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"My Psycho is Not Your Psycho" PART THREE

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

The timeline continues:

Back in the 70's around Los Angeles classes and webinars, I kept hearing from Hollywood types about how they could "watch new movies at home" on video tape. In the 70's, the VCR was evidently only for "the company town Hollywood elites.)

I've since read a funny story that MCA Universal chief gave Alfred Hitchcock one of the first VCRs as a gift...and watched as Hitchcock fumbled with it and couldn't make it work. Hitchcock at that time had a great reputation as a "technical filmmaker" but that was with the Old School devices of filmmaking, and VCRS weren't his speed.

In my own life, I started noticing video tapes on sale in department stores and record stores around 1980(the year Hitchcock died), but they arrived full force in my world in 1982.

1982 was the year that several things happened at once: VCRS went into the marketplace in a big way, video rental stores started up, and CERTAIN movies were released on video tape.

There was a choice, in 1982 of TWO different types of video tape: "VHS" and "Beta." You needed different types of machines to run the two competing tapes. "Beta" tapes(smaller than "VHS") needed to be played on a Betamax machine.

In the end, VHS tapes won, and Beta tapes disappeared. Which was good for me, because in 1982, I chose as my first VCR purchase a VHS size player. Mainly because I had a boss who had one of those, and HE had all sorts of movies that he had taped off of TV, which he loaned out to me so that I could watch Psycho and North by Northwest and other "old movies" right away.

I had to give those tapes back after single viewings. Meanwhile, VHS tapes for sale(circa 1982) were quite expensive. Universal only put three Hitchcock movies out for sale at first: Psycho(natch), The Birds(natch) and Frenzy...then a "recent release." Each one cost $100 to buy. I simply didn't have the money or inclination to SPEND that kind of money.

So instead, I rented those movies and...eventually...managed to tape Psycho, North by Northwest and The Birds off of local TV showings. (It took awhile for the ultra-violent R rated Frenzy to get a screening I could tape.)

I had a good "technical approach": I removed each and every commercial by hitting the pause button as a scene faded to commercial and hitting the play button when the commercials ended. I got quite good at it...you couldn't see a MILLISECOND of a commercial, just a quick "black blip" on the screen.

I know that there are greater inventions in world history -- the light bulb, airplanes, rockets to the moon -- but for my money, the VCR was "the miracle of our age."

First of all, forget the movies you could watch. Now, you could GO OUT while a show taped. You didn't have to miss a party to stay home and watch a favorite show; conversely you didn't have to miss a TV show to go out to a party. The VCR captured time and space. (Though boy did it hurt if you blew it and the tape DIDN'T record.)

With Psycho and North by Northwest now in my private VHS collection (taped off of TV), I never had to "wait to see them" again. They were right there in my bookcase available any time. I can't say that I watched them over and over again (once year became the best bet) but "in the beginning," boy did I STUDY those movies, in slow motion, frame by frame.

That's where I found these two "glitches" in Psycho and North by Northwest:

Psycho: when Arbogast's face is first shown in close-up, getting slashed, you can see the string begin pulled down a plastic tube glued onto Martin Balsam's face.

NXNW: When the crop duster first crashes into the gasoline tanker truck with Cary Grant laying under the truck...there is a "long shot" -- shot evidently on a minature's "stage" -- of a TOY plane , crashing into a TOY tanker truck, with a TOY Cary Grant(rather like a doll) under the truck. In the next shot (split-second) we cut to the California location and a REAL crop duster(now on the ground) explodes as a stunt man clambers out from under the truck in Cary Grant's place(I could see the stunt man -- a bigger man than Grant -- in slow motion, too.)

Did these insights into "how Hitchcock faked it" ruin Psycho and North by Northwest in the years to come? Not at all. After the novelty wore off, I would watch those movies WITHOUT the slow motion and those scenes worked as Hitchcock always intended: Arbogast's face REALLY gets slashed, that big plane REALLY crashes into the truck.

And more: in the years that Psycho and North by Northwest were moved onto DVD format, you CANNOT see the tube on Balsam's face(the "digital" editing evidently skips some frames), but you CAN see the Cary Grant doll under the toy truck. I don't know why one didn't work and the other did.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I suppose there is something "quaint" about the primitive tools with which Hitchcock had to film the Arbogast murder and the NXNW plane crash back then in 1959/1960. A plastic tube(filled with Bosco chocolate syrup) and a string; a toy plane, a toy truck and a Cary Grant doll. Modernly, CGI would take care of a lot of that.

Indeed, when William H. Macy played Arbogast in Van Sant's 1998 remake of Psycho, two of THREE slashes to his face were done with CGI, like a cartoon. Only the first slash was a make-up effect -- Macy had fun on the "Making of" DVD doing his interview with the main slash on his face.

I certainly studied the famous shower murder in Psycho using slow motion, its a lot of shots. There I found (1) the close-up of a big knife blade pushing into "Marion's stand in's" bare midriff; (2) the great "hide" of actual out-of-focus nipples (a Hays Code no no) as Marion's hand reached in death for the shower curtain and (3) other things -- mainly (I suppose) how the sequence reaches a climax of sorts as Hitchcock cuts back and forth from Mother stabbing at US to Janet Leigh turning her head each time -- left, right, then left again.

Also interesting in the shower scene: overhead shots of Mother leaning in on Marion in the shower (it doesn't look like Janet Leigh's face down there, but its hard to tell).

It was also fun slowing down the fruit cellar climax to see Norman ever so slowly fill the doorway as he "ran" in, and to really take a look at the horrific, bloodthirsty smile on his face(we had never gotten to see Mother's face when she killed, before.)

And of course, at the very end, in the cell as Norman leers up at us under furrowed brows in the cell, a slow motion play of the scene not only shows us Mother's skull face rising onto his face(her rotted teeth fill his closed smile) , but the chain rising out of Norman's heart that will prove to be the chain dragging Marion's car out of the swamp.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

The biggest "reveal" of the VHS tape of Psycho was a "gaffe" that plays good for atmosphere.

Norman is at the swamp watching where Arbogast's car has sunk. Sam is out at the motel, yelling for Arbogast. The camera glides up on a haunted, razor thin, spectral Norman -- one of the great shots in the movie.

But in the VHS version, if you look out past the swamp, you can see a TRUCK driving along a country trail alongside the swamp! Indeed, you get to see the truck TWICE because Hitch cuts back and forth between Norman and Sam.

My guess: this was a day for night shot and a REAL Universal Studios work truck drove accidentally into the shot.

How it plays: While Norman buries another one of Mother's victims, a truck driver across the swamp has no idea what is going on. Hitchcockian irony...and one wonders: did the truck driver SEE Norman?

None of this matters now, because somewhere in there, the truck has been removed. The truck does not appear in DVD versions of Psycho or on TV. Nor did I see the truck the last time I saw Psycho on the big screen. I think it is a simple matter of reframing the shot.

VHS tapes didn't have room for the kind of "Making Of" stuff we get on DVDs, but in 1984, Universal put out a straight to video documentary with Jamie Lee Curtis called "Coming Soon." The tape allowed Curtis to tour the Universal backlot while introducing old trailers from the "Universal monsters of the 30s/40s"(Frankenstein, Dracula) to the SciFi movies of the 50s(and the Creature from the Black Lagoon, a late breaking addition to the monster team)...

...and on to Jaws.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

But in between, Jamie Lee posed in front of the Psycho house and said "My mother had some trouble here in 1960" and she introduced Hitchcock's famous 1960 "tour guide" trailer for Psycho.

I flashed back to when I saw that trailer for the 1965 re-release(and ran out of the theater into the lobby), and now I could "focus on it," and that's when I realized that business about 'the biggest lie in motion picture history." Universal would start finding quite a few "Psycho artifacts" to put into its later DVDs, but in 1984, this "Coming Soon" VHS was it.

Of course, the 1980s saw Psycho get milked in other ways: Psycho 2(not very good, a big hit); Psycho 3(better, not a big hit.) An episode of "Spielberg's Amazing Stories" used the re-built Psycho motel and house for an episode about a young film fan who ends up IN Psycho.

I suppose the 80s were when "Hollywood began to canniablize its past." We got the Psycho sequels and remakes of The Fly and The Thing and The Blob.

But here's the thing: the Psycho sequels in no way brought back for me the impact of that movie back in the 60s, when it was such a forbidden and tantalizing property, taking off CBS and consiged to billboards all over LA, etc. By the 80's, the "juice was removed" from the mystery of Psycho and we ended up with a hammy robotic Anthony Perkins, mediocre scripts(which Hitchcock would have rejected) and no sense of an era. (Psycho is about the 50's wrapping up and the challenge of the 60's ahead.)

I found a talk show interview from 1986 with Anthony Perkins the other day where he talked to Johnny Carson about "the Psycho series" and I thought: well, he's earning his pay, but there really isn't a "Psycho series." There is a classic landmark movie called Psycho and a number of attempts starting two decades later to parasite off of it, and no, they aren't in the same world at all.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Side-bar: A memory hit me. Before Psycho(and other movies) became available on tape in the 80's, one thing I did was to AUDIO TAPE parts of Psycho(not the whole movie) and other movies that were available off of TV. Sometimes I would record songs and opening scores. Sometimes dialogue scenes. With Psycho, a little of BOTH AND I recorded the two murder scenes just to get a sense of how long they took and how they played (that's where I learned that Arbogast's murder ends with his gutteral scream on the soundtrack.)

I taped Norman's dialogues with Marion and with Arbogast, learned them. (Flash back: all those kids who told me about Psycho in 1967 or so NEVER talked about the dialogue scenes, I had to discover them.) I taped the psychiatrist's speech at the end.

One movie scene I recall taping the dialogue for that might surprise you: the scene in Family Plot where Madame Blanche (Barbara Harris) FINALLY crosses paths with villain William Devane in his garage. Its really quite suspenseful(you are DESPERATE for Harris to tell Devane that he has inherited millions -- before he kills her) and Devane's voice is great as is his angry side of the dialogue("I am perfectly happy to listen to your demands, Madame Blanche, but NOT...RIGHT..NOW!")

Yeah, there was some work involved in making these tapes, but they managed to "keep those movies alive" between TV screenings and set the stage for the VHS tapes that Hollywood was preparing at the same time.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

The timeline continues:

By the late 1980s, VHS tapes of movies had come down in price. In 1982, Psycho sold for $100. By the late 80's, you could buy Psycho on tape for less than $20. So I did. A few times. I'd buy new VHS releases of the film to replace older ones.

I was still buying VHS tapes of movies in the 90's. In 1995, I bought a new VHS tape of Psycho for a special purpose: to get Janet Leigh to sign it at a book signing for her new book "Behind the Scenes of Psycho" . Leigh signed both book and tape(she had a marvelously perfect flourish of a signature.) The poignant moment(I've told this before) was: they were playing Psycho on several screens up above Leigh - maybe a VHS tape, maybe a DVD, those were starting to appear. I waited in a long line and probably started my wait as Norman was talking to Marion in the parlor up on the screens above.

I was about four people away from Leigh at her signing table when the shower scene came up in the movie on the screens above her. Some people said "You are about to die, Janet" and the like. And Leigh - who had been animated and conversational up to that point, stopped talking, stopped signing, looked down and refused to look up until after the shower scene was over and Perkins ran into Cabin One. It was an awkward moment, and a long one. I remember looking around and realizing: Leigh has no SECURITY. Only the book store employees. I thought to gallantly protect her from any intruder, but that didn't happen. As the movie continued , Leigh returned to her animated self but I realized: it can't be that great to be associated with that murder -- she'd had death threats. (Ex husband Tony Curtis said that Leigh's post-Psycho fears led to a drinking problem.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Sidebar: for what it is worth, other than those items signed by Janet Leigh, my only other "Hitchcock fan experience" was to have my photo taken beside Tippi Hedren at a promotion. We talked long enough for me to ask her if she preferred The Birds or Marnie among her Hitchcock films. Answer: Marnie.

I WENT to various Hitchcock events over the years, and I saw Janet Leigh three times in total: at Hitchcock's Beverly Hills memorial service in 1980; at that book signing in 1995; and at a 1999 "Hitchcock Centennial Salute" at the Motion Picture Academy(where Leigh was given about two minutes to speak and rather sadly rushed through all her stories; I thought it was callous.)

---

I had bought a VHS tape of Psycho for Janet Leigh to sign in 1995, but I think DVDs were already on the market then, and I think they were showing Psycho on a DVD at that signing.

It took me a few years to come around to buying a DVD player and buying some DVDs . I still used blank VHS tapes to tape TV programming, it took years for that to end and for the cable channels to offer the recording mechanism "in the TV."

While the VCR was THE great invention of my time for entertainment recording, the DVD remains, I think the best vehicle for movie watching today. Sadly, it looks like the DVD(yes, I'll include Blu-Ray here) is under attack and "going away." Streaming just aint no subsitute, for a key reason: you can't "jump from scene to scene."

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

THAT remains one of the TWO great things about DVDs. (I'll get to the other.) Have a favorite scene? Jump to it. Certain scenes bore you? Jump PAST them.

I became rather interested in starting a movie about 30 minutes in by "jumping to the scene." The Sting doesn't really get interesting until Paul Newman enters the movie about 30 minutes in to join Redford. So I start it there. The Towering Inferno doesn't really get interesting until Steve McQueen enters the movie about 30 minutes in to join Newman. So I start it there. (Is there a rule: "the star that enters last runs the movie"?)

I COULD have started Psycho on DVD when Marion arrives at the Bates Motel(about 30 minutes in), but I've always honored that first half hour - which, after all, is actually preferred by quite a few critics to the second half of the movie after Marion is buried.

But the SECOND great thing about DVDs is/was this: This format allows for the storage of all sorts of "extras": A "Making of" mini documentary(on most DVDs). Trailers. Production stills. "Special content."

So many of Hitchcocks movies were so old by the 90s that there really wasn't much that could be added to their DVD productions. Still, Universal (owner of the Universal AND Paramount Hitchcocks, plus two more) eventually put out a 'special edition" of each and every Hitchcock movie they owned. They could usually find at least ONE Hitchcock player still alive and willing to be interviewed, except for Torn Curtain and Topaz. For Frenzy, they used three out of four leads(Jon Finch, Barry Foster, Anna Massey) and skipped one(Barbara Leigh Hunt -- what was she going to talk about? Being raped and strangled?) For Family Plot, they used three out of four leads(Karen Black, Bruce Dern, William Devane) and skipped one(Barbara Harris -- she just didn't want to be interviewed.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Psycho was the first Universal DVD (natch) . It was released in 1997 in a first DVD version(there have been numerous Blu-Ray special editions since, but they mainly use the material from the 1997 DVD as a "base.")

The 1997 DVD had a "mini documentary" on The Making of Psycho. It ran almost 90 minutes -- only about 20 minutes shorter than Psycho itself!

One of the talking heads was Stephen Rebello, who had written the great 1990 book of the same name, here was his chance to show his face and talk a little(he also did a great commentary track.)

Alas, only one star of Psycho was BOTH alive AND willing to be interviewed: Janet Leigh. She was good, but it felt a little "sparse" not to have some other actor from the film talk. Vera Miles and John Gavin were still alive, but evidently refused. Martin Balsam was recently dead as of 1996(but always refused to talk Psycho when he was alive.) Perkins had been dead since 1992. Though there was a lot of tape and film of Perkins discussing Psycho(particularly to promote the sequels) evidently it was decided NOT to use the old footage of a dead man talking (Perkins final TV interview on AMC in the year of his death, 1992, had a lot of Psycho talk on it.)

Key to the Psycho "Making of" documentary was the film's screenwriter Joseph Stefano, a pleasant, articulate man who was given a LOT of screen time. As he worked right there in a room with Hitchcock on Psycho start to finish, this was "closest to" talking to Hitchcock himself about how the movie was developed(granted, with the writer getting "the final word.")

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Stefano's participation in the Psycho DVD documentary created a very good precedent, as Hitchcock screenwriters were ALL given such prominence in the DVD docs on The Birds(Evan Hunter), Rear Window(John Michael Hayes) , Vertigo(Samuel Taylor), Frenzy( Anthony Shaffer), Marnie(female Jay Presson Allen) and Family Plot(Ernest Lehman...who also wrote NXNW and did the DVD documentary for Warners/MGM on THAT bigger deal.)

I honestly do think that the highest value of the "Making of" DVD documentaries on all the Hitchcock movies was to give the writers their day in the sun - they made cases for their own contributions while given us the most "up close and personal" view of Hitchcock at work we could get.

Example: Joe Stefano told a tale of how he and Hitchcock, in Hitchcock's private office, "acted out" Norman laying out the shower curtain before he puts Marion's body in it, then putting her body in it. As the two men knelt on the floor doing this -- Alma Hitchcock suddenly walked in ("Only Alma could do that," said Stefano) and scared the two men so that they jumped and screamed. In that moment...the two men knew they were preparing a very scary movie.

Example: Joe Stefano told the tale of how he was forced, because of an overlong running time script, by Hitchocck to remove the long scene where Sam and Lila talk about Marion and the past en route to the Bates Motel. Stefano says: "I was given the choice to remove entire scenes or to cut smaller parts out of many scenes -- I chose to let that scene go." (Sounds a LITTLE fishy to me -- Psycho wasn't that long a movie.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Other than Janet Leigh and Joe Stefano, fillmaker Laurent Bouzereau manged to get on screen interviews with Hitchocck assistant Peggy Robertson(shortly before her death; she sits in a chair but can never open her eyes); assistant director Hilton Green(a twinky, folksy, kindly looking man -- I hope he really was); Pat Hitchcock(wait a minute, she was IN Psycho, so that makes TWO players)

....and costumer Rita Riggs, a pleasant woman who gets to talk about such things as Leigh's white then black lingerie; the shower scene moleskin(chosen from a stripper costuming magazine) and having to "dress" Mrs. Bates on the fruit cellar set(looking the other way; SCARED.) Riggs even chose Mrs. Bates shoes, which I think is key when Mother stabs Arbogast on the floor -- she IS wearing women's shoes, not men's shoes.

A note about Laurent Bazereau: I don't know how he got the gig, but his name is on each and every one of the Universal/Paramount "Making of" DVDS, and I believe he did the one for Jaws, too. Probably LOTS of Universal DVD docs. Among the Hitchcock DVDS , only for the making of Frenzy doc is Laurent on screen to introduce it -- standing in front of the Tower Bridge in London (nice free trip!) and speaking in a French accent and getting all the emphasis on words wrong. Its charming. Hey, I can't speak a lick of French, so good for him.

With DVDs going out of style, I wonder if it is the end of the line for Laurent. I suppose he can ply his trade elsewhere, but anyway, he was "the king of DVD docs" in the 90s' through now.

I particualrly like how he compresses every movie (including Psycho) into about a two-minutes clilps package with key lines singled out and key shots excitingly mashed together. Laurent's "two minute Hitchcock movies" are quite a creative accomplishment.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Continuing the timeline -- late 90's , the coming of the DVD:

The key benefit of the DVD to me remains the ability to jump from scene to scene. I find streaming to be a "step backwards" because it is VERY hard to fast forward to scenes -- its like we've been sent BACKWARD to the time of the VHS rewind and fast forward. I fear that someday, DVDs won't be sold anymore and we will be at the mercy of the studios -- they will allow us access to movies on THEIR terms -- on TV, no scene jumping, have to pay every time and -- sometimes movies are taken "out of circulation."

But the OTHER benefit of the DVD as we had it in the 90's was the ability to "load the disc up with extras"(or sometimes an entire SECOND disk).

The DVD documentary (in this case "The Making of Psycho") was a key part of this.

But various Psycho DVDS offered additional gifts:

ONE: The original 1960 trailer -- no longer only on that Jamie Lee Curtis VHS tape-- but right there with the movie.

And remember this about the 1960 trailer: it proved "the greatest lie in the history of the American motion picture":

https://moviechat.org/tt0054215/Psycho/61e5c2a667e86a3cf1da8f01/Psycho-and-The-Greatest-Lie-in-the-History-of-the-American-Motion-Picture

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

CONT

On the DVD extras, in addition to the original 1960 trailer, we get the 1965 re-release trailer, which is essentially the 1960 trailer but with a new "tag" at the end:

"If you were too young....or too scared...or the lines were too long...now is your chance to see PSYCHO!"

All quaint, but all true.

Finally with regard to trailers on the DVD extras came a "small flurry" of short TV ads -- with Hitchcock speaking in 1969 -- about the second re-release of Psycho IN 1969:

"See the version of Psycho that TV did not dare show! Uncut! Every Scene Intact!"

I love Hitchcock's pronunciation of "version" -- he says "VURR -- SHUN."

I"ve always wondered about that "angle." The CBS network didn't show Psycho AT ALL. So there was nothing uncut to show from THAT one. Did these ads mean that the local showings in Los Angeles and NYC in 1967 had scenes cut?

These 1969 ads had something that the original 1960 trailer did not: actual brief clips FROM Psycho -- the shower scene (a little) and Norman's eye at the peephole.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Aside from the "Making Of" documentary and the trailers (1960, 1965, 1969), the crown jewel of the DVD extras is an old 1960 "in house" Paramount short film called:

"The Care and Handling of Psycho."

This raised an interesting point: as he years progressed further and further AWAY from Psycho -- archivists reached further and further BACK to the orginal release period to retrieve all these "you are there" productions: the trailers, this "press book on film."

By comparison, in 1967 when Psycho had its historic LA debut , Anthony Perkins gave an interview to the LA Times about a play he was appearing in locally. One sentence -- ON SENTENCE only -- was given over to Psycho, like this:

"People probably remember me from Friendly Persuasion and Psycho," Perkins said. And then he said nothing else on Psycho. It would take decades for Perkins to find himself having to talk about Psycho everywhere, all the time. And to appear in those sequels.

But here in the late 90's on a DVD, "everything old about Psycho" was young again: the trailers; photographs(both production stills and staged poses.) And that very interesting "press book on film."

This film reflected the fact that Paramount gave Psycho a very odd release pattern: in JUNE of 1960, the movie opened in NYC and selected cities on the East Coast(Philadelphia, Boston) as well as Chicago. But Psycho did not reach the Western states(including cities like LA and Phoenix Arizona) until AUGUST. That twist ending had to hold for almost two MONTHS from coast to coast. But I guess it did -- there was no internet to spread the word.

Because Paramount had all this footage of Psycho actually playing to audiences in NYC, they could make a "press book on film" showing exhibitors in OTHER cities how to show Psycho when it finally reached "their towns."

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

"The Care and Handling of Psycho" is a "visual time capsule" of NYC in the summer of 1960, "on Broadway" at the DeMille (and also at the Coronet), with indeed, long lines of people all on line to go in and see Psycho -- even as Hitchcock's voice blared out at them over loudspeakers.

This is my favorite of his short speeches:

"I insist that you do not give away the little, tiny, HORRIBLE secrets of Psycho..."

This line, and its intonation, are a reminder to us all that even if Hitchcock could be seen as an "artist," and even as folks like Robin Wood and Donald Spoto pressed to have him taken seriously as such..he was also a showman...especially so with Psycho, in which he was looking to compete with the cheesy B-movie gimmickry of William Castle.

And yet: there is something to that one loudspeaker line of Hitchcock's about Psycho: they aren't little and tiny, but those secrets in Psycho ARE horrible, and there are quite a few of them: the two murders, the truth about the gutting and stuffing of Mother; the truth about Norman and his particular brand of cross-dressing; the two victims before Marion; all the bodies and cars in the swamp...that's some BIG secrets.

This short film is really meant to teach newbie exhibitors on the West Coast about how to promote and enforce the "No one admitted after Psycho begins" policy, which is taken quite seriously in this film and, I suspect, vigorously enforced by Paramount reps. (One scene of a guy trying to buy a ticket at the window after Psycho has started and being refused -- he buys a ticket to the NEXT showing -- looks staged.)

The short film shows the line of people going IN to Psycho in NYC...and then cuts to them coming OUT of Psycho. You can't really read their faces, but you wonder: just how affected WERE they by what they saw?

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

And I'm reminded of this: all that footage is of a 1960 NYC that likely doesn't exist anymore. Those theaters and storefronts have been closed, torn down, rebuilt as something else. And indeed, given their ages on screen, most of those people on line are probably dead now...except for the kids, who are now very old.

But if we were to take a time machine back to that place and day and date, and to get into that line, and enter that theater....we would see the same movie that we can now see with crystal clarity on DVD and streaming. The movies ARE a time machine.

And this: In this film, the outer lobby of the DeMille had these five posters to advertise Psycho: Perkins looking scared; Leigh in her bra; Miles looking scared; and Gavin , shirtless. And: Hitchcock pointing at his watch(you have to be on time to see Psycho.)

OK. Five cast members plus the biggest star(Hitchcock.)

But no photograph of the HOUSE. Or the motel. Here was Hitchcock with the greatest haunted house in the history of movies(OK he didn't know that yet, but he knew it WAS impressive) ...and he didn't advertise Psycho with it?

Insanity. Oh well, the sequels corrected that , bigtime.

Over time, "special edition" DVDs of Psycho have added to the base(trailers, documentary, press book on film). Lots and lots of photos. The shower scene WITHOUT music(it becomes more brutal and a gasping, sighing Leigh becomes more sad.) And of course , sound technicians showing us how they improved the soundtrack. (But Psycho has ALWAYS had a rich and sonorous soundtrack.)

The issue becomes: when will we LOSE the Psycho DVD as a repository of movie history?

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

The other night, I was trying to "reach a scene" in some movie on some streaming channel and it took FOREVER to fast forward to the scene.

I thought: "This could be it. We lose the DVD and the ease of 'jumping to a scene' and we go BACKWARDS to the fast-forewarding agonies of a VHS tape.

It really bugs me. It seems like a lot of movies on DVD are so cheap to make anymore that one gets these "four movies to a package" sales like on Dirty Harry movies or Steve McQueen pictures. I"m assuming DVDs just don't make a lot of money for the studios.

So what do we have left?

--

In the timeline for Psycho:

"The internet" slowly entered my life in the 90's. Its funny: I remember the "Godsend" of VHS tapes from around 1982, but I can't recall when DVDs were suddenly "the thing."

But with The Internet ...I recall it being "the fall of 1996." I was in someone's office, and I was asking about "what's on the internet" and they knew I liked movies and they asked me what new movie I was looking forward to and I said: "Mars Attacks." (Because: Jack Nicholson re-unites with Tim Burton after Batman and brings an all star cast wtih him.)

So this person "got on the internet" with a "dial up modem" and clilcked on the website for Mars Attacks and ...slowly, VERY slowly, the screen started to fill up with the logo for "Mars Attacks" and one of those goofy looking Martians and Nicholson's name and face and...

...well I was INTRIGUED. I wasn't against it. So now movies got websites, huh?

Less than 2 years later, speed improved on the internet and I recall opening up the website for "Gus Van Sant's Psycho" just as it was going into production. Very little on there to begin "A Boy's Best Friend is his Mother" I think and some line (from the script, not in the movie" about a "broken jaw." (A tease no doubt from Van Sant -- "bet you never heard THIS line, you Psycho fans!")

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Eventually the website put up a cast of characters list and I recall William H. Macy being listed as "the police detective who uncovers the secrets of the Bates Motel." The POLICE detective? A certain laziness on the remakers part became apparent.

Later still, the website put up its trailer for the movie and of course it was intriguing: all those famous shots BURNED already into my brain, but with different people in them, in color. The trailer elected to use a "Se7en" approach: modern, jagged, deeply creepy in a new way.

While I watched the internet grow before my very eyes on the one hand, I was learning about e-mails on the other (A boss said "no more paper memos and letters, ever -- ONLY e-mail out." OK.)

I looked for lots of things on the web movie-wise, but sure, I looked for Hitchcock in general and Psycho in parituclar. I recall one website called "PSYCHO locations," which showed the paltry few buildings still left standing in Phoenix from the 1960 film -- it was as if the "old" Phoenix was gone and a new Phoenix...rose from the ashes.

I used that website for guidance on a business trip to Phoenix, where I, too, found those buildings and the streets they were on. ("Adams" was a big one; as in President Adams.)

I stood in the crosswalk where Marion's boss sees Marion in her car -- which was better than Vaughn Taylor and Janet Leigh ever did! (They filmed on a studio soundstage with process plates.)

But back to the internet: over the years, Hitchocck chat rooms and then the Internet Movie data base and now Moviechat -- Psycho kept alive in a way that I don't think anyone could have anticipated(not to mention the 10,000 OTHER movies in history.)

Hitchcock biographer Patrick McGilligan wrote in his 2003 book "Alfred Hitchcock: A Life In Darkness and Light," on page 749: "Type 'Alfred Hitchcock' into the Internet , and you will f ind thousands of hits, including posted articles, Web sites, chat rooms, fan clubs, and personal pages."

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

The timeline continues:

In the 26 years since I saw the Mars Attacks website on a very slow connection dial-up modem, "the internet" has grown in myriad ways.

I guess that all these streaming channels(Netlfix, HBO Max, Prime...) are "the internet" in some ways -- they are about bandwidth and computer connection.

And yet that "earlier universe" of websties and www. addresses has grown and grown over the decades too.

You can find a LOT of movie reviews on the internet. Old ones on Psycho from way back in 1960 when it came out.

But I'd like to mention this: before there was the Internet, there were : libraries. And while your "local neighborhood library" only has so much research material, I have found COLLEGE libraries to be sources of great movie research for decades.

Microfiche of old newspapers, magazines, "trade mags" like Variety. The internet simply can't go "that deep yet."

For instance, if you microfiche some Varietys from 1961, you will see a photo of Alfred Hitchcock and Janet Leigh shaking hands over their "Psycho" Oscar nominations -- with the great big slashed PSYCHO logo on a platform (Hitchcock atop it, Leigh below it, or vice versa.) Leigh is wearing her "Marion Crane suitdress" but her hairstyle is different(but better than in the movie, sexier.)

Or you can find Anthony Perkins' ill-fated interview with the LA Times before Oscar noms came out: "I think I'll be nominated...Janet too." Ouch. He wasn't. She WAS.

Anyway, those are my examples but, bottom line, the internet as we have it just can't beat those millions of feet of microfiche, yet.

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The big internet growth of the last 20 years has been YouTube. Each year it seems like more and more content is found there. New stuff done by "influencers" ,young comics, singers looking for a break.

But certainly a whole helping of movie history.

Plenty of Hitchcock. Plenty of Psycho. Even a little of Topaz.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Once upon a time, only three Psycho clips were on YouTube: the shower murder, the staircase murder, and the fruit cellar climax. "Duh."

But over the years, other clips have been added: Norman in the parlor with Marion. Norman in the office with Arbogast. Norman on the PORCH with Arbogast ("...but she didn't fool my mother." "Then your mother met her! Can I meet your mother?") The psychiatrist scene.

And now of course, you can watch the ENTIRE MOVIE on YouTube. On your computer.

Or on your phone. (Hold that thought.)

I can never be sure that "there is no more that can be done" on the internet. We now have these "reactor videos" with very young people -- and people of all races -- "reacting to Psycho" FOR THE FIRST TIME. It looks like that movie is going to last forever. As well as thousands of other movies.

Interesting to me: I daresay one thing I've tried to do with Psycho is to "make the case for the Arbogast scenes." A few Hitchcock scholars like Robin Wood and Raymond Durgnat have said "the movie is like one of Hitchcock's TV shows there" or "just typical detective show stuff." Well, as the shrink says: "Yes...and NO." The Arbogast scenes are better written, better shot, better acted than most such material and always in service to this: we are watching the last hours of a man who will die a horrifying death, just as we watched the last hours of a woman who did.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

But here's the bigger news. Look around on the net. Various writers of various ages from various places have written a NUMBER of articles on Arbogast and his scenes. Articles about the staircase murder(which seems to be getting a lot of comments like "I know the shower murder is more famous, but I like this one more.) Articles about Arbogast interrogating Norman. Articles about Arbogast in the phone booth. Not to mention, general praise for how good Martin Balsam was in the role(much as he refused to discuss the movie or the role while he was alive.)

I didn't write any of those articles. But somebody thinks the same way..

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For fun: you can see all the people who have staged "amateur Psycho shower scenes." Often for a SCHOOL project (imagine, that horrible horrible scene of yesteryear now being STAGED by "kids.") But sometimes by adults.

There are mainly shower scene spoofs(Or straight homages without comedy) on the net. But a few brave souls have tried to re-stage Arbogast's killing, including variations on his fall (walking backwards on a real staircase seems to suffice.) These "staircase scenes" are often staged on suburban house staircases, so the Gothic effect is lost.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

A very dark note(VERY dark note) buried in here: one time in my clicking on "Psycho shower scene homages" and going to YouTube, snuck in among the "innocent work" by high school kids(with chaste young girls as Marion shot from the neck up), somebody from some dark cruddy corner of the net had staged the shower scene in a horrifying and realistic a manner as possible.

No Herrmann music. Realism and WAY too much blood on the actress(a victim of sorts FOR REAL -- why did she agree to enact this?) and..worst of all..the scene ends with the actress flopping around in the tub, arms and legs flailing, in the real throes of death. This was, in short, an obscenity -- and quickly taken down.

That shocking video remains a reminder to me that all is not warm and fuzzy on the internet. There are some sick people out there. I will never forget that "homage."

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I've elected not to delete that post above..because it is true and it was shocking and we have to realize how depraved a text Psycho could be in the wrong hands.

But much more "lightly": Psycho has been kept alive I think, in the manner intended by Hitchcock: as a "fun" film (Like a roller coaster or haunted house) , which is also quite serious and profound. While it is surrounded by 1000s of other movies and clips on the net -- most of which have larger fan bases and start roughly in the 80's and 90s -- it holds its own. Hitchcock's direction and style looks more an more "unto itself' as the movies continue their CGI trajectory.

And YouTube is the first place to go see that for oneself.

CONT