct knockoffs like Homidical, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte and Strait-Jacket, but now in 1968, a whole new R-rated wave of violent cinema was coming and Psycho was getting ready to "take a back seat" to it all.

But not without a final surprise or two.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

JANUARY 1969

Something rather amazing in the LA Times movie ad section:

Psycho, back in theaters AGAIN -- after its 1960 first release, and its 1965 re-release("The shower bath scene is back!") with the following tagline :

'SEE IT THE WAY IT WAS ORIGINALLY MADE! UNCUT! EVERY SCENE INTACT! THE VERSION TV DARED NOT SHOW!"

"The version TV dared not show." Now THAT was historic, too. But then, Psycho sort of made history all through the sixties:

1960: Hit release
1961: Oscar run in Los Angeles; nominations at the ceremony. William Castle's Homicidal opens.
1962: Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? opens.
1963: Hitchcock's The Birds opens -- with "homage scenes" to Psycho in it.
1964: Aldrich's Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte opens as does William Castle's Strait-Jacket(screenplay by Robert Bloch)
1965: Psycho re-release.
1966: Psycho heavily promoted on CBS...and cancelled (CBS paid $800,000 to Paramount for the privilege.)
1967: Psycho debuts late night in Los Angeles (and in New York City, and in Miami, read my sources. The Miami TV critic wrote: "I never thought I would ever see Psycho again.") Hitchcock/Truffaut is published and the Psycho murder scenes become everyone's nightmare who buys a copy.
1968: Psycho plays one more time on late night Los Angeles TV.
1969: Psycho gets ONE MORE re-release (The version TV dared not show).

About that "version TV dared not show" ploy. What exactly did they mean? The CBS nationwide cancellation? Or did some of those local channels cut some of Psycho, too? I don't know. I didn't see the violent parts of the local showing.

Here's what was REALLY going on. The 1965 re-release from Psycho was by PARAMOUNT. The 1969 re-release was by UNIVERSAL. Evidently, ownership of Psycho had shifted to Hitchcock and he sold that ownership to Universal(along with the rights to his TV series) in exchange for copious MCA stock.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

The ad copy made another point too: "Uncut! Every scene intact!" Psycho thus led the way on the concept of "uncut movies versus edited TV versions." And this, in turn, exposed the Psycho audience for what we were: crazed with bloodlust and sexual appetites. We wanted to SEE every violent or bloody shot(not that many of them in Psycho, but enough.) We wanted to see any female or male sexuality cut by the censors (nudity, maybe, but also that upfront "foreign film necking" by Leigh and Gavin.

"Psycho" thus rather ran through the entire 60's as a film of consequence and mass effect. But alas, Hitchcock was starting to fade -- this Psycho re-release in early 1969 led to the release of the "new" (and substandard) release of Topaz in late 1969.

No matter. Hitchcock had his 60's blockbuster. I have skimmed various "blogger lists" of The Great Films of the 60's and Psycho came in Second (Number Two) ...twice. Once to Lawrence of Arabia(exactly the kind of typical 60's epic that Psycho undercut) and once to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Well, OK -- but Psycho seems to have mattered.

As a "Universal property" that closed out 1969, Psycho was about to become a different sort of animal in the 1970's.

And I still had not seen it all the way through yet...

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

1970:

Ten years had passed since the release of Psycho in 1960, and that movie had pretty much haunted the entire 60's, from release to re-releases, to its very special television showings, its billboards its full page TV guide and newspaper ads for movie and TV release. Hitchcock/Truffaut had immortalized some of its most frightening images to paper and (we learned decades later) Hitchcock/Truffaut was owned by many a future young director -- from DePalma to Fincher.

Psycho would now begin a "second life in the 70's."

Psycho had been filmed at Universal on the Universal backlot and on Universal soundstages and with Universal sound effects (the sound of doors closing is the same in Psycho and The Birds), and yet it had been a Paramount release. No more. Now Psycho was fully owned by Universal(they bought rights from Hitchcock, who owned them) and would be Universal's to control and distribute ever more. Its still bothersome, though -- Psycho looks and sounds like "pure Universals" The Birds and Marnie, but Paramount gets to claim it, too.

Evidently, Paramount had controlled the sparse US TV showings of Psycho in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, etc. But now Psycho became part of a "Universal movie package" sold to local TV channels. KABC-TV 7 , an ABC affiliate, bought it again, but so did lots of smaller market independent channels all over the US. Psycho was about to 'go viral" -- on TV everywhere, at least once a year.

In 1970, Psycho went out in a Universal package that included: Charade, Mirage, and The Birds. All thrillers, all favorites of mine -- but Psycho remained "different." The true revolutionary film in the bunch. The "most terrifying movie ever made." "The sickest movie ever made." It was its own thing.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

With my family , I moved away from Los Angeles to a much smaller, rural-ish city in the 70s, and TV was pretty bad there. The network affiliates would simply NOT SHOW programming if they could show something else -- baseball games would pre-empt The Mod Squad and The FBI.

Weirdly in that town, the "ABC Sunday Night Movie"(usually on at 9:00 pm on Sunday nights), would be shown at 11:00 pm on WEDNESDAY night. If I wanted to see a "big theatrical debut," I had to stay up late.

The solution in the 70's was that I pretty much dropped the TV habit entirely. I literally had other things to do.

But I remained very loyal to the movies. Suddenly, cheapjack TV shows like the Quinn Martin product couldn't compete, didn't matter. Parents paid for the movies, or I found the money myself. Drive-in trips with "the gang" became a big thing (and a way to see the newly minted R rated movies.)

Still, when certain theatrical films reached the home screen, I made time...I still checked TV Guide for the "local movie nights," and one day in February 1971, I checked the TV Guide listing for the "Friday Night Movie" in my small city and found:

11:30 pm Movie: Psycho (1960.) Alfred Hitchcock's brilliant and terrifying study of murder and madness at an isolated, rundown motel. Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles.

Well, there it was. Again. Years later. But the broadcast in this small city got no fanfare -- no billboards, no "TV Guide close-up", not even a print ad in TV Guide. Just a listing, a few "buried lines" in a TV Guide.

When I read that listing, it was still over a week away to see. It was a long week. But the night came. And I saw Psycho all the way through --- with commercials -- for the first time.

I watched it alone. (This was the last time I WOULD watch Psycho alone -- in the future, there was either a theater crowd or a college crowd or family or friends or...sometimes...a significant other.) I took it in. I contemplated the achievement.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Recall that in 1968, I had seen Psycho as far as Marion's drive on the highway BEFORE the motel. Now, I watched the movie go beyond that point...it was like sailing on a boat out to sea that had been turned back the last time I tried. Marion made that (extremely memorable) slow drive in the silence and the rain up to BATES MOTEL: VACANCY and I knew I had finally made it.

Did Psycho scare me? No, not really. Though I DID feel a certain suspenseful tension as Mother entered the bathroom and on the close-up of the door opening came on as Arbogast climbed the stairs. I had seen the murders rendered SO scarily in Hitchcock/Truffaut so...could I take it?

And that was the funny part. I found I COULD take it. The murder scenes were, mainly, very fast -- especially Arbogast's, everything happens so fast its pretty much over before it has started. (That's always added some humor to this brutal scene to me -- BOOM. BANG. The tough and brainy detective is out of the movie. Hah hah.)

The same thing had happened with Bonnie and Clyde. I "braced myself" for a movie I'd been told was very bloody and...the gunfights EXCITED me. Only the bank clerk taking it in the face shook me.

So Psycho didn't scare me the first time I saw it. That's OK...it had already scared me for six solid years since I first learned of its existence in 1965. It scared me in the nighttime just thinking about it. It scared me when buddies told the tale on the schoolgrounds. It scared me when one close friend whom I deemed "the treehouse movie critic" told me the story in the treehouse where we had talked movies like "House on Haunted Hill" when I was younger. It had definitely scared me on the pages of Hitchcock/Truffaut.

That was scared enough. And that I had to wait SIX years to see it was pretty monumental.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

And thus: my Psycho is not your Psycho. None of the many, many classic horror thrillers to come out from 1970 on -- not even the big ones like The Exorcist, Jaws and Alien -- could match THAT once-in-a-lifetime experience. I will say that with The Exorcist and Jaws, I endured very long lines for a couple of hours to see them -- they were EVENTS -- but they never really haunted me. And I saw Jaws at the first matinee showing of its first day of release. That's a little less than 6 years.

I've had this thought: If I had been born ten years earlier, Psycho would not have had the same effect on me. I probably would have liked it like I liked Wait Until Dark, but it wouldn't have ruled my psyche.
If I had been born ten years later, Psycho would be too "old fashioned."

No, I got Psycho "dead on perfect" when I was really too YOUNG for it, when schoolyard cronies could hype up its horror and parents could put up barriers to see it which fell within a mere few years -- I actually watched Psycho once on TV with my parents based on their knowledge of my regard for the film.

My Old Guard father made a crack when Norman offers to let Arbogast change bedsheets with him: "Oh, I'll bet Perkins would love to do THAT with that other guy." It was a direct inference that Perkins was gay. It was a different time. Also I was surprised at the comment from my father. Also, let's face it, in the MOVIE, that's a funny and surprising line. Even Arbogast is taken aback: "Ah, ah...no thanks." Its a measure of EXACTLY how much better written Psycho is than most thrillers.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Meanwhile, back in 1971: before I finally saw Psycho on TV, I had managed to buy a paperback reprint of the Robert Bloch novel. The cover was the famous slashed PSYCHO logo - taking up the ENTIRE cover as it had in the 1960 hardcover.

But with a difference: in most posters and on the original book cover, PSYCHO is in white letters on a black background. On the paperback, PSYCHO was in BLACK letters on a white background. No matter...that logo(which I have dubbed "the greatest logo in movie history") had its instant fearful power with me. I've always equated the slashed letters to the slashes to Marion and Arbogast.

Anyway, I read the book before I saw the movie and I realized: "Oh, THIS is the version where Marion - Mary in the book --gets her head chopped off and THIS is the version where the head and headless body are stuffed in the hamper." I found Arbogast's murder on paper to be entirely terrifying in an entirely new way -- Mother "gaily" trills to him "just a moment, I'm coming" as he knocks on the door, and as Bloch writes: "And it WAS just a moment." Mother opens the door, Arbogast raises his head to speak and she slashes his throat with a straight razor.

Key: in the book, Arbogast is killed during the DAY, so I always figured in the movie he was killed during the DAY, and then I saw the movie and had to "re-adjust" as he walked up to the house in the moonlight. (Note in passing: in the book, Mother slashes Arbogast's throat because there are OTHER GUESTS down at the motel and she doesn't want to let him scream; Hitchcock's motel was always empty but I think the idea of other guests being at the motel while a murder happens at the house, is pretty creepy.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Indeed, reading Robert Bloch's Psycho before I saw Hitchcock's version planted an almost entirely separate fear within me -- the book is simply a "rougher" experience, the murders are worse, Norman is indeed fat and forty and a drunken reprobate, there are sexual passages(about Norman's thoughts about Mother)..given the lesser censorship of books than of movies, Bloch's Psycho became a "sick companion piece in terror" to go with Hitchcock's movie and "seal the deal" of the primacy of this tale in my imagination.

---

Psycho may not have terribly scared me when I first saw it in 1971, but it still remained as something very special and seminal in my life. It was not alone there, though -- I "locked it in" as a pair with North by Northwest which also went "from network to syndication" in the 70s and together these remain honored as my two favorite movies of all time. That they both "launch" with "then modern, now classic" Saul Bass credit sequences is important; even more important is Bernard Herrman's music OVER those credits(LOTS of fifties and sixties movies had Saul Bass credits, but few had Herrmann's music over them.)

Vertigo was the only other Hitchcock movie with a Saul Bass/Bernard Herrmann credit sequence -- and it is a GREAT credit sequence, the best of the three Bass/Herrmann/Hitchcocks IMHO. But Vertigo never sought to be the ENTERTAINMENT that North by Northwest(action thriller division) and Psycho (horror thriller division) intended to be.

And this: NXNW and Psycho have adult sensibilities and screenplays but each film is "fantastical" in a way that returns us to childhood: NXNW has that gigantic and colossal climax on Mount Rushmore; Psycho has that gigantic and colossal American Gothic mansion on the hill. These are the "magical" elements (born of special effects and matte paintings) that forever set those two Hitchcock movies apart from everything else.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I recall in 1972 being distressed that Hitchcock(fittingly) had gone with such a "realistic" photographic manner with the realistic(but stylish) psycho shocker Frenzy. It was the 70s, movies were supposed to be 'documentary-style and gritty," Hitchcock was keeping up.

Until a scene came, deep in the film: a high overhead long shot of the killer Rusk in the dead of night, pushing a wheelbarrow with a corpse in a sack on it, towards a row of trucks. The London skyline frames the creepy scene -- and I could tell it was a MATTE PAINTING. And I felt great: "Ah, this finally looks like North by Northwest and Psycho." Indeed, Rusk pushing the wheelbarrow in long shot is a "direct match" for Cary Grant walking up the hill to Vandamm's house on Mount Rushmore, and Arbogast walking up the hill to the Bates Mansion in Psycho. For that one moment, Frenzy was conjoined to my favorite Hitchcocks, and it felt real good.

Frenzy was released in 1972. By then, Psycho and North by Northwest were in full TV circulation, Hitchcock's reputation was restored(Frenzy was critical hit and a box office comeback) and...Psycho would continue its journey in my life in a few new ways.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

The "weight" of my argument that "my Psycho is not your Psycho" really comes from the mid-late sixties when it was "known but not seen," and haunted me in an IMAGINED version based on what friends told me and the mysteries of things like those 1967 billboards, which REALLY creeped me out -- and my first viewing of the murder scenes in the pages of Hitchocck/Truffaut, which terrified me in a way nothing has -- or could -- since.

To the extent I'd like to cover Psycho a bit here as it appeared in the 70's and beyond, much of it is to "leave the record for posterity" with some trivia but there was always this-- Psycho in the 70's was STILL haunted by my memories of NOT seeing it in the 60's.

--

In early 1973, CBS showed Vertigo on one night and The Man Who Knew Too Much '56 on another night. This was a "record" for those two Hitchcock movies. They had been shown on NBC in the 60's, on ABC in 1970 and now on CBS in 1973. ALL THREE networks. Meanwhile, Rear Window had been seen on NBC in 1966, ABC in 1971 and then...it never made it to CBS like the other two. This is because Hitchcock owned Vertigo and Man 2, but Rear Window was tied up in lawsuits.

Bottom line: from 1973 to 1983, two Hitchcock ultra-greats(Rear Window and Vertigo) and three other noteable Hitchcock films(The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Trouble with Harry, and Rope) simply disappeared. Hitchcock rather cruelly said these films would only be released again after he died -- he tied seeing these movies again to his own DEATH.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

The "loss of the Hitchcock five" left only two Paramount movies available for viewing in the 70's: To Catch a Thief(Cary Grant blocked Hitchcock's ownership of the film) and Psycho. But Psycho was now a Universal film -- though Universal graciously allowed the film to retain its opening Paramount logo -- weirdly sliced(by Saul Bass?)

I would say that these four Hitchcock films were yearly staples on 70s TV: To Catch a Thief, North by Northwest(Hitchcock's sole MGM film), Psycho(the Paramount movie turned Universal) and The Birds.

I caught up with those four films whenever they came on TV (if I was home), and North by Northwest and Psycho were more than that -- they were like an annual holiday: my two favorite films of all time, somehow looming more prominent in my mind the older I got.

But Psycho always remained the most special. Its once "verboten" status haunted it; it tended to get the most advertising and "play" when it screen on TV.

That said, sometimes Psycho in the 70's was treated very BADLY on TV. KABC -TV in LA no longer saw it as a big deal. They put it into "two parts" on the 6 o'clock movie -- you had to wait a whole night between the Marion and Arbogast murders, rather killed the suspense. Worse, KABC once put Psycho in only ONE 90 minute 6:00 movie slot...pulling over a half hour out of the movie (Marion's journey, mostly.)

No, the "quality" way to see Psycho in the 70's was on the big screen ("Every scene intact! UNCUT!") at revival theaters and on college campuses.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Here are the best three times I saw Psycho in revival:

ONE: On a double bill with Hitchcock's Saboteur(1942.) Watching Saboteur and Psycho back to back, I was struck by their similarities: both were made for Universal, Saboteur on loan-out from Selznick, and Psycho on "forced loanout" from Paramount...so Hitchcock made them rather as an "outsider," and rather relying on the somewhat cheapjack production facilities of Universal to give us two "black and white noir pulp thrillers." Saboteur was made only 18 years before Psycho; I expect that SOME of the same soundstages were used for both films.

And this: Frank Fry falling from the Statue of Liberty rather "matches up" with Arbogast's staircase fall in impact. Some critics wrongly felt the same technique was used to film both scenes, but no. Martin Balsam sat in a chair while a process shot of "moving footage"(the staircase fall movement) was projected behind him. Norman Lloyd(Fry) was "hung in a harness" with a camera above him, and the CAMERA was pulled to the ceiling of the soundstage, making it look like Fry was falling away. Then that was double-printed on "stationary" footage of the POV from Lady Liberty looking down.

Both falls are unforgettable in the Hitchcock canon, but quite different. (Meanwhile Valerian the Knifeman gets a Fry fall off Rushmore in NXNW, but that's even more sophisticated in the effects than Fry's.)

TWO: Double bill: North by Northwest and Psycho. This was around 1976 or so, and a true achievement for me: I got to see my two favorite films back to back on the same bill,on the big screen. They both start with Saul Bass and Herrmann(as does Vertigo) but they are a more "matched pair of excitement," with a converse angle: NXNW is pretty much the most expensive, epic, movie Hitch ever made; Psycho was made cheaply and on the backlot -- but Psycho is JUST as powerful as the more expensive NXNW.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

An interesting thing about seeing North by Northwest and Psycho back to back that night was that one could see the connections between the two even with the converse angle(big color epic vs little black and white quickie.)

A 70's book on filmmaking put film frames side by side of the beginning of the crop duster scene with the beginning of the Arbogast murder. And they MATCHED. Cary Grant standing at the side of the road. Martin Balsam standing in the Bates House foyer. Each man looks. POV shots: what they see --(1) the road this way, the road that way, the fields; (2) the hallway that way, the staircase, the door this way.)

One realized that Hitchcock rather created a COMFORTING "suspense template" that had a certain visual wit. I will add that both the crop duster scene AND the staircase murder reach a point where Hitchcock has the characters MOVE and its exhilarating: Grant running straight at us with the crop duster right behind him, Balsam tumbling down the stairs. (Spielberg would mimic the crop duster chasing Grant by having a T-Rex chase Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park.)

Vertigo and The Birds on either side of NXNW and Psycho -- they are classics , too, but flawed in certain ways. Less great dialogue, less pace, less plot --James Stewart's aged face in Vertigo, Tippi Hedren's unknown and brittle status in The Birds. Nope, its always going to be NXNW and Psycho for me -- and this was born in the 60's and set in the 70's. They also benefitted from being films of my youth -- eventually movies would never be THAT exciting as I aged.

And that is with acknowledging -- in the case of North by Northwest -- that it would be followed over the decades with much bigger action in the Bond movies, Indy Jones, and Die Hard. Sure , fine...but NXNW set the pace, and has Mount Rushmore in it(and lots of other classic scenes that will never be done again -- like the UN murder and the auction scene.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

And this: North by Northwest has Cary Grant hanging from a high place with one hand holding Eva Marie Saint and the other hand being stomped on by Martin Landau. Batman(1989) has Michael Keaton hanging from a high place with one hand holding Kim Basinger and the other hand being stomped on by Jack Nicholson. 30 years later...the same climax (and in a Vertigo bell tower, yet.)

Die Hard ALMOST has that same climax, with Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bodiela and Alan Rickman in roughly the same positions -- and Alan Rickman takes a "Hitchcock fall" more remniscent of Frank Fry off the Statute of Liberty than of Valerian the knife man in NXNW.

With NXNW influencing action in that manner, Psycho certainly had its own share of copycats -- variations on the shower murder AND the staircase murder abounded.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I had mentioned two memorable Psycho screenings -- double bills both: with Saboteur and with North by Northwest.

But the most memorable Psycho screening of my life wasn't a double bill at all. Just Psycho. Just one showing. Big hall. Full house. At a college.

I've mentioned it before, but it is here captured one last time: the college screening in 1979 was the first time I ever saw Psycho with a crowed that screamed and screamed hard in lots of places all the way from the shower scene to the climax -- with a big terrified groan when Norman leered out at us at the end.

One's "great life" experiences should include things like marriage and babies and great travel, and they are -- but if you are a movie buff, there are movie experiences at a certain level of excitement and that 1979 screening of Psycho remains something that felt like "divine intervention" to me. If I had not seen Psycho that one time with that one audience, I would never have known how the movie really WORKED, AS a movie in a theater with a crowd. Big screams during the shower murder, bigger screams during the Arbogast murder(and you could hear Sam and Lila's dialogue int he next scene;) big screams when mother's skull face turned around and BIGGER screams when Norman as Mother rushed in with that hideous OTHER grin he does in the movie(bloodthirsty, showing his teeth.)

And big screams when Lila saw her reflection in Mother's mirror. And big screams when Norman suddenly appeared behind Sam in the motel office doorway: "You looking for me?"

And when there wasn't screaming, there was audible groaning and murmuring: suspense. When Lila ran down the stairs and Norman ran up the hill.

But ANOTHER wall-to-wall scream when Lila turned and decided to go down into the fruit cellar.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

This was how Psycho worked with 1960 audiences, I've read. And I got the gift in 1979. Note in passing: I saw Alien that same year, first Friday night, full house -- and not nearly the same amount of screaming, because Alien wasn't "built that way." A couple of big jump scares -- the alien first jumping up onto John Hurt's face through his helmet; Tom Skerritt meeting the alien in the shaft. The rest was more a matter of "ughs" and "ewws" and laughs.

For the self educational record, the four movies I saw with the most audiences screaming were: the 1979 screening of Psycho; Jaws(first day, first matinee); Wait Until Dark -- and Friday the 13th -- which I have to ruefully add because it didn't have anywhere near the great script, acting, characters of studio production values of those other three classics -- but it got plenty o' screams nonetheless.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

1974:

Aside from television showings and revival/college screenings of Psycho in the 70's, in 1974 something came about which was unexpected and remains unique in film history:

A book that recreated the entirety of Psycho through a series of still frames from the movie, start to finish.

The "author"(producer) of the book was named Richard J. Anobile. And this has since been known as "the Anobile book." Wide availability of VHS tapes was still years off(1982 for me, though I think tapes were out from about 1980 on)...so before then, "the Anobile book" was its own little miracle.

What "the Anobile book" meant was that one didn't have to wait a year until Psycho was next shown on TV , or for the next revival screening, to see at least SOME VERSION of the movie anytime you wanted, just by pulling the Anobile book out of the book case.

One lost a few things with the Anobile book. The Herrmann music(though I suppose one could have put a Psycho score album on the record player and listed while reading the Anobile book.)
And of course, the images didn't MOVE.

But they were still there, to study on the page, to "re-live" all those great shots of the house on the hill, and to study the expressive faces of the actors, and to memorize the great lines, and to marvel at Hitchcock's perfect compositions(like of Lila hiding under the staircase as Norman runs through the door.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Interesting: the still frames of Arbogast's murder -- the blood on his face, the open eyes and mouth -- that had so terrified me looking at Hitchcock/Truffaut in 1968, no longer QUITE had that shock effect 6 years later. I had grown older, movies were slowly going to stop scaring me. Still the freeze frame of Mother coming out that door at Arbogast, and the still frame of Mother finishing Arbogast off on the floor(buttocks raised high) still had some chilling power. Anobile even managed to freeze the effect of the tube and the string blasting the blood pack out from Balsam's face -- its all too quick in the movie.

The cover of the Anobile book was a frame from the shower scene, natch -- but not one of the famous "production stills." It was a frame from the movie, with Janet Leigh in agony late in the stabbing, a pretty "concrete" representation of the truly adult horror that Psycho represented and the all-through-time power that scene would have.

There were 6 Anobile books in all -- all of black and white films, and they came out in pairs:

Frankenstein and The Maltese Falcon
Psycho and Casablanca
Ninotchka and Stagecoach

Ninotchka strike me as the "least famous" of the group, but I guess Anobile liked Lubitsch(and Wilder as a writer.) In his introduction to the Psycho book, Anobile wrote "this is the first contemporary film in this series" -- which struck me as crazy. In 1974, 1960 seemed a long time ago to a young person.

Funny: it was great to read the lines in the book, but Anobile got Norman's first line wrong.

In the book, it is: "Dirty night."

But in the movie, it is: "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you in all this rain."

I can only assume that the film Anobile was working from "skipped" and he missed that line.

One critic wrote of these books: "I call them gold." In a few years, VHS tapes would render them obsolete, but it was great to have them. And it is great to still HAVE the Anobile book.

I use it here.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

In 1972, a few books were put out of "MGM Screenplays." North by Northwest made that cut. It wasn't a "photo picture book" like the Anobile book. It had some production stills and the cover was NOT the crop duster scene, but rather Grant and Saint hanging off of Mount Rushmore.

Ernest Lehman's screenplay in book form was a true marvel, because it read like Cary Grant changed EVERY LINE he had. He must have been pretty picky. (Decades alter, I read the Psycho screenplay and only Martin Balsam changed his lines.)

Also, the Mount Rushmore scene had way too many one-liners. Saint to Grant: "I've just thought of a new drink -- people on the rocks." Grant to Valerian while struggling over the knife: "I"m beginning to think...you don't like me." Hitchcock wisely cut all the laugh lines except the ones about about marriage and Grant's divorces: "(My ex-wives) thought I led too dull a life."

But the point of this, is this: came the 70's , somebody out there determined that North by Northwest and Psycho were worthy of "book form studies," and for this young Hitchcock fan, those books were almost as exciting AS the movies. I miss those times, and books like those.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I've been doing some YouTube surfing and a couple of things of interest came up:

ONE: Up above I mentioned how the crop duster scene in NXNW and the Arbogast staircase murder both build up to a scene of "motion": Cary Grant running from the plane behind him and Martin Balsam falling down the stairs.

Well, I found a quick 1979 CBS TV commercial for the upcoming broadcast of the "AFI Salute to Alfred Hitchcock," and there they were -- EXACTLY those two "shots in motion", the crop duster first, THEN the birds chasing the kids down the hill in The Birds; THEN Arbogast falling. CBS got it: the role of exhilarating MOTION in Hitchcock's cinematic toolbox. The commercial had nothing of the shower murder, either.

AND: I found Anthony Perkins promoting Psycho III with Johnny Carson circa 1986. Two icons -- granted, Carson was bigger -- both looking great. A cute gag, Carson opened a door in front of Perkins to reveal a woman in a shower screaming -- really LOUD. Perkins was amused. Of interest in the interview is Perkins saying "I'm famous for the Psycho films" -- pushing his sequels as much as his original film(he was doing his job) and getting the plot of the LAST sequel , Psycho II, all wrong. These actors just don't often care about what they make.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Back to the timeline on Psycho:

Psycho in the 70's was a staple on TV, revival houses, and colleges.

But the print had three "flaws" -- two on purpose one by accident.

To wit:

Psycho in the 70s and much of the 80s (jumping ahead: on VHS), had "two black bands" at the bottom of the screen during two scenes:

ONE: The shower scene. A black band across the scene while Janet showers (in a rather erotic, open-mouthed, orgasmic manner). I'm guessing this was censorship. Even in her "moleskin bathing suit," I guess Janet was showing too much "top boob" for the censors. Hence, the black band - -which clashes with the shots before and after it and removes about 1/8 of the screen.

TWO: Norman in the cell at the end. The black band AGAIN appears at the bottom of the screen. I'm guessing: not censorship. Somebody(Hitchcock?) wanted to create the illusion that we are watching Norman THROUGH A WINDOW -- the guard's POV.

If you watched Psycho in the 70's and 80's, those black bands in those two scenes were very odd and very much part of the movie. Think about it: movies like Lawwrence of Arabia and 2001 had pristine images; here was a Hitchcock movie where SOMEBODY ordered "black bands" slapped onto the screen, thereby marring the image. But it just added to Psycho's weird mystique.

Unanswered questions for eternity: Did audiences see those black bands in the 1960 release? Or were they added for television? And WHO ordered them? Hitchcock himself? The studio? Spl;it decision? (Shower scene: studio; Norman in cell: Hitchcock.)

You can add these to the "mysteries" of Psycho that may never be answered.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

A third "flaw" in 70's and 80s' prints of Psycho seemed "accidental" compared to the black band scenes.

As Arbogast climbs the stairs, right AFTER the great shot of the door slowly opening and casting light on the carpet, there is one great "final set up" shot of Arbogast approaching the landing, from a slightly different angle than before, right BEFORE the high shot on Mother attacking him.

I've always liked that shot. Its like Hitchcock "tossing up the serve" to make a tennis shot, Arbogast has ARRIVED. Doom will follow.

But in the 70's and 80's, that shot had a big "gash" right across the screen, and the film would JUMP before the shot of Mother running out. EVERY TIME. Every time I saw it on TV. Every time I saw it in the theater. And, I think, every time I watched the movie on VHS tape in the 80s.

My "layman's guess": A print of Psycho must have been shipped to a local TV station, whose management used an editing machine(the slash is like an S) to REMOVE the murder scene. Then they taped it up and shipped in back and SOMEHOW, this became the print of Psycho that went out for YEARS. No other print available? Or a copy was printed with the gash to make MORE copies?

On modern-day DVDs of Psycho, the gash is gone from the Arbogast scene. But I froze the shot one time and I could see where somebody PAINTED IN the gash with "gray." So the damage had to be repaired.

Of interest: in old 35 mm and 16 mm prints of Psycho the actual murder of Arbogast..down to the fade out on the foyer floor -- came at a reel change. When you slow down the VHS, not only do you "see the gash," you see the "small black dots at the upper right corner of the screen" that signal a reel change.

A 1960 era projectionist interviewed for a book on Psycho said: "Every time I showed Psycho, I was changing reels when the detective got killed. I never saw him get killed...but I always heard the screams in the theater."

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I wonder if Hitchcock PLANNED this. With the detective taking his final stabs right as one reel changed to another, it was as if Mother was STABBING THE MOVIE. A sudden jolt.

One time I saw Psycho and this became literal. It was a local showing at a community center with a few 16mm reels and the amateur projectionist had to load reels ithe room. He DROPPED the reel when Arbogast got killed and the movie stopped until he could put the next reel on.

There was a lot of laughter. Mother had killed the movie.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Up above, I mentioned four "flaws" in prints of Psycho that went out in the 70s and 80s:

A black band at the bottom of the screen at the opening of the shower scene(Marion's erotic shower.) Censorship?

A black band at the bottom of the screen on the shot of Norman in the cell. POV through the window of the guard?

A "slash" across the screen on the final shot of Arbogast approaching the landing before the overhead shot.

WELL...a little trip to YouTube changed all that. I've looked at two of those "flaws" -- the black band during Marion's shower, and the slash in the shot of Arbogast approaching the stairs.

They still exist.

Where?

YouTube now has a truncated version of the 1979 "AFI Salute to Alfred Hitchcock" and the clips of the shower scene and the Arbogast murder shown to all those celebs that night(including James Stewart, Cary Grant...Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau)...can be seen.

And you CAN see the black band across the screen. And you CAN see the slash before Arbogast reaches the top.

They didn't show Norman in the cell though.

BONUS: You can also hear the original -- and GREAT -- gunshots during rooftop chase that begins Vertigo. Ever since Vertigo was restored in the 90's, those great loud gunshots have been replaced by muffled stereophonic piffle.

Shower scene with band is at: 19:22

Arbogast slash on film is at : 50:58(right after Cary Grant is seen about to introduce Hitch at 50:31, its an abrupt cut to later in the show.

Original Vertigo gunshots (right after the Arbogast murder, which cuts off before he is finished off...can't offend Babs Streisand): 52:43

I don't know how long this AFI tribute will stay there, but there they are -- the "Old" versions of Psycho and Vertigo otherwise lost to the sands of time. (And oh, the Psycho murder clips look pretty fuzzy and ratty...they had not been cleaned up and digitalized yet.)

I will put this up in a separate AFI post because it is buried here in this timeline.

CONT
---