The success of ‘Psycho’
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Released on June 16, 1960, ‘Psycho,’ considered the seventh scariest film, sets the template for horror movies. Mini Anthikad-Chhibber
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Hitchcock made the movie in Black & White because he considered the content too gory to show in colour.
Unforgettable: ‘Psycho.’
On June 16, 1960, a smart little shocker was released. The reviews were mixed but the public, stunned out of their senses, gave an overwhelming response. The film was Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho.’ Based on Robert Bloch’s 1959
novel, the film became a cult movie and has been voted the seventh scariest film by the Entertainment Weekly.
It is amazing how such a stark movie based on this slim book went on to become a pop cultural phenomenon. Lines like “She wouldn’t even hurt a fly” and “a boy’s best friend is his mother,” have become part of our lexicon. Images have morphed into tropes and are used as a kind of visual shorthand.
We have urban legends like an angry father writing to Hitchcock how his daughter was scared of taking a shower after watching ‘Psycho’ and Hitchcock’s crisp rejoinder, “send her to the dry cleaners!”
One of the reasons why Hitchcock chose to make the movie in black and white was because he was tired with all the glossy big productions and wanted to return to a sparer style of movie making. And he made the film well with-in one million dollars. The other reason was, of course, Hitchcock considered the content too gory to show in colour.
Effective changes
Robert Bloch wrote the book as part of a series of novels to be marketed with a radio show called “Inner Sanctum.” The movie follows the book very closely right down to snatches of dialogue. But Alfred Hitchcock made some very crucial and in the final count exceedingly effective changes.
While the book has Norman Bates as a fat, middle-aged, detestable character, Hitchcock, by casting the young and dashing Anthony Perkins in the iconic role made him the chief protagonist of the film. The book begins with Bates having an argument with his mother, but the movie starts with Marion’s side of the story.
For all ‘Psycho’ virgins, the plot tells the story of Marion (Mary in the book) Crane. She embezzles 40, 000 dollars from her employer. Marion undertakes a punishing cross-country drive to join her boyfriend Sam Loomis. She takes a wrong turning on the road when it starts raining so she decides to spend the night at a run down motel managed by Norman Bates.
She is killed in the shower and that brings an insurance investigator Arbogast, Loomis and Marion’s sister, Lila, to the scene. And they uncover the horrible truth about Norman Bates and his mother. The movie sets the template for horror movies of all time — from the abandoned motel, to the eerie motel owner, the awful horror of taking that wrong turn, the rain, the creepy chords and of course the girl in the shower!
Tribute to ‘Psycho’
Apart from the sequels – there were three, all featuring Perkins and Gus Van Sant’s sorry colour Xerox version in 1998 – there was Brian De Palma’s ‘Dressed to Kill’ (1980), which was a tribute to ‘Psycho.’ Michael Kaine plays the cross dressing serial killer right down to the wig and robe.
By casting a major star like Janet Leigh in the movie and killing her before one-third of the film was through, Hitchcock was taking a huge risk and also cocking a snook at the star system. Because Leigh was killed in the first half of the movie, Hitchcock insisted that the audience come right at the beginning and apparently there was special music played announcing at appropriate intervals “ten minutes to Psycho time”.
Hitchcock initially planned to have the shower scene without music but Bernard Herrmann went ahead by scoring the music. Herrmann’s string instruments score was such a success that Hitchcock doubled his salary and went on record to say that “33 per cent of the effect of ‘Psycho’ was due to the music.”
The film, which was made less than a million ($80,000 to be precise) went on to earn 40 million. There is a lesson to be learnt in today’s day and age when money is burnt on screen in the name of jazzy special effects and incandescent star power. Directors like Quentin Tarantino celebrate B movies in films like ‘Grindhouse.’ These films, however, seem to be just a shallow exploitation rather an imaginative retelling. Finally, movies are about telling stories and if one has a jolly good yarn to share, one should go ahead and tell it with no frills attached.
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