Psycho is a 1960 American horror thriller film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The screenplay, written by Joseph Stefano, is based on the 1959 novel by Robert Bloch. The film stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, and Martin Balsam. The plot centers on an encounter between on-the-run embezzler Marion Crane (Leigh), shy motel proprietor Norman Bates (Perkins), and his disturbed mother. A private investigator (Balsam), Marion's lover Sam Loomis (Gavin), and her sister Lila (Miles) investigate Marion's disappearance.
Psycho was seen as a departure from Hitchcock's previous film, North by Northwest (1959), as it was filmed on a small budget in black-and-white by the crew of his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Initially the film divided critics due to its controversial subject matter, but audience interest and outstanding box-office returns prompted a major critical re-evaluation. Psycho was a massive commercial success; with a budget of (equivalent to $million in ), the film earned $50million (equivalent to $million in ) at the box office worldwide, not including the revenue from rentals. Psycho was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Director for Hitchcock and Best Supporting Actress for Leigh.
Psycho is now considered one of Hitchcock's best films and is arguably his most famous and influential work. It has been hailed as a major work of cinematic art by international film critics and scholars who praise its slick direction, tense atmosphere, impressive camerawork, memorable score, and iconic performances. Additionally the shower scene has become one of the best-known scenes in all of cinema. It is regarded as "the most heavily analyzed film in the long career of the most investigated director in the history of American film" and is often ranked among the greatest films of all time. It set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behavior, and sexuality in American films, and it has been considered to be one of the earliest examples of the slasher film genre. After Hitchcock's death in 1980, Universal Pictures produced follow-ups: three sequels, a remake, a made-for-television spin-off, and a television series. In 1992, the Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
Plot
In Phoenix, Arizona, real estate secretary Marion Crane embezzles $40,000 in cash from her employer after hearing her boyfriend, Sam Loomis, complain that his debts are delaying their marriage. She sets off to drive to Sam's home in the town of Fairvale, California, switching cars in Bakersfield after an encounter with a suspicious policeman. A rainstorm forces Marion to stop at the secluded Bates Motel a few miles from Fairvale. Norman Bates, the proprietor, whose Second Empire-style house overlooks the motel, registers Marion (who uses an alias) and invites her to dinner with him in the motel's office. When Norman returns to his house to retrieve the food, Marion overhears him arguing with his mother about his desire to dine with Marion. After returning, he discusses his hobby as a taxidermist, his mother's "illness", and how people have a "private trap" they want to escape. When Marion suggests that Norman should have his mother institutionalized, he becomes offended and insists that she is harmless.
Marion decides to drive back to Phoenix in the morning to return the stolen money. As she showers, a shadowy figure enters the bathroom with a kitchen knife and stabs her to death. Shortly afterward, Norman is heard horrified at his mother's actions and rushes back to find Marion dead. He hurriedly cleans up the murder scene and places Marion's body, her belongings, and, unbeknownst to him, the hidden cash in her car before sinking the vehicle in a swamp.
Marion's sister Lila arrives in Fairvale a week later, tells Sam about the theft, and demands information about Marion's whereabouts. He denies knowing anything about Marion's disappearance. Arbogast, a private investigator, approaches them stating that he has been hired to retrieve the money. He stops in at the Bates Motel and questions Norman, whose nervous conduct, stuttering, and inconsistent answers arouse his suspicion. Arbogast examines the guest register and discovers from some handwriting in it that Marion spent a night in the motel. When Arbogast infers from his conversation with Norman that Marion had spoken to his mother, Arbogast asks to speak to her, but Norman refuses to allow it. Arbogast leaves and calls Lila to tell her of his suspicions and that he will return to the motel, speak to Norman's mother, and rejoin Lila in town later. When Arbogast returns and enters the Bates' house to search for Norman's mother, a shadowy figure at the top of the stairs stabs him to death.
When Sam and Lila do not hear back from Arbogast, Sam goes to the motel to look for him. Sam spots a silhouette in a second-floor window of the house and assumes it is Norman's mother, who is unresponsive to Sam's calls. Lila and Sam alert the local sheriff, Al Chambers, who tells them Norman's mother died in a murder–suicide by strychnine poisoning ten years before. Chambers suggests that Arbogast lied to Sam and Lila so he could pursue Marion and the money.
Convinced that something happened to Arbogast, Lila and Sam drive to the motel and check in. Sam distracts Norman in the office while Lila sneaks into the Bates' house. Suspicious, Norman knocks Sam out. As Norman heads to the house, Lila hides in the fruit cellar and discovers the mummified body of Norman's mother. Lila screams in horror, and Norman, wearing a dress and a wig, enters the cellar and attempts to attack her, only to be subdued by a recovered Sam.
At the police station a psychiatrist explains to Lila, Sam, and Chambers that Norman killed his mother and her lover out of jealousy. Unable to bear the guilt, he stole his mother's corpse and treated it as if she were still alive, then re-created his mother as an alternate personality, as jealous and possessive toward Norman as he felt about his mother. Whenever Norman was attracted to a woman, "Mother" would take over. Under the "Mother" personality, Norman killed two women before he killed Marion and Arbogast. The psychiatrist concludes that "Mother" has now completely submerged Norman's personality. Norman sits in a jail cell and hears his mother's voice stating the murders were his doing and that she would never be suspected. Marion's car is towed from the swamp.
Cast Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates Vera Miles as Lila Crane John Gavin as Sam Loomis Martin Balsam as Private Investigator Milton Arbogast John McIntire as Deputy Sheriff Al Chambers Simon Oakland as Dr. Richman Frank Albertson as Tom Cassidy Pat Hitchcock as Caroline Vaughn Taylor as George Lowery Lurene Tuttle as Mrs. Chambers John Anderson as California Charlie Mort Mills as Highway Patrol Officer Janet Leigh as Marion Crane
Virginia Gregg, Paul Jasmin, and Jeanette Nolan make uncredited appearances as the voice of Norma "Mother" Bates. The three voices were used interchangeably, except for the speech in the final scene, which was performed entirely by Gregg.
Production Development Psycho is based on Robert Bloch's 1959 novel of the same name, loosely inspired by the case of convicted Wisconsin murderer and grave robber Ed Gein. Both Gein and the story's protagonist were solitary murderers in isolated rural locations. Each had a deceased, domineering mother and had sealed off a room in the house as a shrine to her. While Bates dressed in women's clothes, Gein dressed in the skins of the women he dug up. Gein was apprehended after killing twice. "With only two confirmed kills, Ed did not technically qualify as a serial killer (the traditional minimum requirement was three)".
Peggy Robertson, Hitchcock's long-time assistant, read Anthony Boucher's positive review of the novel in his "Criminals at Large" column in The New York Times and decided to show the book to her employer; however, studio readers at Paramount Pictures had already rejected its premise for a film. Hitchcock acquired rights to the novel for $9,500 and reportedly ordered Robertson to buy all copies to preserve the novel's surprises. Hitchcock, who had come to face genre competitors whose works were critically compared to his own, was seeking new material to recover from two aborted projects with Paramount: Flamingo Feather and No Bail for the Judge. He disliked stars' salary demands and trusted only a few people to choose prospective material, including Robertson.
Paramount executives balked at Hitchcock's proposal and refused to provide his usual budget. In response Hitchcock offered to film Psycho quickly and cheaply in black and white using the crew from his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Paramount executives rejected this cost-conscious approach, claiming their soundstages were booked, but the industry was in a slump. Hitchcock countered that he would personally finance the project and shoot it at Universal-International using his Shamley Productions crew if Paramount would distribute the film. In lieu of his usual $250,000 director's fee, he proposed a 60% stake in the film negative. This combined offer was accepted, and Hitchcock went ahead in spite of naysaying from producer Herbert Coleman and Shamley Productions executive Joan Harrison.
Screenplay
James P. Cavanagh, a writer on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, wrote the first draft of the screenplay.The Making of Psycho, 1997 documentary directed by Laurent Bouzereau, Universal Studios Home Video, available on selected Psycho DVD releases. Hitchcock felt the script dragged and read like a television short horror story, an assessment shared by an assistant. Although Joseph Stefano had worked on only one film before, Hitchcock agreed to meet him. Despite Stefano's inexperience, the meeting went well and he was hired.
The screenplay is relatively faithful to the novel, with a few significant changes by Hitchcock and Stefano. Stefano found the character of Norman Bates unsympathetic—in the book, he is middle-aged, overweight, and more overtly unstable—but became more intrigued when Hitchcock suggested casting Anthony Perkins. Stefano eliminated Bates's alcoholism, which necessitated removing Bates' "becoming" the mother personality when in a drunken stupor. Also removed was Bates's interest in spiritualism, the occult, and pornography.Tangentially mentioned by interviewer of Stefano Joseph Stefano but generally given less attention than the film's omission of Bates's alcoholism and pornography. Hitchcock and Stefano elected to open the film with scenes of Marion's life and not introduce Bates at all until the twenty-minute mark, rather than open with Bates reading a history book as Bloch does. Writer Joseph W. Smith observes that Marion's story "occupies only two of the novel's 17 chapters. Hitchcock and Stefano expanded this to nearly half the narrative".
Smith likewise mentions the absence of a hotel tryst between Marion and Sam in the novel. For Stefano the conversation between Marion and Norman in the hotel parlor, in which she displays maternal sympathy toward him, makes it possible for the audience to have more sympathy for Norman after Marion's murder. When Lila is looking through Norman's bedroom in the film, she opens a book with a blank cover whose contents are unseen; in the novel, these are "pathologically pornographic" illustrations. Stefano wanted to give the audience "indications that something was quite wrong, but it could not be spelled out or overdone". In his book of conversations with Hitchcock, François Truffaut says the novel "cheats" by having extended conversations between Norman and "Mother" and stating what Mother is "doing" at various given moments.