MovieChat Forums > Compulsion (1959) Discussion > Psycho ripped this movie off bad

Psycho ripped this movie off bad

posted 18 years ago by Mr_McLaurel
14 replies | jump to latest

I was shocked to read on the back of the box that this movie is from one year before Psycho. I'm a huge Alfred Hitchcock fan, so I was sad to read articles suggesting Hitch ripped off Orson Welles' Touch of Evil for Psycho. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But come on, the killer in this movie has an interest in Ornithology, just like Norman Bates! Also, the other killer has some implied mother issues. Psycho is still a better movie of course, I just can't believe this movie is so underrated as it's clearly a precursor to Psycho.

Edit: Well, it's more than 2 years later and I can safely say I would never make a comment like this today. Reading this, it doesn't even seem like me. I'll leave it up, though, I guess.

[–] !!!deleted!!! (22491795) 9 years ago

Hitch didn't rip off anything from 'Compulsion'.
Hitchcock's version of the Leopold/Loeb murder is the film, 'Rope' (1948) based on Patrick Hamilton's play, 'Rope's End.
Rope was made eleven years before 'Compulsion' (1959).
Norman Bates interest in ornithology and taxidermy comes directly from Robert Bloch's novel published in 1959.
Norman Bates was loosely based on two people. Ed Gein of course but also Calvin Thomas Beck who was the editor and publisher of 'Castle of Frankenstein', a film magazine.
Bate's mother was certainly based on Beck's overbearing mother, Helen.

[–] kevin-bergin 9 years ago

Taxidermy is a strange area that Hitchcock used in TMWKTM years earlier.

"It's the system, Lara. People will be different after the Revolution."