“We won’t allow you to cheat yourself. You must see PSYCHO from the very beginning. Therefore, do not expect to be admitted into the theatre after the start of each performance of the picture. We say no one — and we mean no one — not even the manager’s brother, the President of the United States, or the Queen of England (God bless her)!”
-Text upon a standee explaining the admittance policy of Psycho (1960)
“ In New York, some journalists thought, ‘Oh we’ll show them this is just a publicity stunt’. So they got ahold of a woman who was pregnant and coached her on what to say to the manager with her “so called” husband. The husband went in a said, ‘Look, my wife is pregnant as you can see. But she really wants to see Psycho. Let us in now even though the picture has started.’ The manager said, ‘Well, I’m very happy that she’s pregnant sir, but we cannot allow her in the theater. She is perfectly welcome to sit in my office until the next program starts. She cannot come in the middle of the program.’”
–Peggy Robertson, Alfred Hitchcock’s longtime assistant, recalling the effectiveness of the admittance policy for Psycho in the 1998 making of documentary “The Making of Psycho”.
Chapter 3: Innovations and Influence
Good Evening…
No one, not even the Master of Suspense himself, could have predicted the fruit that would come to bear from the decision he made to tell a small story about a boy and his mother. It is unthinkable to imagine how they could. The world of movie making and movie going had been firmly cemented to the minds of those who had brought the intertwined industry up from the ground earliest part of the 20th century and transformed it into a behemoth that felt for the majority of its life immune to change. That assumption of immunity to change began with the dawn of television, stealing cinema goers away with its allure of free entertainment (it also killed the glorious thing that was scripted radio, but that is a story for another rant). As fast as television came, so did the demolition of theater chains owned and operated by the studios for the simple fact that it was a monopoly that took longer than it should have to be dismantled. Amidst the sea of change though, it appeared that much of the rituals had stayed the same. Filmmakers made entertainment that never truly went beyond the limits of the various censorship boards, which put a stop to any “tomfoolery” and taboo like sex and violence in the most draconian fashion imaginable. Those films were then distributed to a theater where the house would rerun the same set program on a loop and allowing patrons to enter at any given point no matter how much they may have missed. When those films were over they may even leave at the exact moment they came in. In many ways, it’s a glorious period and an intriguing way of watching films. All of that would gradually go, and one of the films to popularize the notion of change was one that had an uphill battle getting into existence.
It would be foolish to proclaim that Hitchcock’s 1960 masterpiece PSYCHO was the sole catalyst for the change that would ensue. Many film prior to him were already breaking down the barriers of content and it is most likely that the restructuring of the movie going habits would be eventual due to declining business pulled away by television. Nevertheless though, PSYCHO made the loudest sound in this regard. From a pure filmmaking and publicity standpoint, it shook the foundation of an establishment already in danger of collapsing. It shook it just enough to allow films to push content forward and it gave a legitimate reason to change our movie going experience. For all its accomplishments; PSYCHO, at the end of the day, is a film that cleverly told a story in such a way that one could hardly proclaim that they had ever seen before… or at least think they had.
Starting off as the whim of noted horror author Robert Bloch, the novel Psycho is a tale steeped in the allusions to the infamous case of serial killer Ed Gein. In his family home in Plainfield, Wisconsin, Gein was responsible for murdering women who he then proceeded to skin and use the body parts for various purposes. Upon capture and further investigation, the revelation of Gein’s mother being a tyrannical presence that dominated his life was the starting point for how real life bled into the story of Norman Bates. The novel, however, does not contain many of the elements that bring the film adaptation to the forefront. While a string piece of horror literature in its own right, it would be screenwriter Joseph Stefano’s take on the material and Hitchcock’s changes to the story that would lay the foundation of the inevitable groundbreaking. The biggest elements of this involves focusing the first act of the film to the story of thief on the run Marion Crane (the legendary Janet Leigh) before having “Mother” stab her repeatedly (and to the typical eye, brutally) in the shower. That is where Hitchcock creates an innovation for the masses. As stated before, this is not necessarily new; however, this was an abrupt turn for a film that despite its low budget was a Hollywood film. Hollywood was steeped in traditions and killing off a character you had invested a substantial amount of time in was a revelation to a mainstream public whose taste did not journey too far of their beaten path. Hitchcock proceeds to popularize the notion of going 180 degrees from expectations and opens up a door for others who utilize it later. Wes Craven’s ‘Scream’ does this in the opening scene with Drew Barrymore, Eli Roth does this for the first half of ‘Hostel’, and even as recently as Quentin Tarantino’s ‘The Hateful Eight’. Hitchcock’s innovation by proclaiming to Stefano that they could get a star to play Marion immediately takes a normal twist and ups the stakes through upsetting the established norm, being that someone as big as Leigh was going to be around the whole movie. Movie stars didn’t get taken out of the picture until at least the end, that is until Hitchcock said otherwise. The other change in the source material is even bigger. In the novel, Norman is a middle age slob of a man with a drinking problem(among other issues that made it into the film with better actualization). Very much the norm for any villain, let alone one that would commit the ghastly murders Bates does in any iteration. Hitchcock and Stefano made the right choice in steering clear of that stereotype by casting the youthful and clean-looking Anthony Perkins. With immediate casting, Hitchcock doubles down on a trope he used before in ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ where the least likely person from a superficial point of view is actually the killer. While it recycles that thread from ‘Shadow’ where Joseph Cotton is indeed a murderer, with Psycho he is able to draw out our suspicions and even disbelief that the option is even present. After all; Mother is alive, right? The innovation within is to dispel preconceived notions of what a villain actually looks like and acts like. It changes the way villains, or perceived villains, are handled going forward. It’s a concept that extends beyond storytelling and into the heart of the very nature of how we look at crimes of this nature. The added twist in that is that Norman is one of the first examples (at least in regards to the genre it spawned) of a villain that has an empathetic and even sympathetic complex. Even before you know he is the killer, you are fearing for him because of the hold that “Mother” has over him. You do not feel full hatred for Norman from the very fact of the private trap he was born into. That’s an element that was carried before it in the gothic horror films of the 30’s, where Karloff and Chaney were tragic figures. Norman is a tragic figure that, at least at the time, is harder to reconcile with because he seems like he is normal looking enough to not have any problems. ‘Psycho’ refines that notion of the sympathetic monster toward something more tangible and bleeds into films like ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (another Gein inspired picture) where despite the horrific crimes of Leatherface, you also see an abused and tormented side courtesy of the Cook and the Hitchhiker he resides with. There’s even the connection to a character like Jason Vorhees of the ‘Friday the 13th’ franchise. Jason’s tragic origin does not take away his villainy, but it does add a dimension that doesn’t exist with most Slasher film villains.
Among the innovations brought forth within the picture, you can never understate the importance of “The Shower Scene”. Marion ends her awkward but enlightening chat with Norman and decides to return the money she has absconded with earlier in the film. She returns to her cabin (Cabin #1, it’s close by in case she needs anything), adds up what she would owe from the stolen money she spent on a car (California Charlie never saw the customer high pressure the salesman), and decides to cleanse herself in the shower. As she showers, a dark silhouette (no, not the Shamley Silhouette you jokers) strolls quietly up to the shower and draws back the curtain to reveal a large kitchen knife. At that moment begins a sequence that required 78 setups and 52 cuts to completely change a genre forever (for far more intricate and intelligent dissection of that, see Alexandre O. Phillipe’s “78/52”). “The Shower Scene” is an innovation primarily because it is a magic trick of editing that perpetuates the notion that you saw what you did not see. As the knife from “Mother” stabs away at Marion, you would assume that you saw her body being penetrated by the knife. When slowed down and examined frame by frame, it is far from that notion. To be honest, it’s all in your dirty mind (that goes for nudity too, there’s none there). What the magic trick accomplishes is making the audience believe that brutality has occurred. The hyper-kinetic cutting conveys the brutality and is added upon by the way that kinetic energy ceases as “Mother leaves the cabin and Marion collapses to the ground. What is fascinating is that this scene is decidedly not gory or intense by any time measure, but the illusion it gave pushed other inspired filmmakers to up the ante. A gate had been opened for on screen death’s to become more real and, many times following, more intense and brutal. Oddly though, Psycho is but the seed that doesn’t fully blossom until 1980, when Sean Cunningham’s ‘Friday The 13th’ arrives with the most brutal and intense deaths then seen at the time from a Slasher film. ‘Friday’ however, owes a debt to John Carpenter’s 1978 classic, ‘Halloween’ (or John Carpenter’s Halloween, which is not David Gordon Greens Halloween, or even Rob Zombie’s Halloween, etc..). ‘Halloween’ took the knife wielding character and dialed up the intensity ever so slightly. It is violent and the kills are brutal, but they are decidedly not gory and evoke further into the Hitchcockian way of creating terror. They only show you enough to convey the horror that lies inside your mind. Even the aforementioned ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ is tame on its violence (albeit in a different and unique way), and many moments remembered from that film are not as detailed as our minds assumed. They all owe a debt to ‘Psycho’ because ‘Psycho’ told them, “Hey, what if we did this. We are old enough to handle it, right?”. Thus dawned a genre that has persisted into the very present.
It isn’t enough though to just create a masterpiece. In the ever lovable mix between art and commerce, one must make the money that justifies a change (sigh). ‘Psycho’, from the moment it was a notion if Hitchcock’s head, was a gamble financially and reputational. Paramount Pictures did not desire this as their last film from Hitchcock under their contract with him prior to his move to Universal. Prior to ‘Psycho’, Hitchcock had done ‘North by Northwest’ with MGM, a film Paramount would rather have had as their final contribution to their slate from the Master of Suspense. An agreement was reached that Paramount would distribute the film, but would not supply the budget. The money that made Psycho was out of Hitchcock’s pocket. It’s only right to assume that if you put your own money in the show, you will do everything short of criminal behavior to ensure it is a success. ‘Psycho’ by its very nature is a film that is considered “Spoiler-Heavy” by current parlance. After the 35-40 minute mark when Marion exits the film, there lies a story that has more twists and curves then had been done at that time. As a proponent of his story and how it played out, Hitchcock knew he could use this to marketing advantage. The result was a campaign that set up restrictions on how Psycho would be viewed by the public. The greatest contribution to that is the strict attendance policy. The theaters would be required to enforce a policy that once ‘Psycho’ had started playing, no one would be admitted until the next performance. It is a clever play by Hitchcock and the ‘Psycho’ marketing team , who utilized the power of traditional movie theater going habits to create a special aura around the film. It creates an anticipation that people were not used to experiencing in their movie going lives. They had been trained to go in whenever and come out from the moment they came in on the theater program. Now Hitchcock is having to teach the public how to experience his film properly and fully, and spawning a notion in our heads to show up to the theater on time to see the film from beginning to end. It is impossible to know if EVERY theater followed this policy set up by the ‘Psycho’ team and to know if this is the exact moment where the movie-going habits change. It is arguable though, that Psycho popularized the idea that going to the movies means getting the full experience of the picture. This is not even an anomaly anymore. Try going to a movie at an Alamo Drafthouse 15 minutes after the show has started, you will rightfully not be let in. It is highly likely though, that ‘Psycho’ is closest to the origin point of creating the phrase “No Spoilers”. The campaign urged viewers who had just seen the film, “not to indulge your friends with the many secrets of ‘Psycho’.” Today, this very concept is how the internet lives and breathes on any given day (basically, if you spoiled Avengers: Endgame, you made Hitchcock’s ghost cry). The very conceit of not revealing plot details and twists becomes emphasized and popularized by the release of ‘Psycho’.
It’s overwhelming to understand how a simple film meant to shock was responsible for so much. To nearly overhaul an entire way of thinking from multiple facets and establish new ground. Even more amazing is how this isn’t the first or the last time Hitchcock does it in some way that has long reaching effects. As we will learn going forward, there are many things that we do not hold today without these risks. Some for the better and some for the worse. Much like Norman Bates is fully changed forever by the end of ‘Psycho’, we as an audience and even as filmmakers are changed forever.
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Till the next article… Good Night…..
Oh, P.S.
The one thing that never caught on in the grand scheme of culture was the structure and execution of the trailer for ‘Psycho’. Here it is though to watch and enjoy… because this trailer is just a hilarious delight.