April 1, 2023: Netflix Goes Psycho

I think the most important thing here is, and I am no expert but, the transfer currently streaming on Netflix seems to be in the original aspect ratio, which was, I believe, 1.37:1.

(Trying to re-write an earlier post from memory.)

I think you are more of an expert than I, Edward Haskell, because you could "name the number" for the ratio. Swanstep knows the numbers, too.

For my part, I see the ratios in these "types":

ONE: Square box. Movies of the 30's, 40s, and 50s that I saw in revival theaters in the 70s, or on TCM when projected correctly (TCM allows for a lot of "black" on either side of the box. )
TWO: "Widescreen." 20th Century Fox used to lenghten its opening fanfare to show the words "In Cinemascope" and announce a widescreen movie(I remember this credit on 1966's Stagecoach and Fantastic Voyage from Fox), but it seems to me that Panavision became the "go-to" wide screen format eventually. Westerns(The Professionals, The Wild Bunch.) Adventure horror(Jaws.) SciFi (Star Wars, Alien.) Action(Die Hard.) Director Sydney Pollock even did two love stories in Panavision -- The Way We Were and Tootsie -- because he just liked Panavision.
THREE: "Fake widescreen." Or: "slight rectangle." This is evidently how Psycho was re-framed for recent theatrical showings and DVD. The top was sliced off("bye bye swamp truck") and the bottom...? On the other hand, this may be a REAL ratio because its how The Birds and Frenzy looked on the big screen, too: neither square box NOR Panavision.

Meanwhile, back at "widescreen": we had some variants, yes? Cinerama -- with three frames stitched together horizontally so the screen wrapped around you in the theater(I saw "How the West Was Won" this way as a kid -- so did my age peers Kevin Costner and Ron Howard; it inspired them) . "Fake Cinerama" for Its a Mad Mad World(at the Hollywood Cinerama Dome)..but that was really "Super 70 MM," yes?

CONT

Netflix had "moved" Psycho on its screen and when I clicked on it , a NEW scene came up to sell the movie. Instead of "Marion meets the cop," we got a very LONG slice of "Marion and Norman in the parlor," from when they first sit down in their chairs(note how they sit down GRACEFULLY , at exactly the same moment -- I bet Hitchcock directed that dance-like movement), to their discussion of Norman's lonlieness and taxidermy hobby and then closing out with "Well, a boy's best friend is his mother" and Marion's slightly disturbed reaction. Fade out.

Made one want to watch Psycho all over again.

The algorithms are something at Netflix. Along with The Birds appearing, I ended up with Smokey and the Bandit on the thumbnail screen. Why? I think because Netflix is INDEED running a "Universal blockbusters" package -- Psycho, The Birds, The Sting, Animal House, Smokey and the Bandit. All they need to run next are Jaws and Back to the Future(I believe that "completes the set" of Universal blockbustesrs -- Spielberg doesn't let ET out much.)

Hitchcock in his last infirm years in his Universal screening room became a big fan of some movies you wouldn't think he would: one was Animal House and one was Smokey and the Bandit. One reason: he was a top Universal shareholder and those movies(and Jaws and The Sting) put money in his pocket.

But he also evidently just loved the sophisticated slapstick comedy of Animal House and Smokey. Hitch didn't much care for competing thriller makers(like DePalma). But comedy was different, no competition (he also became fast friends with Mel Brooks when Brooks made his Htichcock spoof, High Anxiety.)

Hitchcock had Animal House director John Landis to lunch a lot. Hitchcock wrote Burt Reynolds a fan letter for his work in Smokey and the Bandit. (Hitchcock also loved the brutal prison football slapstick of The Longest Yard, which starred Reynolds. Hitch cast three of that movie's cast in Family Plot; and tried to cast Burt Reynolds as the VILLAIN in Family Plot.)

CONT

A bit more:

May will soon be here and maybe Netflix will dump Psycho...and that lousy old print with it. I took a look at certain scenes and something ELSE was visible unseen in years:

Back in the prints shown on TV in the 70's and 80's, when the Arbogast murder occurs right at the end of a reel, and right BEFORE a switch to the next reel, thus:

As Arbogast falls down the stairs, in the upper RIGHT corner of the frame appears a BIG BLACK CIRCLE..it means a reel change must be made. And as Mother stabs him on the floor and the shot fades out, the projectionist must CHANGE REELS so that the next reel starts with Sam and Lila in the hardware store ("Sometimes Saturday night has a lonely sound...you ever notice that, Lila?")

That BIG BLACK CIRCLE was somehow removed from later DVD/Blu Ray prints, but its BACK on the Netflix print. Welcome back big black circle...its been decades!

In follow up:

ONE: I always wonder if Hitchcock somehow TIMED the Arbogast murder to take place on the reel change. Because the EFFECT is that as Mother stabs Arbogast (unseen) on the floor -- it is as if Mother is SLASHING THE MOVIE ITSELF. There is a jarring JUMP to the switch between reels, as if Mother's knife cut the film frames in half.

TWO: A book had a chapter called "The first time I saw Psycho" filled with 1960 memories. One was from a projectionist FROM 1960 who said "I never got to SEE that second murder because I was working on the reel change.But I always HEARD all the screams in the theater as the detective got killed and I was busy changing reels."

THREE: One of my many viewings of Psycho was at a local library where they had two projectors side by side and a woman had to switch back and forth. When Mother stabbed Arbogast on the floor -- the entire REEL fell to the floor of the library. It was as if Mother had "killed" the reel!