Psycho (1960)

I always loved the psychiatrist scene

John Gavin will always be a celebrity crush

What about it

Are we just announcing films now? Is this what we do?

the series of Films.

R3 Maybe comment something intelligent besides criticize?

This?

R3 Do you have indigestion tonight?

I knew an old guy who worked in a theater when they were showing Psycho when it came out. Big movie palace. Remember, at the time, you could buy a ticket and walk into a movie at any time during the screening (and stay through as many showings as you wanted to). I'm pretty sure he told me with Psycho they would not let patrons in during the last part--where Simon Oakland is explaining everything and you learn about Norman/Mother.

R8 Makes sense, I also know originally they wouldn't let anyone in the theatre once the film started playing

Not even the Queen of England!

Not even the Queef of England!

It IS Psycho!

Why is Janet Leigh in all caps, OP?

A boy’s best friend is his mother.

Because she was MY MOTHER!

R13 Because in 1960 she was the STAHH DHAHLING

R9 Oh, yeah, you're right. I think maybe it was The Bad Seed he was talking about as the film where they wouldn't let anyone in during the final scenes.

Every time I read a news story about the killer mosquitos I think of this movie.

R8 - that was a common with thrillers and was usually milked in the publicity

I don't think The Bad Seed had many surprises.

R20 It was a shocking movie for the time, and it was hyped to the skies. In the play there's a twist ending, though not in the movie, nonetheless the way Rhoda dies might be considered a surprise.

Simon Oakland was hot too

I find the whole scene with Simon Oakland explaining what happened to be so beneath Hitchcock. I think I may have read that Hitch also did not think this was a very good way to wind things up and he had the screenwriter re-do it a lot (I may be dreaming this). But it's not dramatic and just turns into a kind of TV drama at that point. Also to introduce a new character at that late date is bad, and I don't think Oakland is all that good. I don't think Psycho is "perfect", though some people do.

i. e., The "all knowing" doctor or detective or professor character who comes in and explains everything for the characters (and the audience) near the end. I don't know why but I hate that.

[quote] I don't know why but I hate that.

Good evening, R24.

There were many lines in the script with mirrored words. I wonder if there was some symbolism there. "By candlelight, I suppose, in the cheap, erotic fashion of young men with cheap, erotic minds! I refuse to speak of disgusting things because they disgust me!"

I am sorry, boy, but you do manage to look ludicrous when you give me orders.

I can’t imagine how shocking it must’ve been to first time audiences when Janet Leigh is murdered—-one of the greatest movie twists ever.

I'll lick the stamps.

John Gavin should have been shirtless more

Arbogast should have called for backup.

[quote]John Gavin should have been shirtless more

Fuck yeah!

Hitch should have cast Lana Turner as Marion and had Cheryl play Mother in the shower sequence.

"We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you?"

I love that the name Norman is basically "normal man" mashed together.

It was 1960, not today. People were innocent and didn't know about serial killers, multiple personalities, mental illness, etc. like they do nowadays. You needed the doctor at the end to explain the psycho killer to the audience.

Anthony Perkins should have been nominated for an oscar.

I thought the Ed Gein case was well known.

R36, I agree and so should Janet Leigh. Their dinner scene in the parlor is perfection! Psycho is really two movies, the first ending with Marion's death and the second beginning with the investigation. The first film is excellent, the second is more like an episode of Hitchcock's tv show.

R37, Except Janet Leigh actually was. She didn’t win, though, and she should have.

If the woman up there is Mrs. Bates, who's that woman buried out at Greenlawn Cemetary?

R23, I think Psycho started out as a script for Hitchcock's show. I never liked the "explanation" scene either, but doctor doesn't get the last word; Mrs. Bates does.

I like the psychiatrist scene because it creates a "breather" between the shock of discovering Mrs. Bates and the creepy final scene in the jail cell.

Homicidal

Hitch told Vera Miles he wanted her to throw her hand back when Lila sees Mrs, Bates and hit the light bulb behind her so it swings and causes a flare in the camera lens. I first thought this gesture was too contrived but since Lila touches Mrs. Bates with her right hand then flings that hand back, it works.

I always thought it seemed unnatural and like Hitchcock told her to do it so she'd hit the lightbulb.

I find when I mention that Vera Miles had to wear a wig in Psycho because she'd had her head shaved for another movie (Five Branded Women), people usually say, "Vera Miles was in Psycho?"

Janet got an Oscar nomination and all I got was this lousy wig

R35, they knew about multiple personality disorder, as it was called at the time. The Three Faces of Eve had been a big hit in 1957. The disorder was well-enough known that it figured in the plot of a Perry Mason episode from 1958 starring none other than DL fave Constance Ford.

This run of Hitchcock’s leading ladies are still alive:

Shirley Maclaine (The Trouble with Harry-1955)

Vera Miles (The Wrong Man-1956; Psycho-1960)

Kim Novak (Vertigo-1958)

Eva Marie Saint (North by Northwest-1959)

“Tippi” Hedren (The Birds-1963; Marnie-1964)

Julie Andrews (Torn Curtain-1965)

R48 - there's also Barbara Leigh-Hunt (Frenzy- 1972)

Diane Baker and Mariette Hartley (Marnie) are still alive, too, but weren't leads.

I love this film. Y’all know what is underrated as fuck. Bates Motel. What did you guys think of Rihanna as Marion Crane?

Interesting that now the word transvestite is considered derogatory with cross-dresser a more appropriate replacement.

In the trailer, when Hitchcock pulls back the shower curtain, it's Vera Miles not Janet Leigh.

Janet Leigh had moved on to other showers.

[Quote] Why is Janet Leigh in all caps, OP?

Because her contract with Paramount said that when her name is said in connection with the picture, it has to be SCREAMED.

Pat Hitchcock steals the film and earns her place in history as the ULTIMATE DLerwith the line, "He was flirting with you...he must have seen my wedding ring."

Ingmar Bergman said he didn't want to know what Hitchcock thought about women based on Psycho. Its a good thing he never saw Frenzy.

He wasn't out when you were there. He just wasn't answering the door in the dead of night...like some people do.

I'm going to guess that Hitchcock saw Touch of Evil (1958), and it had something to do with him casting Janet Leigh. Mort Mills, who plays Schwartz in Touch of Evil, plays the highway patrol officer in Psycho.

I'm not sure why Hitchcock parted ways with John Michael Hayes but I think Hayes (who wrote Rear Window and several others) was a better screenwriter for Hitchcock than some of the ones who came after him. Ernest Lehman (North By Northwest, Family Plot) was also good, but I think some of his later writers let him down.

Hitch and JMH split over the credit for The Man Who Knew Too Much.

When it came to the screenplay credit, Hitchcock insisted that his old friend Angus MacPhail whom he brought in as a technical consultant for the spy parts of the story, be given a co-writer's credit. According to Hayes, MacPhail was "a dying alcoholic" whom Hitchcock had hired as a favour, and who did no work on the script. Hayes managed to get MacPhail's name removed after a Writers Guild arbitration. Hitchcock and Hayes then parted with great animosity forever. Hayes later recalled: "I enjoyed working with Hitchcock professionally ... But he was egotistical to the point of madness."

R56 too good! She also overshared about everything

Frank Albertson (Sam Wainwright in It's A Wonderful Life) is the guy in the Stetson in the office near the beginning.

By the way, there's a mirrored quality about the casting. Even though Gavin is much beefier than Perkins, they're both tall and dark-haired. Vera Miles is somewhat of a mirror image to Marion Crane, as her sister.

John McEntire was one of the great character actors we just don't have anymore.

He appeared in Winchester '73, Naked City, Elmer Gantry, The Virginian, The Rescuers, The Fox and the Hound, as well as countless other projects throughout in the 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's.

John McIntire*

My mother said it was quite scandalous at the time as it showed single girl Janet Leigh in a hotel tryst with her bf. This was an era with married couples in single beds. The other scandalous movies were Peyton Place, a Summer Place and Susan Slade. All dealing with forbidden subjects.

I also felt Lila ran off with Sam after the events of the film. I mean, who wouldn't want John Gavin

Ar-bo-gast

R67 Also it was a daytime tryst, and she was in black underwear.

He he

I enjoyed the redo with Celestia Heche.

I'VE FALLEN AND I CAN'T GET UP!

John Gavin did seem like a bit of a HOMO.

2024:

Norman- Bill Hader

Lila- Chrissy Metz

Sam- Jon Cena

Arbogast- Will Farrell

Sheriff Chambers- Tyler Perry

and Laverne Cox as Marion Crane

R70 - Marion wore white underwear for the daytime tryst. she wore black underwear after she stole the money.

R76 Thanks. Memory playing tricks.

If it don't jell, it aint aspic.

R67 is right: From the beginning the scene of Janet Leigh (an MGM ingenue of the ‘40s!) in her bra and half-slip talking with John Gavin about their shabby affair was shocking to audiences. (And no reason to wonder why Janet Leigh was cast — her body was killer and she had a reputation as a nice, cooperative and professional veteran actress).

But there was nothing to rival the shock of the shower scene, the shock of the new. The fast cuts, the screeching strings on the soundtrack, the illusion of total nudity (though you don’t actually see nipples or pubes you may imagine you have), the whole scene is engineered to exploit the fears and vulnerabilities of women.

I have vivid memories of being at a family gathering as a little boy when my aunt and her boyfriend walked in after seeing the film, and regaled the whole family about it, how scared she was, how shocking it was, and how tough and explicit the violence seemed to be (though you actually see very little), how there had never been anything like it.

Later my mother went with her mother (my father hated such movies) and they came back traumatized. It made a big impression on me.

Years later it was meant to have it’s TV debut at 11:30 at night on a Saturday, but was yanked after one of Senator Charles Percy’s twin daughters had been stabbed to death in the bedroom she shared with her sister (a murder that I believe was never resolved or explained), which was front page news all over the country. Finally, a few years after that it did debut on late night TV. I thought it was brilliantly done, but the main thing I was left with was a feeling of sadness and loneliness, similar to what I felt after seeing “Silence of the Lambs” the first time. How can you explain such twistedness, how can such a mind and imagination be explained? Or explained away once you’ve experienced it?

The name Crane...it's a bird, and Norman stuffs birds.

More underwear talk:

At the Bates Motel, after Marion is back in her room (after meeting with Norman), she decides she's going to go back home to return the money - and she's back to wearing white underwear.

Evidently the color of the underwear is significant.

Since "good guys wear white," Marion is seen as a good person not only in wanting to return the money, but also earlier at the film's beginning in wanting to be with Sam at that Phoenix hotel.

She's in black when she's at home with the stolen money.

One thing I don't get is how suspicious she's acting and acting like she's in a big hurry to get rid of her car, etc., and the cop acts suspicious, but basically nothing happens. She acts in a very suspicious/guilty manner and she doesn't seem to even worry too much about getting caught.

I also don't think it's even remotely possible that she's going to get away with the crime.

As a boy, watching this scene for the first time when it was shown on TV, I was unexpectedly aroused by John Gavin, shirtless, in dark dress pants with a leather belt. That particular look has been a huge fetish for me ever since. As an image, it might even be stronger and sexier for me in black & white than color.

Anyone else?

The frequent sight of Janet Leigh’s fantastic tits in a lace bra turned all the men in the audience (and dykes I guess) into Norman Bates voyeurs, especially when Norman removes the picture so he can watch Marion disrobe. The audience is right there with him, hungry for another view of her, and that hunger is abruptly ended with her horrible, random death (unless you are a sadist).

This is why the film was subversive and still is, it is Hitchcock’s favorite trick of implicating the audience into acts of perversion they are then punished for.

Tyler Perry is making an all black remake. Set to be released in 2025.

What amazes me is Psycho is the kind of audacious film a director would make at the start of his career. Hitch made Psycho at age 60! It and The Birds would've been a stunning grand finale to his storied career. Unfortunately he did go on to make a few past his sell by date.

Marion's escape is similar to Jimmy Stewart tailing Kim Novak in Vertigo, to me. He doesn't seem to hide himself at all. He follows right on her tail, he follows her car into an alley, parks some distance behind her. But she never sees him. Of course later we discover it's all a ruse and she was leading him on, and probably did see him---but as a detective, why does he behave in such an obvious way? Similarly, why does M. Crane not act more careful and not as obvious?

For a long time Psycho and The Searchers were the only Vera Miles movies I had seen and I thought she was the dullest actress who ever dulled. It wasn't until I saw Psycho II and some other films (like Back Street and Autumn Leaves) that I realized she could play deliciously mean cunts like few others. it's just a shame she wasn't given more to work with in this film. Maybe she's partially to blame too, because Julianne Moore turned Lila into a more interesting character, using pretty much the same lines.

The Birds has grown in stature. If I'm not mistaken I think it got mixed reviews. Certain respected critics hated it.

Someone has seen her. Someone always sees a girl with $40,000.

[quote]Unfortunately he did go on to make a few past his sell by date.

R86 - I just saw Frenzy (a film he made in the 1970s) a week ago in NY, and while I originally saw it years ago on cable, seeing it now on the big screen reminded me how amazingly well crafted (and how dark and cynical) that film is. There are some remarkable moments in it, and that's a film Hitchcock made when he was in his 70s.

R88 I guess dull in in the eye of the beholder because I think Vera Miles is very vivacious and full of life in The Searchers. She was an actress who could do anger/rage very well (some can't). But at other times I do find her a little boring.

I don't think she would have been right for Vertigo. She was too down to earth, and also too lacking in glamour or mystery. She would have been better as Judy than as Madeleine, probably. Also I find Novak much more sensuous and gorgeous, and that works for the character.

Vera Miles was very good in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance! But I think with Wayne, Stewart and Marvin in there, as well as Edmond O'Brien, sometimes I forget she was in it.

Vera Miles is an absolute hoot in Psycho II. A film much better than it has any right to be.

Vera Miles could be funny too. What's that film where she imitates Jayne Mansfield's squeal?

R87 — Because they are both in the compulsive grip of an obsession. So their behavior isn’t rational, it’s as if they are in a trance — Stewart in a trance of sexual obsession, and perhaps Leigh in the same grip re John Gavin, as well as over-weening greed.

Her boss and their customers traffic in big sums and she suddenly wants some. Wants some more Gavin cock too, so she had to pay for it to get him out of his marriage.

R95 I think that was Betsy Drake, in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter.

r89, yes, The Birds was roundly panned when it first came out, especially because of all the crazy pre-opening publicity Hitch did himself and with Tippi posing with big black crows.

I think, free of all that garish PR now, the film can be appreciated more for the curiosity it is.

Hitchcock did sometimes direct TV films that weren't associated with his show. Like this one, Incident at a Corner (from the anthology, Startime, sponsored by Alcoa) with Vera Miles and George Peppard, 1960. There used to be a better print of it on YouTube.

Bosley Crowther liked The Birds. Stanley Kauffman (New Republic) hated it.

Sorry, I probably exaggerated when I said The Birds was "roundly panned" but IIRC it was definitely a disappointment to most reviewers who found it gimmicky.

R101 No, you didn't exaggerate too much. Very few critics gave it a rave, but even more to the point, nobody seemed to think it was a serious film. Except maybe Cahiers du Cinema. I'm looking at some reviews on Wikipedia.

[quote] Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times was among the critics who panned the film, writing that Hitchcock "was once widely quoted as saying he hated actors. After his 1960 Psycho and now The Birds, it must be fairly obvious that he has extended his abhorrence to the whole human race. For reasons hardly justified either dramatically or aesthetically, the old master has become a master of the perverse. He has gone all out for shock for shock's sake, and it is too bad".

[quote] Variety published a mixed assessment, writing that while the film was "slickly executed and fortified with his characteristic tongue-in-cheek touches", Hitchcock "deals more provocatively and effectively in human menace. A fantasy framework dilutes the toxic content of his patented terror-tension formula, and gives the picture a kind of sci-fi exploitation feel, albeit with a touch of production gloss".

[quote] Brendan Gill of The New Yorker called the film "a sorry failure. Hard as it may be to believe of Hitchcock, it doesn't arouse suspense, which is, of course, what justifies and transforms the sadism that lies at the heart of every thriller. Here the sadism is all too nakedly, repellently present".

Janet Leigh's greatest work was being Academy Award Winner Jamie Lee Curtis' mother!

R23 True but in 1960 audiences needed it.

R104 Okay, I'll buy that. But I think maybe there were other ways to convey the information, without a lecture? I guess it was convenient, anyhow.

R105, I’m not sure that the scene is conveying information as much as it is showing how people back away from and try to rationalize things that are deeply horrifying.

My mother's doctor gave these to me on the day of my wedding. Freddy was furious when he found out I'd taken tranquillizers.

[quote]R52 Interesting that now the word transvestite is considered derogatory

According to who?

“Transvestite” is part of Trans.

According to wiki

Oh! Wikipedia!

Well, that’s the last word, isn’t it?

Please, it was 1960, he was just mentally retarded

I saw it on television/video for years, but finally seeing it on a large screen really is something else.

This is kind of random but on topic. My favorite moment in the movie Scream(1996) is when Billy Loomis reveals himself as Ghostface by using the famous quote: "We all go a little mad sometimes" right before he shoots some guy in the chest. Skeet Ulrich looked and sounded so sexy when he said it. Much sexier than when Anthony Perkins said it.

R98- Wrong.

I just read the original 1963 New York Times review of The Birds today and they gave it a good review. Not great but good.

That has already been mentioned. The reviews were mixed. It wasn't a critical triumph.

It was the first time I had ever heard the words fruit cellar.

You think I'm fruity, do you boy?

Fruit cellar aka Root cellar

Don't be silly, of *course* there's a Madame Alexander doll!

The car in the lake that stopped sinking before it was submerged! Then it proceeded.

I guess Janet Leigh wasn’t everyone’s first choice.

[quote]Hitchcock's producer Herbert Coleman, not interested in Janet Leigh for the role of "Marion Crane," preferred the beautiful Maureen O'Sullivan.

On the subject of Hitchcock… why does Doris Day wear a huge safety pin on her lapel in THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH?

Was that a fashion trend??

Crane needs to act suspicious and the cop needs to be suspicious because Hitchcock is using that sequence to add important tone and texture to the vibe, and the narrative. Movie characters often do things not out of verisimilitude but to create the desired experience for the movie audience.

I caught this episode of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour the other night and thought the name Jeanette Nolan seemed familiar. Turns out she was one of the voices of Mrs. Bates. I think she may have done the voice in the final scene. Hard to tell. The other one was Virginia Gregg, who was in the Masks episode of the Twilight Zone.

Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho and The Birds have a common theme - surveillance.

Voyeurism, r125.

I'm late...and you have to put your shoes on.

[quote]thought the name Jeanette Nolan seemed familiar

Turn in your gay card

r128 I was never into Westerns. I see now that she played Rose's mother on the Golden Girls. Also she was married to John McIntire who played the sheriff in Psycho. I love those old workhorse character actors, God bless em'.

Jeanette Nolan worked constantly in television, eventually starring in her own short-lived series ("Dirty Sally"). She was a fine character actress, but she was also prone to overacting. She milked almost every scene she was in. She plays Lady Macbeth in Orson Welles' 1948 movie of "Macbeth," and her mad scene is one of the funniest things I've ever seen, albeit unintentionally so. But then that entire movie is insane.

R34 wins for most original comment . I never thought of that , but of course I never thought of a lot of things .

I think Psycho was the first movie ( that I can remember ) about nobody gets in late .

I love these threads. If you don’t just fuck off and don’t read

You make respectability sound... disrespectful.

I think Marilyn would have been a good Hitchcock blonde, but he would probably be concerned about her reputation for unreliability. I can see her in The Birds or Marnie.

Psycho was a TV project reworked for the big screen (similar to Mulholland Drive) so MM probably wouldn't have been interested.

Janet Leigh also made a courageous choice in the lurid Touch Of Evil. Those two films elevated her to icon status.

R83, yes! A shirtless man in dress pants and belt is erotic for me, too - more erotic than full nudity in many cases. I think it’s the implication that he’s either dressing or undressing that makes it titillating.

There's also a thing about parents that runs through Psycho.

Marion has to have clandestine hookups with Sam at the hotel because she lives with her mother.

When Marion gets back to work, she asks the coworker if anyone called. And she says, "Teddy called. And mother called to see if Teddy called."

Then there's that gross wealthy guy with the newly married daughter who's basically buying that daughter's love.

And of course Marion learns from Norman that "Mother - what's the expression- isn't quite herself today."

Oh Hitchcock and mothers: Marnie, Strangers on a Train, Lydia in The Birds (and Melanie complaining to Mitch about her mother), Roger's clueless mother in North by Northwest ("You boys aren't REALLY trying to kill my son, are you?"). And isn't there a line in Vertigo, "Mother's here."

[quote]I think Marilyn would have been a good Hitchcock blonde

No. Hitchcock blondes were icy. Marilyn was anything but.

R136 Ingrid Bergman, Madeleine Carroll, Janet Leigh and Doris Day weren't icy.

Her bra was enormous.

I thought Madeleine Carroll in The 39 Steps was quite icy. Until Robert Donat warmed her up.

R135, to say nothing of Claude Rains's mother in Notorious. Hitchcock's last sympathetic mother character was in Shadow of a Doubt. His own mother, about whom he said almost nothing, died before that film was released. After that, all the mothers were pretty awful.

PSYCHO is as nonsensical as his most of his other films, so highly "stylized" that they have little relation to any human behavior or any occurrences that would ever actually happen in real life.

R140 That's not strictly true. Jessie Royce Landis (as Grace Kelly's mom) in To Catch A Thief was pretty cool. Doris Day was a nice mother in The Man Who Knew Too Much. Vera Miles in The Wrong Man was sympathetic. The mother in Stage Fright (1950) was very nice (Sybil Thorndike as Jane Wyman's mother). I thought Jessica Tandy was sympathetic in The Birds.

[quote]Ingrid Bergman, Madeleine Carroll, Janet Leigh and Doris Day weren't icy.

I’d disagree r137 — The first three were indeed cold in Hitch's films. Doris Day wasn’t but she was a mom.

R140 And Shirley MacLaine in The Trouble With Harry was nice.

R143 Ingrid Bergman wasn't cold. She was repressed, in Spellbound, not cold, and she got over it. In Notorious she played an emotional woman with a lot of passion for Cary Grant. In Under Capricorn she played an alcoholic, I can't remember if she was particularly cold. Madeleine Carroll was ladylike, not cold. Anne Baxter wasn't cold in I Confess, either.

Maybe Tippi Hedren was icy at the start of The Birds. But even reserved Grace Kelly, at her most reserved, I would not call icy.

And of course Marnie (Tippi Hedren) was cold---frigid. But that wasn't typical for a Hitchcock heroine.

OK fine. You’re right r137. Hitchcock was never, ever known for casting cool blondes. He avoided them. His blondes were all smoldering volcanos. And Marilyn Monroe would have been the essential, quintessential Hitchcock blonde.

R148 Now you say "cool" which is very different from "cold." I'll agree to cool. But mainly for Carroll, Kelly, and Hedren.

I never suggested anything about Marilyn Monroe at all, or said she would be right for Hitchcock. That was another poster.

I wasn't cold! Or even cool! But I did wear a bad blonde wig.

There was also Priscilla Lane, in Saboteur, who wasn't a cold character!

Marilyn probably could have played (not as well as Shirley MacLaine) Jennifer in The Trouble With Harry, if she had to play anything Hitchcockian--if she played it straight, like she played the part in The Misfits, and not as a sexpot.

MM was simply incapable of playing the charming ordinariness of Shirley's character in The Trouble with Harry.

Apparently Grace Kelly was first choice for Jennifer, acc. to a Hitchcock website.

Associate producer of The Trouble With Harry, Herbert Coleman, went to New York to check out Carol Haney, who was appearing in The Pajama Game, but it was a performance where MacLaine went on for her as her understudy.

A number of books and articles on Hitchcock report a comment that he supposedly made about Marilyn Monroe to the effect that she was extremely unfortunate because she wore her sexuality blatantly, as part of her image and brand. To Hitchcock this was vulgar if not actually disgusting (he had an Edwardian-era Catholic childhood in Britain, after all).

Hitchcock was titillated by ‘secret’ sex, the cool blond who was a nympho in bed (think Grace Kelly giving Cary Grant a coquettish kiss at her door after freezing him all through dinner), the suave, confident beautiful man every woman wanted to fuck who was secretly gay (i.e. Cary Grant).

Hitchcock was top of the Hollywood heap in Hollywood for 35 years, he hosted and attended many dinner parties, loved gossip and knew what was REALLY going on behind the scenes. He loved to use this info both to make his actors uncomfortable and to put something over on the audience that worked as entertainment but was a over their heads., amd which had gotten past his producers and the censors.

For instance it gave him a great deal of personal pleasure when preparing ROPE, a veiled story about homosexual lovers, to have gay screenwriter Arthur Laurents do the script, use his lover Farley Granger as one of the stars, use gay actor John Dall as the other star, and he wanted Cary Grant as the teacher who has influenced them. Grant stayed far away from that one, but then Hitchcock perversely miscast James Stewart, who if he understood the inplications of what was going on in the script, would have scrupulously ignored them. Hitchcock probably enjoyed his discomfort with a role all wrong for him, and enjoyed doing a gay story in plain site of the censors and the American public.

Hitchcock was as sexually repressed and fucked up as he was brilliant. To our benefit.

[quote]I thought Jessica Tandy was sympathetic in The Birds.

R142 - Annie Hayworth would strongly disagree with that. Lydia is controlling and possessive - and finally embraces Melanie at the end of the movie only when she's in bad shape and she can "mother" her.

Also, the other ones you cite don't undo the ones I that mentioned in R135, in addition to the mother in Notorious that R140 brought up (and whom I forgot about).

Another thing: while I focused on mothers in my R135 post, I also mentioned "parents" in general.

Take The Man Who Knew Too Much. Yes Doris Day is a nice mother. But the father is a bit problematic. Early in the movie we're told that Day was a performer who loved being on the stage but was made to quit working as an entertainer to be a stay-at-home housewife/mother at her husband's insistence. (Essentially he silenced her public "voice.") So it's established early on that he has control over her. Later when he tells her their son was abducted, he immediately sedates her and consequently denies her the ability to react in a normal way - basically denying her emotions. Again, that control thing.

And some SPOILERS for those who haven't seen that movie: It's not a coincidence that when Doris Day stops the assassination at the Albert Hall, she does so using her voice. And when she saves her son at the embassy, she does so singing really loudly - again, the voice that her husband silenced being used in a public place.

So, yes, there are certainly good mothers and fathers in Hitchcock films - but oh the ones that are not.

You haven't mentioned Marion Lorne, Robert Walker's kooky mother in Strangers on a Train.

As for Marilyn in a Hitchcock film - he would never have hired her. Her reputation for lateness and absences preceded her. Not to mention her need for on-set acting coaches. Hitch would not have tolerated any of that.

How many of you actually saw this in theaters at the time of its release. Was the audience truly frightened and stunned?

Tippi is icy as hell in Marnie.

R156 I was just disagreeing with this: "Hitchcock's last sympathetic mother character was in Shadow of a Doubt. His own mother, about whom he said almost nothing, died before that film was released. After that, all the mothers were pretty awful."

Very incisive reading of “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” R156. Showing that as in “Rope” and “Vertigo” Hitchcock got great pleasure in hiring popular, “normal,” all-American Jimmy Stewart to play some of his most fucked up male characters.

[quote] Early in the movie we're told that Day was a performer who loved being on the stage but was made to quit working as an entertainer to be a stay-at-home housewife/mother at her husband's insistence.

R156 I'm sorry, that's not quite accurate.. In fact the Draytons (the kidnappers) mention at the restaurant that Jo appeared at the London Palladium a few years before. They ask her when she's going to come back, and she says the problem is it's hard to have a singing career in Indianapolis, Indiana. Then she says they--the McKennas--*could* live in New York --very pointedly, to Ben. He says it would be hard for his patients to come all the way from Indianapolis to New York for appointments. And it's left at that. So this is something they really haven't resolved.

Because of you cunts I watched the police stop scene. It is absolutely brilliant in its simplicity. No gimmicks, no antics just good ol fashion acting and suspense. I forgot how good Psycho was. Marion Crane is a nervous wreck trying not to act nervous that’s why she seems suspicious. And the officer randomly sees a woman asleep in her car, not completely unusual in 1960 but a bit odd. But he becomes suspicious because she seems suspicious in the way she is answering; she is passively confrontational. It’s all very subtle but she is anxious as fuck. Psycho couldn’t be made today because she would have a fkin smart phone with an alarm. Simpler times were ripe for suspenseful filmmaking.

Also I don’t remember the order of events. Do we know she has stolen the money when the police stop scene occurs?

Yes. She takes the money and runs.

Her voice is so different in that scene.

R141 I disagree. To me his films are rooted in human behavior with a highly stylized POV. They are snapshot of the most neurotic or charismatic people one might find in society. Does not mean the lack of realism. Many say Bonnie and Clyde is the birth of new cinema and modern filmmaking. I say it’s Psycho.

Question: was psycho a part of everyday vernacular as it is today before the release of this film or was it seen as a fancy word.

R156 I forgot something else. Jo says, "It's been four years since I've played London" when they touch down in London, and her fans are at the airport, and she's amazed they've shown up. Hank (the son) is ten. It means she continued to perform, after her marriage and Hank's birth.

[quote]To me his films are rooted in human behavior with a highly stylized POV. They are snapshot of the most neurotic or charismatic people one might find in society. Does not mean the lack of realism.

How can you say that? There are multiple ridiculous things that happen in PSYCHO and VERTIGO, to use only two examples, that would never conceivably happen in real life, not in a million years. And where is the real suspense in a suspense movie if it disregards reality to that degree?

R168 You have to break it down for me further. How are they so unrealistic? And were you alive when these films were made/released?

Shadow of a Doubt and The Wrong Man seem quite realistic. Lifeboat is plausible. The Paradine Case and I Confess are plausible. Some other Hitchcock movies are more like adventure movies, which is fine, too.

Do we know she has stolen the money when the police stop scene occurs?

She has the envelope of money in her open handbag in the car. She turns away and hides it from the cop when he asks to see her driver's license.

Just driving around with the open handbag full of stolen money. Doesn't even hide it under the seat or in the trunk. Then exchanging the car for a new one, while the cop watches her do it. She acts very strangely.

[quote]she says the problem is it's hard to have a singing career in Indianapolis, Indiana. Then she says they--the McKennas--*could* live in New York --very pointedly, to Ben. He says it would be hard for his patients to come all the way from Indianapolis to New York for appointments. And it's left at that. So this is something they really haven't resolved.

But it is resolved because Ben made the decision to be in Indianapolis and that's that. His wife may be unhappy about it, but it doesn't come across that they're going to discuss the issue further.

Oh, here's another thing for you guys to consider re Man Who Knew Too Much as it relates to women being controlled: the family vacation is in Morocco, a Muslim country where many of the women are veiled. Remember on the bus when a woman's hijab accidentally come off and it creates an incident. Clearly that scene is there for a reason.

If Marion had been black and answered the cop like that and attempted to start up her car as she does, she'd been dragged out of the car and handcuffed at least.

R174 I don’t think so. You are speculating. This is 1960s SoCal. She would have been pursued however.

R173 Yeah no I never interpreted it like that. She performed as recently a four years ago, she's not done. She did have a kid and it was probably her decision to stay home for a while when the kid was 0-6. (That was the norm, then. Not day care.)

She made a decision at some point to be a mother. Seems to love her child. Anyway, you said that he insisted she give up her career and stay home, and nowhere did he say that in the movie, nor is it stated by anyone. It may have been her idea to put the career on hold for a while.

My interpretation is that they have an unresolved conflict and it could go either way. He may even agree to move to New York, eventually. It's *deliberately* left vague in the movie so the audience can have it both ways for the moment.

R163, Also, a woman sleeping in her car suggests homelessness, vagrancy and very likely prostitution, another reason he would have stopped her. An adult audience in 1960 would have picked up in that immediately.

And having the cop be attractive, hyper-masculine and unreadable (the sunglasses) would have increased the sexual tension, which pervy Hitchcock would have loved. You don’t know if the cop is going to arrest her or try to fuck her, which jacks up the suspense.

Look the bottom line is that in THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, Stewart is a controlling husband, who considers his career more important than hers, something she goes along with, but perhaps with reluctance, or at least ambivalence.

The depiction of this marriage has been championed by feminist film critics as critiqueing ‘50s norms, which it certainly does, another way Hitchcock was subversive in a way that went over the heads of much of his audience. But maybe not the frustrated married women who made THE FEMININE MYSTIUE a best-seller six years later.

MYSTIQUE

Janet Leigh doesn't blink when she is talking to the cop.

R155- Was Hitchcock a homo?

I can handle a sick old woman.

By the way, regarding the cellar. California houses don't usually have cellars, do they? (Is that where the motel and house are? I don't know.)

The movie set Psycho in the fictional town of Fairvale, CA, with the Bates Motel around 20 miles away via the old highway.

[quote]You have to break it down for me further. How are they so unrealistic? And were you alive when these films were made/released?

See R172. Also, PSYCHO has that ridiculous bit about the note that's thrown into the toilet, so ridiculous that even a friend of mine who loves the film overall can't accept it. Oh, and it's painfully obvious in retrospect that -- SPOILER ALERT! -- the voice of Norman's mother is not being produced by Anthony Perkins, so that's a big fake-out and totally unfair to the audience. And there are several other WTF??? moments throughout the film.

As for VERTIGO, let's start with what happens within the first two or three minutes of the movie: James Stewart's character falls during the shooting chase over the rooftops and ends up HANGING BY HIS FINGERS over the side of a tall building. In one shot, he looks down to the ground and we see that he would almost certainly be killed if he fell. But the next thing we see is a flash forward to him recovering from a relatively minor injury. Again, WTF???!!!!! And all of that is not the mention all of the beyond incredible stuff that happens with the Kim Novak character.

I'll stop there, is that enough?

You're not very bright are you, R185?

Here is a clip from psycho 2. Was this woman really his mom or just a fraudster looking for money.

Is the original 1930s version of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH worth a look?

Did Hitchcock want to work with Doris Day and thus made the mother a former singer whose singing played such a major role in the climax of the film? Were other singing actresses considered for the role? Just curious if Doris or the singing aspect of the mother came first to Hitchcock. Also, I wonder about the genesis of the song "Que Sera, Sera." Was it composed specifically for the film?

R186, you are a living example of how someone who doesn't have the brains to hold a rational argument resorts to slinging insults instead. Since you obviously can't explain what you think is wrong with my objections to PSYCHO and VERTIGO, you should have just stayed out of the conversation.

R185, Psycho and Vertigo aren't about objective "reality." They are meant to pull you into fantasies and obsessions. And not just any fantasies and obsessions, but incredibly sick necrophiliac ones. Vertigo, in particular, is suffocatingly unreal. It's just one amazing plot hole after another. But then the whole movie is about denying reality.

One of the few cases where the remake is even better than the original.

R191 you are joking right?

There's a Psycho looking house on a hill a few miles from me. It's on River Road, pity I've never seen it in the fog.

R188 Doris Day was approached by Alfred Hitchcock at a party and he told her he had just seen her in “Storm Warning,” and he hoped to work with her one day.

For those who don’t know the movie, “Storm Warning” is a fascinating, bizarre little film noir about a town taken over by the KKK (though they are never named). Ginger Rogers is a model who gets off a bus at night in a jerk water town to visit her younger, just married sister Doris Day. On her way to meet Day at the bowling alley, she witnesses a lynch mob of men dragging a (white) man out of the local jail and killing him. Imagine Ginger’s chagrin when she realizes that Doris’s sexy new husband (Steve Cochran) is one of the head lynchers?

This is a spoiler but knowing it won’t encroach on your enjoyment of the film — it ends at a massive Klan rally at which Doris Day is murdered (after walking in on her husband in the process of raping her sister) while Ginger Rogers is flogged with a bullwhip but is saved by DA Ronald Reagan — you gotta see it. But Doris gives a good, straightforward performance in it, and it impressed Hitchcock.

Storm Warning is a rehash of A Streetcar Named Desire but Ginger is no Vivien Leigh.

Janet Leigh trading in her car for another because she was a criminal and didn't want to be caught.. Used car salesman was such a misogynicst, "tired of the sight of it".

And while Doris does save he ambassador in the Albert Hall and by singing at the residence, Lucy Drayton also tells Hank to whistle as loud as he can. While she wasn't a mother, it does seem the women are doing most of the saving.

[quote]Psycho and Vertigo aren't about objective "reality." They are meant to pull you into fantasies and obsessions. And not just any fantasies and obsessions, but incredibly sick necrophiliac ones. Vertigo, in particular, is suffocatingly unreal. It's just one amazing plot hole after another. But then the whole movie is about denying reality.

Your interpretation of these two films is so thoughtful and intelligent that it almost reads as convincing, but I still do not understand how there can be any suspense or interest in a movie in which ANYTHING can happen, no matter how utterly ridiculous. Also, I would think it would be extremely easy to write such a movie, where you don't have to pay any attention whatsoever to believable plot points, etc. And how can anyone be "pulled into" a film when, in one scene after another, things keep happening to which the natural response is, "WTF???!!!!"

Martin Balsam was great as Arbogast.

I swear he was in almost everything from the 1950's to the 1980's- 12 Angry Men, Cape Fear, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Seve Days in May, A Thousand Clowns, Catch 22, Tora! Tora! Tora!, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Murder on the Orient Express, All the President's Men, St. Elmo's Fire, The Delta Force, and Cape Fear

Martin Balsam was a hot daddy!

R198, i know Vertigo has always been a divisive movie, but it not one in which “anything can happen.” It is—at least to me— psychologically consistent. Kim Novak is so great in it. She’s beautiful, she’s vulnerable, she just wants to be loved for who she is, but she’s of no interest to Scotty. Of course he’s going to kill her because she can’t be what he wants. No one can be who he wants.

Now, “North by Northwest” is where anything can happen. I defy anyone to summarize that plot. It’s just amazingly irrelevant.

R163-, I find her character very sympathetic. I think we can all relate to her somehow- not just because we're gay males and we identify with woman at times.

R174 and if Marion had been a one-armed albino black woman with bone in her nose? Well. that really would have set the cop on edge.

North by Northwest > Vertigo

Martin Balsam was also in the Tippi screen tests.

R188 Yes, Que Sera Sera was written for the film, by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.

Hitchcock didn't let John Michael Hayes see the original film, just gave him the bare bones of the plot and some plot points. Wanted him to write the film based on only that and no more.

I prefer the remake.

Psycho - that is what my neighbor is.

R188 But yes, the original is worth seeing. There are some big changes, such as the couple is English, the film begins at a ski resort in Europe, and the child is an adolescent girl rather than a ten year old boy.

[quote]I know Vertigo has always been a divisive movie, but it not one in which “anything can happen.” It is—at least to me— psychologically consistent.

It may (or may not) be psychologically consistent, but there are several aspects of the plot that make no sense -- beginning, as I've already noted, with the first few minutes of the film. Can anyone come up with any sort of realistic explanation of exactly what happens to James Stewart's character in the moments following that shot of him hanging off the side of his building by his fingers? Does he fall several floors to the ground and miraculously survive with only relatively minor injuries? Please don't tell me that someone saves him by pulling him back up onto the roof, because there's no sign of anyone being close enough to do that -- plus, if that WERE what happened, then he would have no injuries at all.

Cary Grant was up on the roof and we know he is a good roof climber from To Catch a Thief. He came and helped Jimmy.

[quote] Can anyone come up with any sort of realistic explanation of exactly what happens to James Stewart's character in the moments following that shot of him hanging off the side of his building by his fingers? Does he fall several floors to the ground and miraculously survive with only relatively minor injuries? Please don't tell me that someone saves him by pulling him back up onto the roof, because there's no sign of anyone being close enough to do that -- plus, if that WERE what happened, then he would have no injuries at all.

R209 He probably hung there until some other cops realized he was there and called for the fire rescue squad, who had him jump into one of those round life nets. Which is how he hurt his back (he's wearing a corset in the next scene).

You're not very bright, are you R209? The issues you have with the film don't merit an argument because they are all contingent on your own imagination and suspension of disbelief

The two scenes:

1.

Scene 2.

One of the biggest mysteries in "Vertigo" is the sudden disappearance of Midge from the movie.

Psycho was not supposed to be a television property. However, Hitchcock did use the crew and production facilities of his television show to film it.

Midge went out for drinks with Birdie Coonan.

Birdie was missed more than Midge.

Midge is in the alternate ending

[quote] Janet Leigh doesn't blink when she is talking to the cop.

R180 She also doesn’t blink after she’s stabbed to death in the shower, leading to one of the greatest visual overlays in movie history.

My eldergayness keeps getting worse. Here’s the link.

[quote] I think Marilyn would have been a good Hitchcock blonde, but he would probably be concerned about her reputation for unreliability. I can see her in The Birds or Marnie.

R133 Not all the birds in “The Birds” were animated. Some were mechanical, but some were real. I can’t imagine Marilyn with a bunch of live birds on the set.

I’ve often thought the worst job in Hollywood must have been being the set and costume cleaners for “The Birds.” I don’t think you can house train birds.

Anne Heche is wonderful in the remake. Julianne Moore, Vince Vaughn, Viggo Mortensen, William H. Macy… you couldn’t find a better cast.

The last part of the shower scene had to be re-filmed because Alma Hitchcock noticed Janet Leigh breathing.

R222 Obviously, you could...

I can see MM playing Madam Blanche in FAMILY PLOT, had she lived longer. I can’t think of other Hitchcock roles that jump out as being a great fit for her.

Maybe Charlie in SHADOW OF A DOUBT if she were younger and ramped down the sexiness.

[quote]Maybe Charlie in SHADOW OF A DOUBT if she were younger and ramped down the sexiness.

I can't imagine more inappropriate casting.

R223 you can still see her chest move slightly in the final shot. Though I suppose it could be explained away by saying it was her last breath. You can also see the outline of breasts when her hand grabs the shower curtain. Another myth is that you never see the knife enter the body. There is a shot of the knife piercing the stomach. I read they made a fake torso.

[quote]R226 I can't imagine more inappropriate casting.

What about you, cast as a nice person?

That would be a worse fit.

Originally when you used to see the movie back in the 60s and 70s there was a slight black bar on the bottom of the screen during one of the shots in the shower where I guess it was thought too much tittie was revealed.

Has anyone seen Hitchcock with Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren?

[quote]And how can anyone be "pulled into" a film when, in one scene after another, things keep happening to which the natural response is, "WTF???!!!!"

Most people just want to go along for the ride with a Hitchcock film, r198. It's a work of fiction, not a documentary.

I, for one, thought that Hitchcock film with Anthony Hopkins was absolutely dreadful, r230.

The murder I find most disturbing in a Hitchcock film is Guy Haines's wife's, in Strangers On A Train (Laura Elliott, aka Kasey Rogers). Robert Walker plays such a sick character and her death is so unnecessary--sort of a thrill kill for the Walker character. It just creeps me out.

R232 What about the Toby Jones HBO film, The Girl

[quote]Maybe Charlie in SHADOW OF A DOUBT if she were younger and ramped down the sexiness.

Teresa Wright was perfect in the part of Charlie.

R230 I thought the film had some interesting details. eg I did not know before that Hitch used a woman in black face to play Mother in the shower sequence. But it had some bad casting. eg. Helen Mirren was too sexy and too tall as Alma.

[quote]He probably hung there until some other cops realized he was there and called for the fire rescue squad, who had him jump into one of those round life nets. Which is how he hurt his back (he's wearing a corset in the next scene).

Except it seems very clear there would not be nearly enough time for any of that, as we see him literally hanging by his fingers from the edge of the roof, and there's a strong implication that he's about to lost his grip and fall at any second.

The real life Alma always looked to me like a bulldagger dyke, in pics, anyway.

[quote]You're not very bright, are you [R209]? The issues you have with the film don't merit an argument because they are all contingent on your own imagination and suspension of disbelief

The extent to which I'm willing to suspend disbelief has nothing to do with how "bright I am," so please stop with the insults. And of course, I'll note that you flung an insult rather than providing a rational answer to my question, because you're clearly unable to do so.

[quote]Most people just want to go along for the ride with a Hitchcock film, [R198]. It's a work of fiction, not a documentary.

I understand, but to me, unless a film is conceived as an absurdist drama or comedy, it's not allowed to throw all logic and sense out the window. Not even if the film is labeled as "highly stylized.".

Thanks to the person above who posted the first scene of VERTIGO. Seeing it again only confirms my feelings that it's beyond ridiculous to think James Stewart's character could have escaped that situation without falling to the ground and dying, as that cop did right before him. So I guess you could say that movie lost me within the first three minutes, though heaven knows there's lots of equally ridiculous stuff that happens thereafter.

Re Vertigo, I can understand why the opening is really problematic for people who like their movies straightforward and realistic. But I would argue that Vertigo is designed to be dreamlike and shouldn't be experienced the way you would a regular drama.

Scottie (Stewart) isn't shown being rescued from the rooftop because he's essentially suspended throughout the whole film and on one level or another he's hanging on for dear life.

We often see him either loosing his balance or falling, in his real life and in his dreams. At times he/we see spirals - even spirals in Madeleine's hair (as well as Carlotta's in the painting in the museum). The idea of spirals is that they can be dizzying in a way that can lead to losing one's balance and falling.

The last image of the film is Scottie with his arms and hands outstretched - as if he can now (two hours after the movie began) [bold]finally[/bold] let go of that grip - even though it results in his being emotionally destroyed.

Oh, one more thing, back to my earlier topic of mothers (and mother figures). In Vertigo, when Scottie is in the mental institution and the Bel Geddes character goes to visit him, she says something to the effect, "It's okay, Mother's here."

Whenever I wind up losing a friendship with a beautiful str8 boy, I feel like Midge, walking away from Scotty for the last time.

Barbra Bel Geddes is funny talking about how Hitch directed her. See 15.15.

Kim looks great in her interview at R244.

Barbara did 4 Alfred Hitchcock Presents including the classic Lamb to the Slaughter.

[quote]One of the few cases where the remake is even better than the original.

Frequently, what is seen as the “original” is just a great remake of a film that’s been forgotten

What do you see as the “original” “Wizard of Oz”? Or “A Star is Born”? Or “The Great Gatsby”?

In the remake, does Viggo or Vince play John Gavin?

[quote]Re Vertigo, I can understand why the opening is really problematic for people who like their movies straightforward and realistic. But I would argue that Vertigo is designed to be dreamlike and shouldn't be experienced the way you would a regular drama.

But if you accept that the movie is "dreamlike" throughout and "shouldn't be experienced the way you would a regular drama," how can that possibly work for a suspense movie? How can anyone be shocked or thrilled by anything that occurs in a movie like that, in which things happen that would never in a million years happen in real life? As you saying that we're not supposed to see the characters in VERTIGO as living in the world we know, but rather in some dreamlike, bizarre, alternate reality (or unreality) where literally anything an happen, no matter how incredible or illogical?

Jesus, r249, just let it go already. I think you've picked every last nit there is.

He was flirting with you, you know. He must have noticed my ring...

I've made my point as clearly as I can, R250. No need to post further, except to say that, in my opinion, the original critical consensus on VERTIGO was right on, and the reassessment of the film as one of the greatest of all time is inexplicable to me. Really, to each their own.

[quote]R248 In the remake, does Viggo or Vince play John Gavin?

John Gavin is played by Viggo.

[quote]Jesus, [R249], just let it go already. I think you've picked every last nit there is.

Pay no attention to that twisted whiner. He’s all over the theater threads, usually complaining about casting (mostly because they’re the wrong color for his tastes and sensibilities)

Vince Vaughn plays Norman Bates.

That poster to whom r254 refers is always very literal-minded on the theatre gossip threads. Just doesn't get that many people have visceral and emotional reactions to art that can't be rationalized. Yet are valid reactions.

I couldn't help but notice Janet Leigh's Remington Rand typewriter at R251. Remington Rand and Stopette deodorant were two major sponsors of "What's My Line?" in the 1950s.

[quote]I've made my point as clearly as I can, [R250]. No need to post further, except to say

R256 so basically that’s a nicely dressed way of saying one just doesn’t understand my racism.

[quote]That poster to whom [R254] refers is always very literal-minded on the theatre gossip threads. Just doesn't get that many people have visceral and emotional reactions to art that can't be rationalized. Yet are valid reactions.

Why don't you get it that I can recognize other people's positive reactions to VERTIGO and PSYCHO (in this thread) as "valid" even while posting that I don't understand or agree with those reactions? I'm well aware that many people love those movies, but I'm fee to ask why and to state my very different feelings about them.

R260 Because you keep going back and forth stating your opinion about films that are critically acclaimed, considering some of the best films of all time. I could see two or three post but you sound unhinged. You aren’t changing anyone mind.

[quote]Why don't you get it that I can recognize other people's positive reactions to VERTIGO and PSYCHO (in this thread) as "valid" even while posting that I don't understand or agree with those reactions?

No, r260. You're intentionally *invalidating* other people's positive reactions. Either you don't get that or you're being passive-aggressive.

I haven't been invalidating other people's positive reactions, I've been asking them to explain why huge plot holes and absolutely incredible occurrences in these films don't bother them. And the on real answer anyone gave was: " Many people have visceral and emotional reactions to art that can't be rationalized." Which is true as far as it goes, so I'll just have to leave it at that. But I'm not apologizing for asking those questions and bringing up those points in a thread that's all about PSYCHO. And as far as me having huge problems with "some of the best films of all time," I'm sure everyone here can think of films they hate that everyone else seems to love, and vice-versa.

[quote]I'm sure everyone here can think of films they hate that everyone else seems to love, and vice-versa.

Yes, r263, but we accept it and don't hijack threads with the childish nonsense repetition of "But why?" and "But how?".

They'll put him away now...as I should have...years ago. He was always...bad.

R264, the only reason I kept asking was that no one answered my specific questions about those plot holes and incredible happenings in the movies. But don't worry, I'm done with it.

R266 Are you done for real for real this time or for play?

Can we get back to Psycho? Please start another thread on "Hitchcock's Alleged Plot Holes and Unbelievable Sequences"

The Making of Psycho.

R238 Just for accuracy, he was hanging from a gutter, not the edge of the roof.

I can only guess since there was a uniformed policeman as well as a detective chasing a criminal over the rooftops, other police had already been informed or in fact were involved, and were on the ground below. Why would Scotty and the cop be up on a roof chasing a suspect without support? But I'm not insisting I'm right, I just answered with one theory.

I'm pretty sure Hitchcock could have put in a line about how Scotty was rescued but sometimes a story is better if you don't tell everything.

[quote]I can only guess since there was a uniformed policeman as well as a detective chasing a criminal over the rooftops, other police had already been informed or in fact were involved, and were on the ground below.

Fine, but how does that help Scotty, who absolutely seems about to fall to his death at any second? It's not as if the cops on the street had a net ready for him.

Thanks for the correction re the gutter rather than the roof, but of course that doesn't make the sequence any more plausible.

Not everyone falls to their death. Even if he fell 5 stories, or whatever it is, he could live. People have fallen out of planes and lived.

Not saying you're wrong but Hitchcock wasn't dumb so he must have wanted it to be left vague. He didn't have to. Maybe today you'd have a 20 minute sequence of him falling, bleeding, rushed to a hospital, operated on, and released, and the movie would run 3.5 hours.

What's the logic of trying to kill Cary Grant by sending him to a remote farming location so a crop duster plane can try to kill him with pesticides? They could have just shot him.

Girls, GIRLS...you're ALL caftan-wearing, soap-watching, porn-obsessed shut-ins living.on SSI in a trailer in Indiana.

You probably are.

[quote]Not saying you're wrong but Hitchcock wasn't dumb so he must have wanted it to be left vague. He didn't have to. Maybe today you'd have a 20 minute sequence of him falling, bleeding, rushed to a hospital, operated on, and released, and the movie would run 3.5 hours.

Yes, but there are many other ways Hitchcock could have immediately established Scotty's vertigo without making it look like he was JUST ABOUT to fall to his death. I think Hitch just wanted the drama of the shot so much that he didn't care if it made no sense that Scotty survives with only a relatively minor injury. It seems all of his movies are more about style than any sort of logic or credibility, and clearly, I personally do not respond to that sensibility.

[quote]r266 = But don't worry, I'm done with it.

Liar.

As has been pointed out, Scotty is hanging from a gutter, not the actual roof.

Obviously it detached, then popped free slowly every few feet as it wound around the building, gradually lowering him to the ground.

Oh thanks, R278. That makes perfect sense.

That was the first time I ever saw the customer high-pressure the salesman.

Remember the old W&W list over on the side, like there used to be? r278 would be on it.

Hitchcock filmed the detaching gutter descent in one long (seemingly) uninterrupted take… but it took 30 mins to slowly pan all the way around the building, which really undercut the story’s tension.

The shot was cut during previews.

Lots of psychos here today on DL

Today?

So did Janet Leigh keep her motel room unlocked with all that money lying around, or did Norman (or Mother) have a key by which to enter?

Or should I say, Marion?

I think Marion behaved like she wanted to get caught. She was so lax about everything.

R285, since Norman has killed before (and is otherwise detail-oriented) it seems safe to assume that he has a key.

Anyone who runs a motel would have access to all the rooms.

and the takeaway here is always lock your bathroom door when you have a shower.

I would love to play Norman Bates in the most epic modern re-imagining. I hope they do color blind casting.