Psycho - again

I loved Hitch's PSYCHO but had not seen it in about 20 years, though I have the dvd. It was on television a day or so ago and I recorded it and idly put it on this morning and I was stunned all over again. Its really one of the key movies of the last 50 years and that great year 1960. I know its always in those Top 50 lists, its certainly in mine. Its one of the best Hitch's along with Notorious, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwesgt & The Birds, and he must have made so much money from it. Janet Leigh is marvellous in it, I know its not a lead role but she should surely have been a contender for best actress that year. She does wonders with the part as written. I remember reading in some interview that she said Hitch called her in, said he knew she could act and just told her what he wanted from her in his set-ups and left the character of Marian up to her. She certainly delivers a very multi-facteted performance and looks her best here (she did get very emaciated looking in her later years). Funny she and Curtis will be best remembered for their work with Hitch and Billy Wilder - he is equally as good in Some Like it Hot which with Psycho were key movies for me when growing up and I still love them now. Thats the sign of a real classic. The Herrmann score too is so much more than just those screaming violins. Like Vertigo it is so deep and resonant and so completely right. Its the first time too that a toilet is flushed in a mainstream American film and Vera Miles even has to put her hand in it to get out the bit of paper that did not flush away ... Also those opening titles say its December 11th - but there is no mention of christmas at all. But every moment of it is just genius.

• Honey, put down the crack pipe.

• [quote]I know its not a lead role but she should surely have been a contender for best actress that year She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, where she should have been. That was the genius of Hitchcock. Leigh was advertised as a lead actress which made the shock even more, as she was killed off so early in the picture, nobody saw it coming.

• Why are you raving about Janet Leigh's acting, when Tony Perkins was so damned brilliant in the same film? He really was amazing, Oscar quality, and that's all the more remarkable because he'd done so little of interest before this film. He was usually wasted in puppyish male ingenue roles, and that's almost what he plays in the early scenes. But when things get wierd... well, 1960s audiences must have been shocked, that that nice Perkins boy could do that! He was so good in this role it was actually bad for his career. Nobody could forget it, and he couldn't top it.

• She didn't put her hand IN the toilet. Lord, the scrap of paper was behind the bowl.

• Tony perkins was a mo

• Only watch it for shirtless scene with John Gavin.

• I love John Gavin

• Ops, please make a thread for Janet Leigh! Plese make a thread for Wllliam Holden Please make a thread for Eleanor Parker Please!!!!!!!!!!!! What about Eric Clapton?????????????? Make threads for talented people!!!!!!!!

  AAAAAAAH

• The last time I watched it, I was stunned how bored I was with it. I actually prefer the now forgotten sequels, aside from the last one (which still had a nifty fire sequence at the end.)

• OP, I love Psycho too, but it can't be one of the key movies of the last 50 years if it was made in 1960.

• The underrated sequel was pretty respectable too, because it had so much more Anthony Perkins in it and it really explored and fleshed out the Norman Bates character. I also loved the movie's cavalcade of plot twists and mind games. And the shovel scene at the end was classic!

• "Just call me Hitch. Hold the cock."

• There were 3 sequels, and the first 2 were pretty good. Even the 3rd was watchable.

• Please make these threads, i won't call myself an Op if you do that, just make threads for talented people! We must pay a tribute to them! Charlton Heston,Romy Schneider, Linda Darnell Robert Mitchum, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens are also some of the people i would like to pay a tribute for on DL.

  Thank%20you

• Charlton Heston wasn't talented, R14. I do agree with the rest of your list.

• R15, at least we agree for all the rest! However, i must say that you are a bit unfair with Heston. ''While they were starring in a play together in 1960, Laurence Olivier told Heston that he had the potential to become the greatest American actor of the century. When the play received unfavorable notices, Heston said, "I guess you learn to forget bad notices?", to which Olivier replied, "What's more important, laddie, and much harder -- learn to forget good notices."

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• Heston was not a humorless man, he was just too honest and stable and he wanted to protect his family from really bad people. He might seem stubborn in some eyes, but he was not a hypocrite. He really tried to work it out for his family and he did and personally, i don't know many Hollywood stars that were or are capable of doing that. You have to have a certain humility and a strong character for achieving that. No matter how good your parther might be, if you are frivolous and you care only about your satisfaction, you are going to loose the knot. Well, he didn't.

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• *partner

  Meh

• Leigh was very good and - sorry haters! - Scarjo is marvelous as Leigh in Hitchcock. The more I see of Scarlett, including Hitchcock and her tony winning turn in A View From the Bridge, the more impressive she is.

• "Psycho" definitely has its amazing moments, but it also has some major flaws. For one thing, Perkins was so tall that they REALLY had to fudge it in the scenes where the mother appears, and to be honest, it really doesn't work. Also, John Gavin was no good at naturalistic acting, so whenever he's on screen, it's obviously an actor in a role rather than a real person up there. And although I realize it was 1960, and the general public didn't know as much about mental illness, and blah blah blah, that postlude discussion of what's wrong with Norman is so painfully obvious and over-explained that it almost ruins the movie for modern-day audiences.

• As the OP mentioned , there is no mention of Christmas although the movie takes place in December. I read a book a few years ago on the making of Psycho. It was actually made on a pretty low budget. After filming the opening location shots of downtown Phoenix, they noticed Christmas decorations in the street scenes. They didn't have the budget to re-shoot, so they simply added the December 11 date to the beginning of the film.

• This move was probably groundbreaking in 1960 but it's a complete cheese fest today.

• Are Vera Miles and Sylvia Miles related?

• [quote] Yes, and they're both the children of Miles Standish

• [quote] Are Vera Miles and Sylvia Miles related? Sarah Miles is their mother. In honor of he metric system, she changed her name to Sarah Kilometers several years ago.

• Did Mr. Hitchcock have a dirty mind? Yes, and so do I, doesn't everybody?" Leigh says, anticipating the question stirred up by the assertions of Hitchcock biographer Donald Spoto. Did the suspense maestro fixate on her as he allegedly did on other flash-frozen blondes? "I can only speak for myself," she answers. "He was a genius and showed me nothing but professionalism and respect. I take exception to the negative approach of some biographers and just hope they had access to reliable sources and research." Still, Hitchcock's prurient and commercial instincts were flawless. He commenced - and advertised - Psycho with Leigh in a bra and half-slip, but would have preferred, he told Francois Truffaut, "the girl's bare breasts...rubbing against the man's chest."

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• Like Reynolds, MacLaine, and Mitzi Gaynor, Janet Leigh might have shaken her assets and glitzed out on the nightclub circuit, but again, neither her livelihood nor her ego depended on it. "Believe me, if it were a matter of needing to put food on the table for my family," she says, "I'd sell toilet paper."

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• Janet Leigh admits that self-doubt has often kept her from pursuing roles in which she might have been memorable. She admits regret that she and Jamie Lee did not "find out soon enough" about Terms of Endearment "because Jamie could have campaigned for the two of us." She also voices disappointment "that we weren't thought of for 'Postcards From the Edge', because we would have been very good. I don't get thought of for great things like those. And just to do something is not worth the effort." Then, why not aggressively campaign for juicy roles like Shirley MacLaine and others do? "This is a big problem with me," she says, reddening. "I find it very difficult to sell myself. I am not an aggressive person, for myself. Jamie Lee, Bob, and Kelly - everybody - gets furious with me about this. Maybe it's that old fear of rejection. If I don't push for it, it's not like I know that producers have definitely said: 'We don't want her' I think it goes back to that incident [running away and getting married] when I was 14. I think I maybe never felt worthy, that I shouldn't be aggressive. I went so far the other way because I was grateful for anything good. I almost felt I didn't deserve the good that came to me. But it came down to priorities, too. If you are driven about your career, something else has to give. Maybe I didn't want [my private life] to suffer. But," Leigh says, frankly, "maybe it wouldn't have suffered." Even from one as clear-eyed as Janet Leigh, those words sound poignant. But, as she puts it, "No regrets."

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• [quote]Leigh was very good and - sorry haters! - Scarjo is marvelous as Leigh in Hitchcock. Weird, but I agree Scarlet was really good in that small part. Unlike Jessica Biel in the same film... [quote]This move was probably groundbreaking in 1960 but it's a complete cheese fest today. I disagree. The film may seem like a cheese-fest today because it's been imitated, and paid homage to, a million times since. It's a very thoughtful film that spends time developing the main characters' psychology. The loneliness of Norman and Marion is palpable (their talk just before the murder is both scary and moving). The film language is extraordinary. Not only camerawork, but the use of music and editing as well.

• R29, you prefer me in Psycho or that Johansson girl? I feel slightly offended...

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  Janet%20Leigh

• The music in the hotel scene is saturated with longing. Everybody in this movie seems so disappointed with "the American dream", except Norman, who is comparatively well adjusted! I wonder if the alienation of these characters resonated with audiences in 1960.

• [quote][R29], you prefer me in Psycho or that Johansson girl? I meant to say I prefer Johansson to Biel in "Hitchcock". But, you Janet, were wonderful in your own film. [quote]The music in the hotel scene is saturated with longing. Yes!

  29

• *giggles R32, alright then, i'm glad you made it clear. I'm really glad. I feel some kind of euphoria now that you recognized my vital presence in Psycho. I hope i haunted you a bit...

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  Janet%20%20Leigh%20%20tease

• Is it true Janet Leigh died of anorexia?

• R34 Janet died at her homeat the age of 77 after suffering a heart attack. She suffered from vasculitis and peripheral neuropathy, which caused her right hand to become gangrenous. She was cremated after death and her ashes are interred in a niche in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

• John Gavin was perhaps one of the handsomest actors EVER.

  Millie Dilmount