I would've preferred that Hitchcock re-shot that brief scene with Vaughn Taylor. The Christmas decor/date are, to
me, distracting. I would've preferred late summer, as you stated it was originally written. I get that Norman
wouldn't acknowledge Christmas at the home or motel, but surely the sheriff would've had stuff up, and
DEFINITELY decorations would've been up at the store Sam worked at. That close to Christmas and no Xmas
in retail??? Even in '59, they would've been up by mid-December. Not a huge gaffe, just an irritating one.
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In retrospect, Hitchcock looks like a man who "should have thought about the future." Strapped to a cheap budget and somehow tied to the financing of the film personally, he was literally too cheap to send the crew back to Phoenix again. And so he slapped that December 11 title on there, and just decided(I expect) that audiences would soon be too terrified and screaming to notice the lack of Xmas decorations in key places(the store, the Chamberses home, probably even the realtor's office.)
Psycho is a "perfect" film that has a few professed imperfections: that Xmas mix-up, the process shot of Arbogast's fall("Fake!" yell some), the shrink scene (for some); and the John Gavin performance.
All strike me as worthy of defense except, I guess, the Xmas gaffe. But Hitchcock seems to have just decided to "go cheap" and forget about a history he could not forsee: VHS, DVDs, rabid fans studying every frame...
Irony: In Gus Van Sant's Psycho remake, the sequence with Marion and her boss was shot using PASADENA , California streets. When I saw the Van Sant, I noticed a brick tower in Marion's (Anne Heche's) POV, and thought -- "Does Phoenix today have that tower?"
Years later, driving in Pasadena I SAW that tower. Van Sant sent a crew to Phoenix, but only for the skyline helicopter opening shot. No footage at street level.
Which means: Hitchcock coulda/shoulda done that too -- just re-film an LA street to correct the Xmas gaffe. Its not like the street screams "Phoenix."
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
And one more thing: I made my first trip to Phoenix as an adult, just a few years ago. I took an afternoon to scope out the Psycho locations. It seemed like almost all the 1960 buildings were gone EXCEPT the one where Sam and Marion have their tryst. Maybe one or two more buildings standing.
And thanks to a "Psycho locales" internet map, I went and stood in the intersection crosswalk where Vaughn Taylor stands in the 1960 movie, looking at the stopped cars for the signal.
Irony: Vaughn Taylor NEVER really stood there. He stood on a Universal soundstage in front of FOOTAGE of that intersection.
I got "the real deal."
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
Alfred Hitchcock interviewed about the Shrink Scene(first of three)
Q: Why did you end the film with the psychiatrist's explanation?
Hitchcock: Because the audience needed it. Otherwise, they'd have a bunch of unanswered questions. You'd run afoul of the icebox trade.
Q: The icebox trade?
Hitchcock: The people who go home after seeing a movie, go to the icebox, and take out the cold chicken. While they're chewing on it, they discuss the picture. In the morning, the wife meets the neighbor next door. She says to her, "How was the picture." The wife replies, "It was alright, but we discovered a number of flaws in it." Bang goes your word of mouth!
(To Charles Samuel Thomas, 1972, in the book Encountering Directors.)
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
Alfred Hitchcock interviewed about the Shrink Scene(second of three)
Q: In Psycho, you used a very long scene with the psychiatrist, to explain everything to the audience.
Hitchcock: Well, that was necessary because you were presenting the audience with an extremely complicated situation involving transvestitism, an area unknown to the average audience, and taxidermy, which also had to be explained.
(To Arthur Knight, Qui Magazine, February 1973.)
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
Alfred Hitchcock, interviewed about the Shrink Scene(third of three)
Q: You seem rather to distrust the psychiatrist's explanation of Norman Bates in Psycho. It isn't given all that much weight.
Hitchcock: Possibly the details would have been too unpleasant. I think we're just skimming over.. ...you have to remember that Psycho was a film made with quite a sense of amusement on my part. To me, its a FUN picture. The processes through which we take the audience , you see, its rather like taking them through the haunted house at the fairgrounds, or the roller coaster, you know. After all, it stands to reason that if one were seriously doing the Psycho story, it would be a case history. You would never present it in forms of mystery or the juxtaposition of characters, as they were placed in the film. They were all designed in a certain way to create this audience emotion. Probably the real Psycho story wouldn't have been emotional at all. It would have been terribly clinical.
(To Ian Cameron and V.F. Perkins, 1963, Movie magazine.)
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
Also in the Arthur Knight Qui interview, Hitchcock elaborates on why something like the shrink scene is needed -- and manages to predict issues with "The Sopranos" final scene that wouldn't be made for another 35 years:
Q: Your friend Truffaut has been largely responsible for a kind of ending that has almost become a cliché now. The film doesn't really end, you just kind of have a freeze-frame and leave the audience suspended.
Hitchocck: He did that, yes, in The 400 Blows.
Q: What is your feeling about that?
Hitchcock: Well, I think if you leave the audience in mid-air -- I'm talking about the mass audience now -- they'll be left sitting there. They will get no chance to enjoy that sigh of satisfaction that most people enjoy. I think films should be tied off, and not necessarily happily.
Q: But you do feel that audiences deserve some sort of explanation.
Hitchcock: Very definitely. I've always said that in structuring a film, you may leave holes in the early part, so long as you plug that hole before the film ends. You don't have to be so arbitrary as to be what I call "logical," which is very dull, and plug a hole right at the moment it is expected.
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
A musing:
As compared to "real life" the shrink scene is, of course, way too SHORT.
This is a meeting for which the other participants(DA, Sheriff and Deputy Sheriff, and most importantly, Sam and Lila) have been waiting for HOURS, all day. They want information, they need information(some of which the officials can use for criminal prosecution, some of which they will need to give to the press).
A psychiatrist now arrives for a "briefing." In real life, this briefing would take at least a half hour, maybe an hour, with extensive questioning.
Hitchcock and Stefano boiled it down to five minutes.
Indeed, a "meeting scene" would be patently ridiculous --way too short - if the shrink came in, said "Norman Bates has a split personality. The mother half is homicidal. He killed his mother and her boyfriend. The trauma of matricide forced Norman to steal his mother's corpse, gut her, stuff her using taxidermy materials, and keep her around the house. But he also became her in half his mind, and Mother killed Marion and the detective. By the way, Norman as Mother also killed two other women before Marion. Thank you."
And walks out. No briefing would be that short.
So often in real life, we the public crave the details of madness. We've had this spate of shootings and we wait for more information to be given out in press conferences, as it becomes available to them.
There was a shooter.
He killed 20 people.
He has been captured OR he killed himself.
His motive was he was a disgruntled employee OR he had no motive. He was insane.
And on and on and on, until we finally get a formal press conference -- usually a half hour to an hour -- and the private horror becomes public property.
This is what the psychiatrist scene is all about.
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[email protected] (5497)
6 years ago
I've always thought that scene was necessary. But sometimes I wonder, even though I'm not a psychiatrist, was Norman a transvestite in the truest sense of the word? He didn't do it for any sort of sexual satisfaction. In fact, it was the opposite. Whenever he felt aroused by a woman, "Mother" took over and put a stop to it.
Norman didn't dress to be aroused. He didn't put on lacy lingerie. If anything, he did the opposite. He wore old frumpy housedresses and a grey wig in order to BE his mother. It always seemed to me that his mother was such a dominant personality that she swallowed up Norman's personality. He didn't have much of a true "self", so he assumed her personality.
I don't think Norman ever went out on the town in full make-up and women's clothes to have fun. He simply became Norma and dressed like an old woman.
Well, I don't know what I'm talking about. Ha! Just some thoughts I am throwing out there. Just wondering...
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
I've always thought that scene was necessary.
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Me, too.
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But sometimes I wonder, even though I'm not a psychiatrist, was Norman a transvestite in the truest sense of the word? He didn't do it for any sort of sexual satisfaction. In fact, it was the opposite. Whenever he felt aroused by a woman, "Mother" took over and put a stop to it.
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The psychiatrist gets into exactly this argument. The censors didn't want the word "transvestite" used on screen in Psycho (that's what censors did in those days, clamped down on anything "unusual") but Hitchcock argued that the word should be used in making sure that the audience knew Norman WASN'T a transvestite, he didn't dress up as Mother to achieve sexual satisfaction. This is what Hitchcock means in the interview above about "the situation being complicated."
Psycho was one of two movies released about a year apart that took up transvestitism...without really taking it up. The other was "Some Like It Hot," in which Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis spent a LOT more time on screen dressed up like women than Tony Perkins would in Psycho, but again, not for "sexual satisfaction" at all. Jack and Tony were on the run from the mob, and hiding out in a Women's Band. Tony Perkins had been offered the Jack Lemmon role in Some Like It Hot, turned it down, watched that movie become a hit, and determined when Hitch came calling with Psycho that he couldn't turn down another cross-dressing role from a master director.
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
With regard to the three Hitchcock interviews I posted where he talked about the psychiatrist scene:
First, I think it was interesting that he WAS asked about the scene. The interviewers seemed to intuit that it was a strange scene -- long, expository and -- why DID he do that?
Second, Hitchcock pretty clearly believed in the scene, but likely sensed it was controversial.
Third, I think his "icebox trade" comment is the one that gets down to brass tacks. He felt that without the shrink scene, audiences would be confused and kill "word of mouth" -- getting other people to come see the movie. Which means Hitchcock felt Psycho wouldn't make as much money without the shrink scene. (When Cary Grant was asked why Hitchcock made thrillers exclusively, Grant replied in one word: "Money.")
Perhaps this is why, when Oakland finished his final take of the scene, Hitchcock reportedly called "Cut", walked over to Oakland, shook his hand, and said, "Thank you, Mr. Oakland -- you've just saved my picture."
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
Three Hitchcock interviews about the shrink scene are "upthread" -- can't let them get buried.
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[email protected] (5497)
6 years ago
Okay, I see what you mean.
I'm familiar with "Some Like it Hot." It has that classic ending with the man who keeps hitting on Jack Lemmon until he finals says in exasperation, "I'm a guy!"
The response, "Nobody's perfect." LOL
There does seem to be a long history of men dressing as women in film. Dustin Hoffman as Tootsie is one of my favorites. But he only did it as an acting challenge and also because he needed the work. No one would hire him as Michael because he was too difficult to work with.
Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire, he just wanted to be close to his children.
Interesting (to me anyway), men see themselves as the stronger sex, superior to women in a lot of cases. But when the situation arises, they can pretend to be women to get what they want. lol
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
I'm familiar with "Some Like it Hot." It has that classic ending with the man who keeps hitting on Jack Lemmon until he finals says in exasperation, "I'm a guy!"
The response, "Nobody's perfect." LOL
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That's considered a classic final line(courtesy of writer-director Billy Wilder) and it really rather leaves the tale "up in the air." The man who says the line is very rich. He has indicated that he keeps marrying and divorcing women and leaving them rich.
Might he CONSIDER a "marriage" to Lemmon? Might Lemmon CONSIDER a marriage and divorce? I know -- the legalities of the time forbade it. But there still could be a relationship, and money for the strapped Lemmon.
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There does seem to be a long history of men dressing as women in film.
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A lot of hits and Oscar nominations(Lemmon for SLIH, Hoffman for Tootsie.) Audiences must dig on the comedy of sexual role reversal. And we had -- in the same 1982 release year as Tootsie -- Julie Andrews dressing up like a man in Victor/Victoria.
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Dustin Hoffman as Tootsie is one of my favorites. But he only did it as an acting challenge and also because he needed the work. No one would hire him as Michael because he was too difficult to work with.
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Yes. Funny, though: he was difficult to work with as a WOMAN too -- but as a woman, he was seen as feminist, and respected. (How ironic, BTW: the movie has Hoffman becoming very sympathetic to women and now he's embroiled in scandals about harassing them.)
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Interesting (to me anyway), men see themselves as the stronger sex, superior to women in a lot of cases. But when the situation arises, they can pretend to be women to get what they want. lol
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LOL indeed. Like I say, Hoffman's "difficult ways" get him a lot more respect when he becomes "Dorothy." Though I always thought the film was a bit -- sexist? -- in having Hoffman dump Teri Garr for the more sexy and beautiful Jessica Lange. Its like Hoffman's learning to be a sensitive woman didn't stop him from being a man and "trading up" on women.
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I am thinking that movies in which the transvestites DO dress up for sexual satisfaction haven't been hits. I can't really think of many -- didn't Phillip Seymour Hoffman place one, once?
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[email protected] (5497)
6 years ago
"Tootsie", I recall women thought it was an insult that a guy could show women how to be "better" as women. But to me, it made a lot of sense.
Michael Dorsey was not used to being talked down to. But the director called Dorothy, "honey" and "sweetie" and it grated on his masculine sensibilities. Women are used to being patronized. Men are not. So "Dorothy" took a strong stand.
I didn't see Michael "dumping" Sandy for Julie. He and Sandy were never involved, just friends. Michael only pretended to care for her when she caught him in his underwear in her bedroom. He had been trying on dresses (LOL).
He came up with the "Sandy I want you" line to cover up an awkward situation. Sandy surely didn't have to sleep with him.
Afterwards she admitted how "sex changes everything". She told Michael that after sleeping with a guy if she ran into him on the street, he would avoid her "like he owed me money."
Sandy was responsible for her own behavior. If she jumps into bed with men knowing that they don't really care for her, well that's on her, I think!
With Julie, I think it was a totally different thing. Michael was just smitten right from the start.
I'm not familiar with Phillip Seymour Hoffman playing a transvestite. But I sure liked him as Capote. I have that DVD. Truman Capote is one of my favorite authors.
Going back to the other thread where you talked about "Dressed to Kill", Sir Michael Caine (such a great actor) is a psychiatrist and his other personality is Bobbi, a woman.
I wonder if that is a real disorder? I mean, do some people have an alternate homicidal personality? Or is it just a movie trope?
Why did he become Bobbi? Was she similar to Norman in that she had to kill the women the doctor found attractive?
I saw a "making of Dressed to Kill" documentary. Never knew that Bobbi was actually played by a woman and Caine only played "her" in the final scene.
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
"Tootsie", I recall women thought it was an insult that a guy could show women how to be "better" as women. But to me, it made a lot of sense.
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Well, he has the guy's information that a woman doesn't always have. This is reversible for women for men, too.
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Michael Dorsey was not used to being talked down to. But the director called Dorothy, "honey" and "sweetie" and it grated on his masculine sensibilities. Women are used to being patronized. Men are not. So "Dorothy" took a strong stand.
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Intriguing analysis. Michael came to realize that extent to which women are patronized, he likely hadn't even thought of it. He WOULD become a better man.
A reversal: not in Tootsie, and not in a movie, but I recall some sort of experiement undertaken by a pretty woman who dressed and looked like a man for a day(make-up, wigs.) The main thing she noticed was: nobody looked at her. Not men(who ordinarily WOULD size her up appreciatively.) Not women. She noted that she actually MISSED not being looked at by the men.
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I didn't see Michael "dumping" Sandy for Julie. He and Sandy were never involved, just friends. Michael only pretended to care for her when she caught him in his underwear in her bedroom. He had been trying on dresses (LOL).
He came up with the "Sandy I want you" line to cover up an awkward situation. Sandy surely didn't have to sleep with him.
Afterwards she admitted how "sex changes everything". She told Michael that after sleeping with a guy if she ran into him on the street, he would avoid her "like he owed me money."
Sandy was responsible for her own behavior. If she jumps into bed with men knowing that they don't really care for her, well that's on her, I think!
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
With Julie, I think it was a totally different thing. Michael was just smitten right from the start.
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Well all of that's true, of course. I suppose its like anything else -- for men with women or for women with men: they will "hang with a lover" to whom they are not really not attracted -- until "the real thing comes along." For Michael , Julie was the real thing.
Though there was that nice bit up front where Julie told "Dorothy" that she wished a man would just talk straight to her from the start about wanting her. Later, Michael AS Michael tries that -- and gets a drink in his face from Julie.
Complicated movie, Tootsie is. And a great one. Hoffman surrounded by that great, great supporting cast.
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
I'm not familiar with Phillip Seymour Hoffman playing a transvestite.
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I think Robert DeNiro was in it too -- playing a straight guy roomate of Hoffman's. I think. Never saw it.
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But I sure liked him as Capote. I have that DVD. Truman Capote is one of my favorite authors.
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Author famously of "In Cold Blood," a tale that took up a more realistic, less "psycho" version of Psycho in one respect: "all of a sudden out of nowhere," innocents are killed. In this case, an entire family. In a home invasion(always terrifying.) For stupid reasons. This real-life case happened in 1959, around the time of the writing of Psycho the book and the making of Psycho the movie.
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Going back to the other thread where you talked about "Dressed to Kill", Sir Michael Caine (such a great actor)
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Agreed. I've grown up with him -- from handsome young heartthrob to cool middle age to learned old guy. Its his VOICE, you know. And his "go to bed eyes"(as he called them when he was young.)
I found this interesting about Michael Caine. In 1971 he turned down the role of sex killer Bob Rusk in Hitchcock's Frenzy. Caine wrote in his auto-bio that "I didn't want to be associated with the part", and that Hitch never spoke to him again.
Cut to 1979. Caine wrote that he had had four bomb movies in a row and "five, and you're out as a star." So when Brian DePalma came calling with HIS sex killer role -- Caine said yes. Hitchcock no. DePalma yes. Well, Caine was a big star when Frenzy was made and Hitchcock, coming off Topaz and Torn Curtain, was considered passe. (But Frenzy proved he wasn't.)
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
Sir Michael Caine (such a great actor) is a psychiatrist and his other personality is Bobbi, a woman.
I wonder if that is a real disorder? I mean, do some people have an alternate homicidal personality? Or is it just a movie trope?
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Sometimes I think it is just a movie trope. There were some real split personality cases(such as the one shown in Three Faces of Eve), but Eve wasn't homicidal and I can't recall reading of a real Norman Bates -- even all Ed Gein did was to keep his Mothers' body around and dress up in a "skin dress."
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Why did he become Bobbi? Was she similar to Norman in that she had to kill the women the doctor found attractive?
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I think -- with the additive that Caine had tried to get sex change surgery and been denied. So he hated his own attraction to women.
Note that in their early therapy session, Angie comes on to Caine about having sex(she's joking...or not?) Caine tenses up and crosses his leg -- possibly hiding an erection. The murder may be driven by this one moment.
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I saw a "making of Dressed to Kill" documentary. Never knew that Bobbi was actually played by a woman and Caine only played "her" in the final scene.
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Analogous to the making of Psycho. Tony Perkins only had to "suit up" for the fruit cellar reveal. "Mother" was played by DIFFERENT women -- in the window, in the shower scene, in the staircase murder scene. Evidently, it was a little person(midget) Mother who attacked Arbogast on the landing. She had worked in the Wizard of Oz.
The woman playing Caine as killer put on a "Michael Caine nose" as I recall.
NOTE: I am pleasantly surprised that you are conversing with me when I came to drop off three Hitchocck interviews on the shrink scene. I will keep drawing attention to those interviews because they are now "buried up-thread." Hope you don't mind I repeat the notification below.
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
Three Hitchcock interviews about the shrink scene are "upthread" -- can't let them get buried.
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[email protected] (5497)
6 years ago
Oh yes, Anthony Perkins was not ever there for the week that they filmed the shower scene. He was in New York rehearsing for a play.
Cinema magic! . Seconds after the murder, Norman enters the motel room and looks in the bathroom. He is stunned and sickened.
But that scene was filmed many days later. You really get the feeling that Norman was right there all along, but is just as shocked as the audience when he is no longer "Mother".
"In Cold Blood" , I bought that book years ago. It's fascinating. Truman Capote's masterpiece.
Did you ever see the original film with Robert Blake as Perry Smith? His resemblance to Perry is uncanny. The actor who portrayed Perry Smith in Capote looked like him too.
Capote also tackled another true crime story in his book 'Music for Chameleons.' It's a collection of stories. My favorite is the longest entry in the book (80 pages) Handcarved Coffins.
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