In 2018, an unheralded little documentary came out with this oddball title: 78/52.
Dedicated solely to the shower scene in Hitchcock’s Psycho, that film took its title from the number of camera set-ups and shots contained in that now-legendary sequence.
It’s safe to say that no one else ever has made — or ever will make — a 92-minute feature about a single scene running just over 200 seconds.
Indeed, as Hitchcock scholar Donald Spoto asserts, this relatively brief sequence “has evoked more study, elicited more comment, and generated more shot-for-shot analysis … than any other in the history of cinema.”
So: Even though I already gave a seasonal Psycho talk last weekend (at the Genetti this time), my Lycoming College film students are still discussing the film; and besides — well, it’s almost Halloween: a perfect time to revisit the granddaddy of all slasher scenes, where protagonist Marion Crane is stabbed to death in a motel shower.
Here are some tidbits and reflections:
To begin with, the scene’s dizzying array of quick-cuts was required because its 1960 time period insisted on tact regarding violence and nudity. Though a nude-model stand-in was sometimes used for star Janet Leigh, we do not see much actual anatomy — certainly not in focus; and no blood is ever shown on the body.
Indeed, there’s scarcely a shot of the knife actually going in — though one super-short clip suggests this, as the blade presses into flesh near the belly-button (this, incidentally, was achieved by pulling the knife away from the body, then running the film backwards).
Rapid-fire editing also helped conceal the true identity of the killer — and to preserve Leigh’s modesty. She was, after all, already a huge screen-star, with 34 films on her resume — and a high-profile marriage to fellow-actor Tony Curtis (Jamie Lee is their daughter). No star of her status in that era would have appeared naked — so she and costumer Rita Rigg applied nude-colored moleskin over the actress’s vital parts.
Problem was, this had a tendency to peel off in the rushing water — and it also needed changing on a regular basis so as not to irritate Leigh’s skin. Which is one reason the sequence took a week to film.
Another, of course, was the many camera set-ups. The murder, you see, is shot from a kaleidoscopic array of angles (high, low, right, left, facing victim, facing killer, etc.); and since cameras in that era were big and heavy, Hitch’s crew built a separate shower-stall with four detachable walls, plus scaffolding overhead.
Yet ironically, the toughest take to nail was a long reverse-tracking shot that starts on Marion’s dead eye and backs through the bathroom door till it’s in the other room. Leigh kept moving slightly, and the crew actually lost count of how many takes it required; yet even on the printed version, the star had blinked — an error noted by the eagle-eyed Mrs. Hitchcock, who had worked on film continuity in her youth; so there’s a cut in this extended shot to a brief view of the still-gushing shower.
Other famous details include the use of chocolate syrup for blood (since Psycho is in black-and-white) and the shrieking music composed by film-score veteran Bernard Herrmann, who worked on many of Hitch’s greatest films. The story goes that Hitchcock preferred the shower scene without music, but changed his mind after hearing Herrmann’s composition — now perhaps the most recognizable music cue in film history.
(And keep in mind that for this film, Herrmann decided on what he called “black-and-white music”: only strings, with no wind instruments or percussion.)
It’s also worth noting that first-time viewers were horrified by the scene not only because of its visual chaos, but also because no one expected any film’s main character to die halfway through the story. For that matter, interviews with those 1960 viewers confirm that when the shadowy figure approached behind the shower-curtain, they were certain it was Norman — coming to capitalize on the earlier scene in which he watches Marion undress through a peephole.
But no — it’s a woman. With a huge knife. And hate in her heart.
One final note: That murderous matron has the knife in her right hand; but preceding hotel scenes show that Norman is a leftie.
Talk about a split personality.
Sadly, we are out space again; more info is available in my 2009 book The Psycho File — including a 30-page chapter on this scene. And mine is just one of 10 full-length books about Hitch’s classic shocker.
Happy Halloween.
