MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > Hitchcock's spoilers in the trailer

Hitchcock's spoilers in the trailer

posted 7 years ago by movieghoul (213)
10 replies | jump to latest

There has been much discussion on the IMDB board about Hitchcock's inconsistency in the emphasis of secrecy on Psycho ("Don't give away the ending, it's the only one we have.") versus the blatant giveaways in the trailer, where both murders are explicitly referenced.

I've come to think it's not all that inconsistent: Hitchcock did not give away the ending in the trailer, in fact, he emphasized that the mother and son were two distinct people.

So why give away so much about the murders? I wonder if Hitchcock may have been pressured by the studio and/or his own advisers who may have had serious concerns over the possibility of lawsuits from "severely traumatized" viewers. Now I'm not an attorney, but I believe that in such cases one would have to argue that Hitchcock deliberately set out to shock and traumatize the audience. So the trailer could be offered in defense: look, Hitchcock went out of his way to tell people in advance where the shocks would occur!

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

There has been much discussion on the IMDB board

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As there shall now be on the moviechat board...

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about Hitchcock's inconsistency in the emphasis of secrecy on Psycho ("Don't give away the ending, it's the only one we have.") versus the blatant giveaways in the trailer, where both murders are explicitly referenced.

I've come to think it's not all that inconsistent: Hitchcock did not give away the ending in the trailer, in fact, he emphasized that the mother and son were two distinct people.

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That's the funny part. To protect the twist ending in the trailer, Hitchcock pretty much flat out lied about Norman and Mother being separate. Oh, well, that's how he presents them in the film...via trickery.

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So why give away so much about the murders?

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Before we get to your tantalizing theory below, I'll remind "newbies" that I have found this 1960 trailer to be a MASSIVE refutation of the idea that Hitchcock intended to surprise his audience by killing Janet Leigh early. The PREMISE of the damn trailer -- the entire trailer leads to it is: "Come see my new movie where a woman gets murdered in the shower." And Hitchcock promised BLOOD. So it wasn't going to be a strangling (Hitchcock's most favored murder technique in his films.)

I also maintain that the many writers who plied the idea of Hitchcock intending to surprise everybody about that shower murder -- never saw this trailer. They started out wrong...and "when the legend(lie) becomes the fact, print the legend."

In recent months, I've come to see the 1960 trailer as a revelation of the idea that Hitchcock intended to surprise everybody by killing Janet early to be "false news." Its always been around...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Moreover, of course,Hitchcock early on details the staircase murder (for the trailer leads to the "Big One" -- the shower) with detail about how he FILMS it. ("She met the victim at the top, in a flash there was the knife, and the victim tumbled and fell with a horrible crash.") Hitch even added a grisly detail about the victim hitting the floor -- "the back broke immediately." Ouch.

He identifies the staircase murder as "the second murder," thus preparing the audience for the shower as the first. I suppose he left open whether or not there would be a third or a fourth...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

So why give away so much about the murders?

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Let's look at your theory, first:

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I wonder if Hitchcock may have been pressured by the studio and/or his own advisers who may have had serious concerns over the possibility of lawsuits from "severely traumatized" viewers. Now I'm not an attorney, but I believe that in such cases one would have to argue that Hitchcock deliberately set out to shock and traumatize the audience. So the trailer could be offered in defense: look, Hitchcock went out of his way to tell people in advance where the shocks would occur!

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Very possible. Certainly in 1960. Recall that the censors first tried to cut the script, then tried to cut the film, then tried to stop the movie from being released. Though there was lots of sexual and macabre/perverse thematic content in the film, it WAS those two big, bloody murders that truly shocked everybody in the screening rooms. And Herrmann's screeching strings to make sure that we jumped and screamed -- that music was as much an assault on the cardiac as the on-screen violence.

Hitchcock may have been warned to issue warnings about the violence and he elected to turn it into a promotional tool -- "Oooh, these are horrible murders! You should have seen the blood."

In short, I can buy that theory.

But also and maybe...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

...but also and maybe...

Hitchcock had a movie to sell. And for all his braggadocio about fooling the audience and keeping them in the dark about the "secrets" of Psycho...its big selling point(other than Hitchcock himself in 1960) was those two murders. Well, and the house. The trailer puts the house on prominent display as "setting"(along with the motel) but SELLS the murders. "Come and see these horrible bloody knife murders," Hitchcock is saying. Its the barkers come on...and dressed up to make the murders seem REALLY bloody(which, in their 1960 way, they were.)

Its quite conceivable that Hitchcock was quite capable of "talking out of both sides of his mouth," i.e. speaking to Truffaut and others about the "surprise" of killing Janet Leigh early while selling the movie on the killing of Janet Leigh(oh, yeah, that's Vera Miles in the trailer shower but...if I saw Psycho in 1960 after seeing that shower trailer...I'd know Janet was going to get it.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I wonder if Hitchcock may have been pressured by the studio and/or his own advisers who may have had serious concerns over the possibility of lawsuits from "severely traumatized" viewers. Now I'm not an attorney, but I believe that in such cases one would have to argue that Hitchcock deliberately set out to shock and traumatize the audience.

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A different tack: I will here note(again) that I read a 1970's era 16mm Universal film rental catalog that had this disclaimer for renting Psycho:

"Psycho shall not be shown to children, the elderly, persons with heart conditions or pregnant women."

They took the shocks pretty seriously!

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Hitchcock himself, with both murders, "pulled his punches" a little bit by giving the audience fair warning that each murder was about to occur. With the shower scene, we see Mother opening the door through the shower curtain and creeping up to the curtain. With the staircase murder, we get that sublime high angle close-up of the door slowly opening as a shaft of light crosses the carpet. Enough warning, both times, to close our eyes and brace ourselves for the attack to come.

Imagine if: (1) Suddenly that shower curtain just opened with mother standing there, no build-up; (2) Mother just came running out of that door at Arbogast, with no warning close up of the door opening.

1960 heart attack city!

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Lots of posts I want to respond to but...mine are disappearing again.. bye for now....

[–] movieghoul (213) 7 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Ah, but Hitchcock doesn't work that way, he favors suspense over surprise. If there's the risk of a bomb exploding, he wants to show the audience the bomb in advance, so the audience always knows more than the characters in the scene. Same with the Psycho murders.

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Absolutely. A major part OF the two murders is the build-up to them. I remember seeing Psycho with a full house and when the door opened into the bathroom and you could make out Mother's shape through the shower curtain, there was a collective "groan of terror" that was most distinctive. And Janet's just showering away as Mother approaches...the Master of Suspense at work.

The overhead close-up of the door opening to Mother's room is a rather sublime "cutaway moment." You SENSE this horrible, monster-like killer waiting just out of sight to do horrible things to Arbogast. And as one critic pointed out about this shot, "Suddenly, the audience is placed in the position of the blood-thirsty killer, WANTING that attack to occur."

I've always loved how the cut to the overhead attack begins PRECISELY when the shaft of light spilling onto the landing floor is at its maximum point..literally no more light can be shed. (Van Sant blew this shot in his remake, but some teenager got it perfect in a YouTube remake of the scene!)

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Although in this case, the warnings are very short notice.

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Yes, as with so much else in Psycho, the timing is perfect. They last just long enough to get us all worked up and then...suddenly...all hell breaks loose.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

FOr example, with the shower murder, he could have cut back and forth from the shower to: a hand reaching for knife in a drawer, a shot of a figure emerging from the house and walking to the motel. That he didn't indicates that in this case he wanted to mix some shock in with the suspense.

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Yes, these are a director's "dramatic" choices. Hitch eschewed the whole "cliché to come" of following along with the killer down the hill, into Cabin One, into the bathroom. Rather -- since Marion is still our protagonist -- we are with HER , enjoying HER shower -- and then this apparition literally invades her space. Well, TWO spaces -- first the bathroom, which is scary enough, and then the shower -- which is beyond the pale. And -- as so often happens with Hitchcock -- we IMAGINE how Mother got her knife and came down the hill, we can see the scene in our minds.

[–] dt123 (688) 6 years ago

Luckily, when I first saw the movie when I was a kid, I hadn't seen the trailer. Now I think it's good fun, but yeah, I'm sure he didn't want to spoil the shocks. Legal reasons are a good theory.