Dissecting Slashers: Psycho (1960)

Cody slices into a great that was made by a master.

BACKGROUND

The story of Psycho begins with the real-world crimes of Ed Gein, a man from Wisconsin whose life unraveled after the death of his overbearing mother. Gein sealed off the rooms that had belonged to her, preserving them in pristine condition, and developed a macabre hobby of grave robbing, targeting the fresh graves of older women who resembled his mother. He would bring their bodies home, crafting grotesque art projects from their remains, including furniture made from bones and skin. Gein's activities went unnoticed until he escalated to murder... and elements of his crimes would go on to inspire the likes of Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Deranged, and The Silence of the Lambs.

Author Robert Bloch lived just forty miles from Gein and became fascinated by newspaper reports about him. The details of what was discovered in Gein's home were too shocking for publication at the time, but what was known was enough to get Bloch to start writing in an attempt to figure out how something so awful could have happened. He completed the first draft of Psycho in just six weeks, and the novel was published in the summer of 1959, less than two years after Gein’s arrest. The film rights were quickly acquired for nine thousand dollars, with Bloch later realizing that the buyer was Alfred Hitchcock, which made him regret that his contract did not include any profit percentage.

Hitchcock, having directed nearly fifty films, was looking to do something different. He had noted the profitability of low budget horror films and was intrigued by the potential of Bloch’s story. The idea was that this might give him the chance to reaffirm his status as a master filmmaker, as French director Henri-Georges Clouzot was perceived as stealing some of his thunder with the success of his film Les Diaboliques, which was adapted from a novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Because of that movie, Clouzot was being called “the French Hitchcock.” The actual Hitchcock bought the rights to another Boileau/Narcejac novel, From Among the Dead, which he turned into Vertigo... but while many consider Vertigo to be one of the best movies ever made now, it was dismissed as a failure when it was released. Psycho could be Hitchcock’s thrilling redemption.

Paramount Pictures, the studio he was set up at, had no interest in Psycho, refusing to finance the project or allow filming on their lot. Undeterred, Hitchcock decided to mortgage his home to fund the film himself, utilizing the crew from his successful television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents to shoot Psycho quickly and economically. He opted for black and white film to further cut costs and deferred his usual director’s fee, seeking instead sixty percent ownership of the film. Paramount would merely distribute the finished product, which he would shoot on the Universal lot. Paramount agreed to the deal, and years later, the movie would end up being owned by Universal.

In addition to studio executives, several people close to Hitchcock voiced concerns about the project. Joan Harrison, the head of his production company, warned him that he was pushing the boundaries too far and declined to accept profit points - points Bloch surely would have welcomed. Herbert Coleman, Hitchcock’s producing partner, helped assemble the project, but hoped it would fall apart. As it became clear that Psycho was moving toward production, he distanced himself from it.

Hitchcock hired Alfred Hitchcock Presents writer James P. Cavanagh to adapt the novel. When Cavanagh’s script did not meet expectations, Hitchcock discarded it and brought in Joseph Stefano, who initially expressed disappointment with the source material. When he learned that Hitchcock envisioned Anthony Perkins as the troubled character Norman Bates, his attitude shifted. The collaboration between Stefano and Hitchcock produced a draft that greatly improved upon Cavanagh’s version. Hitchcock then meticulously planned each shot with Stefano, who later recalled that Hitchcock seemed melancholic when this process ended, as he found more joy in visualizing the scenes on paper than having to go to set and actually film everything. 

With a budget of eight hundred thousand dollars, Psycho began filming in November of 1959. Production was supposed to last for thirty-six days, but ended up going nine days over-schedule due to some weather issues... despite the need to get this wrapped up because there was a threat that the actors guild might go on strike soon. For time and budgetary reasons, Hitchcock had to trim some complicated camera moves he had in mind. The heart-breaker of them all was the opening shot, which he had wanted to be a four mile long helicopter shot approaching the window of a Phoenix hotel room. He wanted this to rival the three minute opening sequence of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, but the shot he envisioned just wasn’t possible to accomplish. He had to settle for something less, and if you’ve ever wondered why he included information on the date and time in this opening, it’s because there were Christmas decorations visible in the footage his crew brought back from the streets of Phoenix. To explain why the holidays are never mentioned in the film, he added text on screen saying it’s December 11th. Christmas is still a couple of weeks away.

SETTING 

While Ed Gein lived in a farmhouse, the fictional character he inspired is the proprietor of the Bates Motel, which used to sit on the edge of a highway – but then they built a new highway, so now the Bates Motel sits on a lonely stretch of road that few ever venture down. Of course, the owner doesn’t live in the motel itself. He lives in the house that looms ominously on a hill behind it. Over twenty thousand dollars went into the construction of these locations, which are basically characters in themselves, the look of them is so memorable. The house, inspired by the Edward Hopper painting House by the Railroad, looks quite creepy, especially with the dark clouds that were added in the background of some shots. Put the decomposed corpse of Mother in an upstairs window and it really becomes the stuff of nightmares. Certain interiors of the house were constructed on a stage that was known for being used for the filming of 1925’s Phantom of the Opera.

KILLER

The Gein-inspired killer is named Norman Bates, and Bloch decided to make him the proprietor of a motel because it would allow him easy access to victims. Freudian concepts were popular at the time, so he imagined the perpetrator would be a man who had a twisted relationship with his mother. Just like Gein had with his mother. Unaware that Gein said he carried out his crimes while in a daze, Bloch figured that it would help deflect suspicion if a person committed their crimes while in an altered state of mind. Like being under the control of a different personality. He came up with the idea that Norman Bates was raised by an overbearing mother - and when he snapped and killed her, he couldn’t accept that she was gone. He dug up her body, kept her in her old bedroom, and carried on as if she were still alive. He would talk to himself like he was having conversations with his mother, and sometimes he would fully slip into her personality and dress in her clothes. This isn’t so far from the reality of Ed Gein. When Bloch learned more about Gein and realized how easily he had managed to create a fictional character who was close to the truth, he had trouble looking at himself in the mirror.

The description of Bates on the page has been compared to actor Rod Steiger, as he’s said to be an overweight, balding, middle-aged man. Hitchcock had a very different vision for how he wanted the character to come across – and he was able to cast the actor that he and Stefano had both wanted for the role of Norman Bates, Anthony Perkins. A thin fellow in his late twenties. Perkins was the highest paid actor on Psycho, earning forty thousand dollars. This was a far cry from the four hundred and fifty thousand – plus profit points – that Cary Grant had just gotten to star in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, but in addition to earning forty grand to do this movie, Perkins also got to play the biggest role of his career. A role he had trouble shaking for a long time, as viewers only saw him as Norman Bates from this point on. He would eventually embrace his association with the character so tightly, he agreed to star in three more Psycho movies. He even directed one of those himself, while Stefano returned to write one.

It’s understandable that Perkins would be so strongly identified with Norman Bates, because he gave an awesome performance in the role. He seems like such a nice, although troubled, young man when we’re first introduced to him. We come to like him and care about him. So much so, that when it appears that his mother has just murdered the character we followed to Bates Motel (over the course of a large portion of the film’s running time), we actually hope that he won’t get in trouble for trying to protect his mother and cover up the crime. Although the twist is well known by now, the fact that Norman is so crazy that he “becomes” his homicidal mother isn’t revealed until the end.

Norman’s mother has been dead for years by the time the film begins, but she’s still a presence on the screen. To obscure the fact that her son is attempting to keep her alive by speaking in her voice and dressing in her clothes, Hitchcock hired at least three people to play the character in different moments, and hired at least three more to record her dialogue. A dummy of mother’s corpse was created, with the look of her rotten face being based on specifications provided to makeup artists Jack Barron and Robert Dawn by an instructor of mortuary sciences. Hitchcock wanted to be sure she’d look exactly like an unearthed corpse that has been sitting around for ten years should look. 

FINAL GIRL

The star of this movie is not who it initially appears to be. In Bloch’s novel, the unlucky person who checks into Bates Motel at the beginning of the story is named Mary Crane because Gein’s first victim was named Mary Hogan. Bloch built up his Mary with a story in which she has stolen forty thousand dollars from her employer so she can start a life with her boyfriend, a man named Sam Loomis. Sam owns a hardware store not far from Bates Motel. Gein’s second victim, or at least the second of the only two people he confessed to murdering, was the owner of a hardware store. Mary isn’t in the book for very long – she’s only alive for two chapters. Hitchcock and Stefano had different plans for her. In the film, we follow her for forty-nine minutes. Their idea was to present her as the heroine of the story. You expect to follow her throughout because she has issues that need to be resolved. Then she steps into a shower at Bates Motel and is shockingly removed from the story, murdered by Norman in the guise of his mother. This twist appealed to Hitchcock’s mischievous sense of humor. 

Although Hitchcock aimed to distance himself from big-name stars for Psycho, he wanted a well-known actress for the role of Mary Crane, who would ultimately be renamed Marion due to the existence of several Mary Cranes in Phoenix, Arizona, the fictional character’s hometown. The more recognizable the actress, the greater the shock for the audience when her character meets a grisly end. After considering a list of candidates, including Piper Laurie, Hope Lange, and North by Northwest star Eva Marie Saint, Hitchcock turned to Janet Leigh, the wife of Hollywood heartthrob Tony Curtis and mother of toddler Jamie Lee Curtis. Leigh had no prior association with the horror genre, but was about to play a major role in it.

When Marion is murdered with an hour of film left to go, her boyfriend Sam and her sister Lila become the new protagonists. We follow them as they try to find out why Marion has gone missing, and where she may be. These are characters Hitchcock had very little interest in, and he removed Stefano’s attempts at giving them more depth. The likes of Cliff Robertson, Leslie Nielsen, and Robert Loggia were considered to play Sam, but Hitchcock ended up hiring John Gavin at the suggestion of Universal. He wasn’t enthusiastic about this hire, and wasn’t impressed with Gavin when they got on set: he even gave the actor, who actually comes off just fine in the film, the nickname The Stiff. As Lila, Hitchcock cast Vera Miles – an actress he had a complicated history with. At one time, she had been his golden girl, and after they worked together on an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents he had signed her to a five year personal contract. But she wasn’t as appreciative of the flowers and telegrams he would send as he thought she should be, and she made decisions he didn’t agree with, like getting married when they were in the middle of making The Wrong Man or getting pregnant and dropping out of Vertigo. Still, she had a contract with Hitchcock, so he cast her in Psycho. In a role he didn’t really care about. It’s Lila who becomes the heroine as she pushes to find out what happened to Marion – and it was Hitchcock’s choice that there isn’t much to her beyond her concern for her sister.

VICTIMS

There are only two murder victims in this movie, and as mentioned, one of them has a very substantial role. Marion Crane, played by Janet Leigh, is the main character for the first section of the film, building up to her shocking demise. Hitchcock and Stefano had a lot of fun keeping her around for as long as possible, getting the audience involved in her story. Early scenes set up her situation with Sam; she lives in Phoenix, he lives in a small California town called Fairvale, so their relationship is confined to the seedy hotel rooms they meet in. Marion wants to get married, but Sam wants to work out his financial issues first. When a sleazy oilman brings forty thousand dollars cash into the real estate office she works at, in a scene that also features appearances by Hitchcock and his daughter Pat, it seems like the solution to Marion’s problems. She steals the forty thousand and hits the road, heading to Fairvale. The audience is invested in seeing how this is going to work out for her. We’re rooting for her to get away with this crime, even though she proves to be a terrible criminal. She’s so bad at this, she trades cars at a used car lot despite knowing that a police officer is watching the entire transaction. The cop is right beside her new car when she pulls out of the lot. She has accomplished nothing by doing this vehicle swap.

Running into a heavy rain, Marion has to stop for the night at a small motel that doesn’t see much business. The Bates Motel. She finds out from proprietor Norman Bates that she’s very close to Fairvale, but decides to spend the night there anyway. And accepts Norman’s offer of having dinner with him in the parlor behind his office. An incredible, eight minute dialogue scene plays out in that parlor, during which we get information on Norman’s life: the friendly, endearing young man – who does taxidermy as a hobby - is stuck running this dead-end motel while caring for a hateful, mentally ill, elderly mother. Norman bristles at Marion’s suggestion that he have his mother committed. But the things he says about people being caught in personal traps and everyone going a little mad sometimes makes her decide to reverse her bad choices. Returning to her room, she does some math on a piece of paper to figure out how much of the forty thousand is left; seeing how much she has to make up for. She is going to return the money. She tears up that piece of paper and flushes it down the toilet, a sight that would have been jolting for viewers at the time because a toilet had never been seen in a movie before. Seeing a toilet flush on screen was something new. They didn’t know they were about to see something even more jolting.

The audience may not agree with Marion’s decision to steal the forty thousand dollars, but we understand her urge to do so, and we’re with her every step of the way. She has made a dumb mistake (and makes some more during her road trip), but we’re hoping she’ll either come to her senses and return the money – or at least get away with the crime. Neither of those outcomes are ultimately possible... but the strange thing is, once Marion has been removed from the story and we no longer have to worry about her getting away with her crime, Norman Bates becomes the focus of our sympathies, despite his connection to her death.  He is appalled to see what his mother has done. But he has to keep mother out of trouble, so he cleans up the crime scene... and since we’ve come to like Norman and don’t want him to get sent off to prison, now we’re rooting for him to get away with this crime. And groaning when we see that he unknowingly sends the forty thousand dollars into the swamp with Marion’s car. And her corpse.

Milton Arbogast, played by Martin Balsam, is the private investigator hired by Marion’s employer to track her down and recover the stolen money. Hitchcock was much more interested in this character than he was in the Sam and Lila characters. Stefano recommended that he hire Martin Balsam to play the character, and he did. It was a great choice, as it’s a lot of fun to watch Balsam interact with the other actors. Along the way, we get another terrific dialogue sequence that involves Norman talking with Arbogast – and proving to be a lousy criminal, just like Marion was. His answers to Arbogast’s questions just bring up more questions, and the private investigator decides he needs to talk to Mrs. Bates. That doesn’t work out for him.

DEATHS

There are only two deaths, but they are two great ones. Everyone knows about the death of Marion Crane in the shower, it’s one of the most famous movie scenes of all time. When Marion gets into the shower, there’s joy in her expression. She’s washing off the dirt of crime, returning to her normal life. Then Norman’s mother rips the shower curtain aside and stabs Marion to death. The character we’ve been following the entire time is gone. Knowing the importance of this scene, Hitchcock had graphic designer Saul Bass, who also designed the film’s title sequence, create the storyboards for it. Bass would later claim that he directed the shower scene as well, a claim that was denied by assistant director Hilton A. Green. Green says Hitchcock shot every bit of the shower scene, which took over a week to complete. Hitchcock wasn’t one to do an excessive number of takes, but it took around twenty-five tries to get a satisfactory take of Marion’s death stare at the end of the shower sequence.

Even then, this is a shot that had to be compromised. The plan was for the camera to pull back from Marion’s dead, staring eye and go over to the hotel room window to look up at the Bates house. This would be multiple shots pieced together, but in the film it would look like one long camera move. But Hitchcock’s wife noticed something he and his crew had missed: Janet Leigh blinked before the camera turned away from her. So an extra shot of the showerhead had to be added in before the camera moves over to the window.

The plunging knife, the rapid cuts, the close-ups, the shrieking violins on the soundtrack. The  blood spiraling down the drain. The shot of Marion’s lifeless face and staring eye. The shower scene is a work of art.

Arbogast’s death is a stunning sight to behold as well. He’s climbing the stairs in the Bates house (which were built on the spot where the chandelier fell in Phantom of the Opera) when the figure of Mother comes charging out of her second story bedroom, holding a knife. She slashes Arbogast across the face and he goes stumbling backwards down the stairs, the camera going with him. When he hits the ground, Mother pounces on him and finishes him off. 

This was another sequence that was storyboarded by Bass, and it wasn’t initially shot by Hitchcock; Green had to take over that day because the director caught a cold. However, Hitchcock was back at the helm for some reshoots.

CLICHÉS

Psycho was an innovative film and happens to be one of the best movies ever made, but that doesn’t mean it’s entirely free of clichés. Even the character of Norman Bates, a killer with mommy issues, has become a cliché over time.

Here we also have the isolated setting, the creepy house, a shocking twist ending, and the idea of ineffective authority figures. The police are no help in stopping the murders or uncovering the truth. The protagonists have to take matters into their own hands, to get the bottom of what’s happening at the Bates house and motel. Only after our heroes have subdued Norman does an expert step in to explain to us exactly what has gone wrong in Norman’s mind.

POSTMORTEM

According to Pat Hitchcock, there was a moment when her father considered not going through with the theatrical release of Psycho at all. She said he thought of just cutting the film down into an episode or two of Alfred Hitchcock Presents after an underwhelming screening of the rough cut. A screening Stefano walked out of feeling sick because the film seemed overlong and had no tension. Hitchcock knew there was still hope for it, though. While he would end up whittling a couple minutes out of the movie, the most important change that came after the rough cut screening was the addition of the score composed by Bernard Herrmann. One of the greatest scores of all time. Herrmann went against Hitchcock’s wishes and provided more music than the director asked for. Hitchcock didn’t want any music over the shower scene, he just wanted the sounds of water, stabbing, and screaming. But when he heard the music Herrmann came up with for that moment, the shrieking strings that are familiar even to those who haven’t seen Psycho, he admitted that he had been wrong. Hitchcock would even go on to credit Herrmann with being responsible for thirty-three percent of the film’s effectiveness. He was so appreciative, he doubled the composer’s salary.

Paramount didn’t like Psycho even with Herrmann’s music on it and didn’t expect much from it, so they went along with Hitchcock’s release strategy. As plotted by the director, the promotional campaign was entirely based on keeping the film’s secrets. Publicity stills gave nothing away. The previews didn’t contain any revealing footage from the film; the full trailer simply follows Hitchcock as he gives a tour of the Bates Motel and house locations. When he pulls aside a shower curtain to find a screaming woman inside, it’s Vera Miles, not Janet Leigh. There were no advance screenings for critics, and when the film was released there was the rule in place that no one would be admitted after the movie began. As it turned out, Hitchcock putting so much emphasis on the film being shocking and twist-filled really captured the public’s imagination. Everyone involved was stunned by how successful Psycho was. It was an instant hit.

Fans today are familiar with the image of Mrs. Bates’ skull appearing over Norman’s face in the last shot of him, but not every viewer who saw the film during its original theatrical run saw that. Hitchcock was so uncertain about whether or not he should include the skull image, some prints that were sent out to theatres included it, and some didn’t.

Psycho didn’t go over well with everyone. There were negative reviews, especially from critics who were upset they had to see the movie with a regular audience. Some viewers were disgusted by the subject material and let the world know how strongly they objected to it. But that didn’t stop the money from coming in. During its first year of release, the film made fifteen million dollars at the box office, which was a big deal at the time – and it achieved that number by breaking records in several territories around the globe. Critical reassessment quickly followed, and the film was soon viewed in such a positive light that it even earned Oscar nominations. Janet Leigh was up for Best Supporting Actress; art directors Joseph Hurley and Robert Clatworthy were nominated, along with set decorator George Milo; John L. Russell was nominated for his cinematography; and Hitchcock was up for Best Director. The work of Anthony Perkins, Joseph Stefano, and Bernard Herrmann was overlooked. But Psycho didn’t end up taking home the gold statues anyway. Best Supporting Actress went to Elmer Gantry’s Shirley Jones – who had been on the list of actresses considered for Marion Crane. Freddie Francis won Best Cinematography for his work on the film Sons and Lovers. And that year’s Best Picture winner, Billy Wilder’s The Apartment, also won in the art direction and director categories. But the fact that a movie like Psycho was nominated at all was already a huge accomplishment. Hitchcock never did win a Best Director Oscar, despite being nominated five times, and even though his film Rebecca won Best Picture.

Hitchcock saw Psycho as a piece of light entertainment, something that would make the audience scream and laugh as if they were on an amusement park ride. He was horrified whenever anyone seemed to take it seriously, like the ones who were appalled by the concept. In a way, you can see why some viewers were so shaken. This sort of realistic horror isn’t something that was seen very often in those days. The things in this film could really happen. In fact, they sort of did. But as scary as it is, it was also always meant to be fun. And a lot of people have had fun watching it. Psycho was the biggest hit of Hitchcock’s career and, due to his profit points, earned the director several million dollars. 

It’s no surprise that there were sequels, but they took decades to show up. Hitchcock had passed away by the time Perkins returned for Psycho II, Psycho III, and Psycho IV: The Beginning. Perkins passed away in 1992, just two years after the release of the fourth film. There were a couple attempts to bring the property to television without him as well. The 2013 show Bates Motel started out as a prequel, but in its fifth and final season also overlapped with the events of the original film. That show’s reworking of the story was the second time it had been remade. In 1998, director Gus Van Sant decided to use the clout he earned with the Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting to get an experimental remake of Psycho into production. He copied Hitchcock’s film shot-by-shot, using the same script, only altering the occasional line and dropping in his own stylistic flourishes here and there. The result of this experiment: a film that isn’t nearly as good as Hitchcock’s. None of the changes that were made were for the better, and the scenes that were straightforward replicas just didn’t work as well as what Hitchcock had done with his cast and crew. But when you try to match yourself up to one of the most legendary directors of all time, can you really expect a positive outcome? 

More than sixty years after its release, Psycho still holds up as an excellent, masterfully crafted horror film with awesome dialogue, great performances, and an unforgettable score. It has rightfully been chosen by the Library of Congress to be preserved in the National Film Registry as a work that is "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film is regularly named as one of the best movies ever made... and it really is.