Psycho+-+Notes+and+Trivia

**PSYCHO (1960)**
 * **Alfred Hitchcock bought the rights to the novel anonymously from Robert Bloch for only US$9,000. He then bought up as many copies of the novel as he could to keep the ending a secret.**
 * **One of the reasons Alfred Hitchcock shot the movie in black and white was he thought it would be too gory in color. But the main reason was that he wanted to make the film as inexpensively as possible (under $1 million). He also wondered if so many bad, inexpensively made, b/w "B" movies did so well at the box office, what would happen if a really good, inexpensively made, b/w movie was made.**
 * **Director Cameo: [Alfred Hitchcock] about four minutes in wearing a cowboy hat outside Marion's office.**
 * **Walt Disney refused to allow Alfred Hitchcock to film at Disneyland in the early 1960s because Hitchcock had made "that disgusting movie "Psycho".**
 * **In the opening scene, Marion Crane is wearing a white bra because Alfred Hitchcock wanted to show her as being "angelic". After she has taken the money, the following scene has her in a black bra because now she has done something wrong and evil. Similarly, before she steals the money, she has a white purse; after she's stolen the money, her purse is black.**
 * **First American film ever to show a toilet flushing on screen.**
 * **Joseph Stefano was adamant about seeing a toilet on-screen to display realism. He also wanted to see it flush. Alfred Hitchcock told him he had to "make it so" through his writing if he wanted to see it. Stefano wrote the scene in which Marion adds up the money, then flushes the paper down the toilet specifically so the toilet flushing was integral to the scene and therefore irremovable.**
 * **In order to implicate viewers as fellow voyeurs Alfred Hitchcock used a 50 mm lens on his 35 mm camera. This gives the closest approximation to the human vision. In the scenes where Norman is spying on Marion this effect is felt.**
 * **Alfred Hitchcock deferred his standard $250,000 salary in lieu of 60% of the film's net profits. His personal earnings from the film exceeded $15 million. Adjusted for inflation, that amount would now top $150 million in 2006 dollars.**
 * **Alfred Hitchcock was so pleased with the score written by Bernard Herrmann that he doubled the composer's salary to $34,501. Hitchcock later said, "33% of the effect of Psycho was due to the music."**
 * **SPOILER: The sound that the knife makes penetrating the flesh is actually the sound of a knife stabbing a casaba melon.**
 * **SPOILER: The blood was Bosco chocolate syrup.**
 * Filming the movie in black and white might have made it seem less gory (see other trivia), but it also might have seemed more real to viewers at the time who were used to seeing the news in black and white.**
 * SPOILER: **After the film's release Alfred Hitchcock received an angry letter from the father of a girl who refused to have a bath after seeing Les diaboliques (1955) and now refused to shower after seeing this film. Hitchcock sent a note back simply saying, "Send her to the dry cleaners."**
 * SPOILER: **The novel upon which the film is based was inspired by the true story of Ed Gein, a serial killer who was also the inspiration for Deranged (1974), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).**
 * SPOILER: **The stabbing scene in the shower is reported to have taken seven days to shoot using 70 different camera angles but only lasts 45 seconds in the movie.**

**What precedent does 'Psycho' have for the first surprise?**

**Very little. Audiences were shocked when Marion Crane was stabbed to death in the shower. Hitchcock had mislead them to believe the film was about a woman on the run from police. More, Janet Leigh was a major star. Killing her off less than halfway through the picture was unthinkable. Not even the novel is much of a precedent. We spend far less time with Mary Crane in Robert Bloch's book than we do with Marion in the movie. The City of the Dead (1960), a British horror picture that was released three months after Hitchcock's film, seems to have independently hit upon the idea of killing its attractive blonde protagonist before the film is half over. But even if City had been released first, its blond was played by a minor starlet (Venetia Stevenson) and her story was less engrossing; it could never have had the same impact as Psycho.**

**Why was this filmed in black and white?**

**Hitchcock noticed that low-budget shockers were cleaning up at the box office. He wanted to make a low-budget shocker that outclassed all rivals. Black and white photography kept his costs down. Another reason was the blood. Hitchcock thought all that red blood in the shower would be too gruesome.

Those who love black and white movies think this is a strange question. They are more likely to wonder why so many movies are made in color.**

**Why is this considered a horror film?**


 * In 1960, audiences attended Psycho for the same kind of shocks and thrills that modern filmgoers demand in far stronger doses. Psycho has lost its ability to shock--while retaining its power to horrify.

For some. For others, a film without at least the number of nasty thrills provided by The Silence of the Lambs (1991) or Se7en (1995) does not qualify as a real horror film. Whatever the merits of these two critically acclaimed movies, both require a high suspension of disbelief; and neither has a story one could seriously imagine reading about in the newspaper.

Psycho itself is not especially realistic, but it's far, far less hyperbolic than the average thrill-ride of today. For many modern viewers, this adds to the horror. Marion Crane commits a rash act many of us can imagine committing; she finds her way to a banal motel that many can imagine staying in; she meets a nervous young man many can imagine meeting. (Do you know anyone like Hannibal Lector?) And then something horrible happens.

If you wonder how this is a horror film, just place yourself in the position of any one of its characters.**