Has anyone read the book?
That the films based on
shareNo but i want to. I know everything that happens in it though courtesy of audiobook.
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MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > Has anyone read the book?
Yes, I have. The movie follows the plot fairly closely, but some of the background information is different. ( For example, Marion and Sam are not sleeping together). The beginning is from Norman's (delusional) point of view, not Marion's.
shareYes, I have.
It was not a huge bestseller as The Exorcist and Jaws would be in the 70's, but evidently sold very well and was "the talk of the hallways" at the publishing house where it was printed.
A reader at Paramount read it and issued this memo: "Impossible for films."
Which, in Hays Code censorship 1959, it truly was. Marion(called Mary) was beheaded by Mother's knife in the shower and her head was stuffed by Norman in a hamper with her headless body. Arbogast was slashed in the throat with a straight razor by Mother. This could not be filmed in 1959, and the book's "solution"(Norman had murdered his mother, stuffed her body and kept it around the house) was impossible for films, too.
Except Alfred Hitchcock didn't think so. He kept the murders shocking but not graphic. Bernard Herrmann's music supplied the shocks.
For his part, Hitchcock stumbled onto the novel of Psycho when it got a brief and succinct four sentence review in the New York Times weekly Sunday book section, by a critic named Anthony Boucher. I've READ that review, and its practically nothing(plot barely described, just the phrase "icily terrifying"). But Hitchcock took notice, bought the book on a flight to London from LA, landed in London, called his secretary and said, "I've got our next project. Its called Psycho." Hitchcock later sent a bottle of champagne to Anthony Boucher, who (I expect) would have been amazed to realize how his four-sentence review of Psycho led to history.
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The book famously gave us a Norman Bates who was obese, forty, bespectacled and a drunk. Also a bit of a geek. Hitchcock transformed the character into Anthony Perkins and the rest is history.
Marion, Sam, and Lila in the book are pretty much written as in the movie...but Arbogast is a tan, tall, chain-smoking Texan who wears a Stetson hat(The story begins in Dallas, not Phoenix). Also, I think Marion(Mary in the book) is a brunette.
Over the years it has been suggested that someone film "Robert Bloch's Psycho," the book. But Universal seems to have no interest in allowing that to happen.
One critic wrote that Robert Bloch's novel was "rather more subtle than the movie."
One difference in the book is we get more characterization of Sam, who in the movie is just a conventional heroic type that Hitchcock was obviously not interested in.
At one point early in the book he talks about the importance of one's reputation in a community -- which creates a complete contrast with Norman, who cares nothing about dealing with other people. He also has an interest in classical music which he shares with Lila, another contrast with Norman's wierd obsessions. When he hears of Marion's theft, he is shocked and realizes how little he knows about Marion, a reaction missing in the movie (the two are not sexually intimate in the book). Interestingly, the psychologist's speech in the movie is, in the book, Sam's SUMMARY of what the psychologist has been telling him.
One difference in the book is we get more characterization of Sam, who in the movie is just a conventional heroic type that Hitchcock was obviously not interested in.
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This is true. We have quite a few Hitchcock movies where the villain is cast either with a more major actor than the hero role, or given a more interesting part:
Shadow of a Doubt: Joseph Cotton/MacDonald Carey
Strangers on a Train: Robert Walker/Farley Granger (perhaps equals as second-tier stars, but Walker's got the interesting part.)
Dial M for Murder: Ray Milland(Best Actor Oscar Winner)/Bob Cummings
Psycho: Anthony Perkins(Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee; star)/John Gavin
Frenzy: Barry Foster/Jon Finch(perhaps equals as little known British actors, but Foster has the more interesting part.)
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At one point early in the book he talks about the importance of one's reputation in a community -- which creates a complete contrast with Norman, who cares nothing about dealing with other people.
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Interesting contrast.
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He also has an interest in classical music which he shares with Lila, another contrast with Norman's wierd obsessions.
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And it makes Sam somewhat more of a sophisticate in the book, doesn't it?
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When he hears of Marion's theft, he is shocked and realizes how little he knows about Marion, a reaction missing in the movie
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That comes out a LITTLE in the movie -- when Sam says to Lila: "I just can't believe it. Can you?"
But truly a theme of a lot of great movies(particularly Hitchcock movies) -- is how little we know about ANYONE. Even our spouses(Suspicion) or lovers(Psycho) or family members (like Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt.)
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(the two are not sexually intimate in the book).
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The sexually intimate part seems to have been created out of whole cloth by Joe Stefano as a script idea, and then leapt upon by Hitchcock, even though the movie can't "spell it out," we sense it happened. In the book, I do recall that Mary(ion) does a little bump and grind in the mirror naked before entering the shower..in anticipation of a sex life ahead with Sam.
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Interestingly, the psychologist's speech in the movie is, in the book, Sam's SUMMARY of what the psychologist has been telling him.
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Yes, and however disliked the psychologist speech in the movie may be, I think we would have liked it even less if Sam had delivered it "second hand."
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Your post convinces me that Robert Bloch likely saw Sam Loomis as much more of a counterbalance to Norman Bates than he is in the movie, and much more of a traditional male lead. A "traditional" Hollywood picture, following the body types of the book, might have cast a lesser star(like Victor Buono) as Norman and a bigger star as Sam(like say, Rock Hudson, after whom John Gavin was modelled.) Except I don't think Buono was known in 1960. He broke through with 1962's Baby Jane. Rod Steiger has been mentioned as correct 1960 casting for Norman per the book, he was a fairly big star at the time but STILL would have been overshadowed by Rock Hudson as Sam Loomis.
The book is fantastic, very atmospheric and genuinely chilling even if you know the movie and when you know exactly what's going to happen!
The book can expand on characters thoughts and reactions and delve deeper into them more than the movie can, with some extremely creepy results!
I'd definitely reccomend the book to anyone, especially any Psychophiles who haven't read it!
Read the book a couple of times. One part that stands out in my mind is when the girl does a little naked dance in front of the mirror shortly before being killed. Makes her murder all the more pathetic.
shareOne part that stands out in my mind is when the girl does a little naked dance in front of the mirror shortly before being killed. Makes her murder all the more pathetic.
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Indeed.
And there's a plot angle:
Norman Bates is peeping on her as she does this. And we are "in his mind" for that moment -- he is enraged, thinks she is doing this dance in some way to arouse HIM. To tease him. To mock him. Thus is the Norman in the book a less sympathetic, creepier sort of individual. We are given to see Norman as the possible killer, too
But Bloch also takes us "in her mind' as Mary(Marion) does the dance, which is a stripper's "bump and grind," playfully entertaining herself. Marion thinks something like "the face may be thirty, but the body is free, white and twenty-one."
I'm not sure if the phrase "free, white and twenty one" is used anymore or even known anymore, and something about it sounds un-PC to me at this time.
I expect that Mary in doing the dance and liking her body despite the age on her face, is also raising what the film will raise with Janet Leigh in the part of Marion: this woman is, by 1960 standards, getting too old to "not be married." I believe Joseph Stefano said "she's at the end of her rope."
At 30.
Times have changed in tht regard!
If you search the internet for the phrase "free, white and twenty one" you'll find articles on the etymology of the phrase. It dates back to 1828, and refers to removing property ownership as a qualification for voting, an issue taken up by Andrew Jackson upon his election to president. Of course, it's leaving out "male," which was considered so fundamental as to not require stating at the time - women didn't get suffrage until nearly a hundred years later, in 1920. Clearly, the "free, white" part also fell as a voting requirement in 1870. However, the phrase persisted as the qualifications for the most privileged members of society through the 1920's and 1930's. It was employed as a statement by women in several movies of these times, usually with ironic effect, as they claim the "top rung" of the privilege ladder, but fail to get the treatment they expect.
It was a pivotal phrase in the 1959 movie "The World, the Flesh, and the Devil," where Harry Belafonte and a white woman (played by Inger Stevens) are the last remaining people on Earth, and she uses it to exclaim her independence, but he eloquently asserts the racism of the term. The catchphrase was also the title of a 1963 film about the alleged rape of a white woman by a black man.
Yes, it is quite good and frightening, but there were some significant changes in the movie (which I think were better), such as Norman, who in the book is a middle-aged, overweight alcoholic and only when intoxicated does he enter his "Mother" trance. Also, in the book the story starts from his POV, and Marion is originally Mary.
I preferred the way things went in the movie.
Nevertheless is was a great read (I actually read it three times).
"We all go a little mad sometimes..." - Norman Bates
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I know when the remake came out many wanted it to follow the book. Does it feature a new ending or is it the same?I know when the remake came out many wanted it to follow the book. Does it feature a new ending or is it the same?Van Sant's remake of Psycho was publicised as a shot-for-shot remake. It's not *quite* that - there are a few new shots and the odd scene is omitted, dialogue is slightly varied - but it certainly follows the exact same story-line as the original film.
So, whereas Psycho (1960) closes with a triple dissolve to the car being hauled out of the swamp, Psycho (1998)does the triple dissolve then cranes back from the car so that, as credits begin to roll, we get a high long-shot of the whole swamp and its relationship to the motel and House. This is one of the better new shots in Van Sant's movie I think, but it doesn't represent any change story-wise. share
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I think the only way in which the remake went closer to the book was when it made Norman look a lot less attractive.
shareYeah, I've read it a couple of times and for a book, it manages to be really creepy at times. I thought it was reasonably well written by Bloch. I liked the way you get all of Norman's thoughts and also how, once you know the story, there were clues to "the secret" right at the start. The shower murder was also very gory. Gave me the creeps. Good stuff.
Two seats in the back of the cinema, hazy. Ah yeah, you're forgettin' it and all the mad *beep* we did
I've read Robert Bloch's novel. It's basically a pulp murder short novel.
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