It was 16 years ago that I fulfilled a life-long dream — when I received in the mail a box containing copies of my first published book.
A study of Hitchcock’s 1960 shocker Psycho, it was written in honor of the movie’s 50th anniversary; seven books later, The Psycho File is still my second-best seller. Meanwhile, the film that inspired me continues to extend its cinematic legacy; this year, that includes a Halloween-season screening at Williamsport’s Genetti Hotel.
On Oct. 25, at 6:30 p.m., I’ll briefly introduce the film, followed by a showing of this landmark chiller about Norman Bates and his devoted mother; afterwards, we’ll cover trivia and production background, together with tidbits on the movie’s visuals, symbols, characters and themes.
With that in mind, your Webb Weekly film-fan will focus on Psycho for the rest of October, with plenty of info this week and next — saving the movie’s most (in)famous sequence for after our showing on 10/25 (just in case some of you still haven’t “scene” it!).
I chose Psycho for the “Movie Masterpieces” course I teach at Lycoming College, not only because it qualifies for the course title, but also because the curriculum required some “experimental” films — and this particular movie certainly charted risky new territory for Alfred Hitchcock.
It can be tough to recall that even before Psycho’s eye-popping success, Hitch was already the most famous director in the world. And it’s similarly hard to imagine anything more different from Psycho than his two previous films — the slow, hypnotic, dream-like Vertigo (1958) or the splashy, comical, Technicolor spy caper North by Northwest (1959).
Despite its title, no one was really ready for this movie.
Based on a lurid but entertaining 1959 thriller by horror veteran Robert Bloch, Psycho was a cheaply made black-and-white drama about a down-on-her-luck real-estate secretary, her even more financially strapped boyfriend, and a run-down, two-bit motel “out on the old highway” near fictional Fairvale, CA.
What’s more, it was a “slasher film” before that was even a thing — representing such a bold departure for Hitch that his regular studio refused to finance it. And so, spending just over $800,000, the director paid for it himself — crafting a shrewd 60%-ownership deal that eventually made him a multi-millionaire.
In our own blood-soaked cinematic era, so fixated on serial killers, it’s hard to comprehend the widespread industry resistance to Hitchcock’s proposed project. (As an example, long-time Hitchcock collaborator Joan Harrison bowed out, telling the director, “This time, you’re going too far.”)
If that seems extreme, keep in mind first of all that Bloch’s book and its boffo screen version were loosely based on the horrific exploits of Wisconsin murderer and grave-robber Ed Gein — who also inspired both The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Silence of the Lambs (1991). And of course, Netflix has just begun the third round of its Monster series, this season featuring Charlie Hunnam as Gein himself.
On top of the real-life horrors in the case, one must likewise recall that the late 1950s were a good deal more reticent about explicit content than the era we now live in. (Think Leave It to Beaver, for example — and then imagine Wally and Theodore going to see a picture like Psycho.) The era was indeed so prudish that one of Hitchcock’s toughest battles on the film was getting permission to show a toilet — which had never been seen in any American motion picture.
But of course he pushed it through, together with a number of other taboos that I won’t talk about just yet — for fear of spoiling the film’s delicious plot.
We’ll look at the actual making of the film here next week.
In the meantime, folks seeking more background and a truly fun read might look up Bloch’s quirky and uproarious memoir Once Around the Bloch. It’s a little tough to find, but definitely worth the effort.
