MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > What if Norman Died at the End?

What if Norman Died at the End?

posted 6 years ago by ecarle (14979)
93 replies | jump to latest

Leaving out the ambiguous Rope killers, I've opined that Hitchcock gave us one great Psycho a decade:

The 40s: Uncle Charlie
The 50's: Bruno Anthony
The 60's: Norman Bates
The 70's: Bob Rusk

Hitchcock killed the first two (Charlie and Bruno) . Charlie falls off one train under the wheels of another; Bruno is the sole victim(?) of a berserk carousel spun off its axis to land on him.

But Hitchcock let the second two -- Norman and Rusk -- LIVE. They are captured, not killed.

Its as if the nature of the movies changed -- for awhile. Charlie and Bruno were villains, baddies who needed to be killed off to deliver a full happy ending. But Norman and Rusk were "unfortunate sick men" in their own way, and profound in other ways.

Well, Norman at least. It meant everything for "Psycho" and for movie history for Hitchcock and Perkins to give us that final, horrific reveal of the monster behind the man, in that jail cell, thinking in his Mother's voice and staring us down with a leering grin from beneath furrowed brows and darkened eye sockets.

The shrink at the end says that Norman is now "only his mother" and will likely remain so, "probably for all time." Critic Robin Wood summoned up the final image of Norman in the cell as proof of his "eternal damnation." Heavy stuff. A truly profound ending.

And then 23 years later, some hacks(sorry, I'm not much of a fan) made Psycho II and let Norman out to go run the motel some more.

And Hitchcock's allowing Norman to live at the end of Psycho proved a commercial consideration that I'll bet Hitchcock never dreamed of: let your killer live...and he can come back in a sequel.

Nowadays, its a giveaway if the killer lives at the end -- "Aha, he's still alive -- there can be a sequel." This was done with Hannibal Lecter at the end of Silence of the Lambs...indeed he was escaped and on the loose(believable, whereas Norman being released was NOT.) It was true with Saw(the only film I saw in that series; the first one.)

It wasn't true with the original Scream. The killer(s) died at the end -- most satisyfing to see it happen to them -- and the sequels simply took up copycats and new killers.

For that's a truism of a lot of modern thrillers -- I'd say starting with Dirty Harry back in 1971 and the horrific Scorpio. Modern-day audience bloodlust DEMANDED seeing the villain get killed...and frankly, it was too quick for Scorpio. Later films would exploit the revenge payback sadism of the psycho bad guy "really getting it good." I recall John Malkovich's baddie in "Con Air" getting beaten up and electrocuted before conveniently falling into a construction machine that crushed his head to a pulp.

Hans Gruber gets a fitting fall from a skyscraper in Die Hard. Gary Busey is beaten to a pulp by Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon, and THEN gets shot to pieces when he grabs for a cop's gun. (Busey's crime boss is trapped in a car full of explosives by Danny Glover and blows up real good.)

Yep, there seems to be a real need in modern thrillers to kill the bad guy off and deliver satisfaction.

But back there in 1960, late Hays Code Hollywood, Norman Bates -- nope. And Hitchcock and Perkins had so specifically designed Norman that we didn't really CRAVE his death. At all. Even given the two brutal and merciless killings we saw him carry out.

Most curious.

And what of Bob Rusk? Oh, not much. I'm on record as saying that I at least wanted Blaney to beat him to knees, head and crotch with that tire iron(I believe it happened after "The End'), but Hitchcock let the man live, simply had him get trapped and arrested in a funny curtain bit("Mr. Rusk, you're not wearing your tie.") This seemed way too little after the long and lingering rape-strangling we saw him commit, and our knowledge of others he committed before and, tragically, after that one(Babs).

But this: I don't think Hitchcock figured Bob Rusk for a sequel AT ALL. Nor did Universal. The thriller wasn't yet re-built that way. Rusk was a killer for one film only, there would be little point to giving a Norman Bates-like follow-up. Barry Foster wasn't much of a star, for one thing. Frenzy was far too grim and realistic(no fun, Psycho WAS fun) to generate desire to do it again.

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So what IF Norman died at the end? Easily enough done. We could have Sam taking a gun to the Bates Motel, given his fears over the disappearances of Marion and Arbogast. In the fruit cellar, Norman comes at Sam with the knife...bang bang. (In Bloch's novel, the sheriff arrived to help Sam tackle Norman, so the SHERIFF could be brought in to shoot Norman, too.)

And a different ending. The shrink would be brought in to analyze Norman the same way, but the profound lines "when the mind houses two identities, there is always a conflict, a battle, and in Norman's case, the battle is over, and the dominant personality has won" would...have to go.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

There would likely be no scene of Norman's burial...but there could be: a double burial side by side with Mother, her body at last properly interred in the earth alongside her son. Interesting ending I suppose.

And Sam and Lila would have to get the last scene. Not good.

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If Norman died -- no sequels, right? Not necessarily. Once the 80's came and sequels seemed like the way to go, The Sting got a sequel without Newman, Redford and Shaw in it. (Instead we got Jackie Gleason past his prime, Mac Davis, and Oliver Reed as a new baddie.) Some of the cast showed up for Jaws II, but Jaws 3D was an all new story.

Psycho was a big hit and a famous title. I expect if Norman died at the end of Psycho, a sequel would still have been made from Psycho. A copycat Mother. Or(as in Psycho II), the REAL Mother. Or Norman's never-before-seen brother(Perkins could have played him.) (Say that Norman lied about growing up alone.) Vera Miles could have anchored this film as the star if again made in 82 for 83 release, but perhaps Perkins as a brother would have worked. Where's there's a will, there's a way, sequel wise.

Recall that in 1981, some guys pitched a Psycho II script to the LA Times in an article that had Vera Miles as Lila running the Bates Motel with her daughter(to be played by Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet's daughter.) Martin Balsam was said to have agreed to play Arbogast's brother, Dr. Axelberg(different fathers?) Probably doomed to be killed again. And Perkins was attached to play Norman, escaping from the asylum in this version. But Universal shut that down and made the Psycho II we got instead. With Anthony Perkins(who agreed to take low pay when told that if he balked, Christopher Walken would be offered the role!)

And the only reason Anthony Perkins COULD play Norman again is because -- in accord with Bloch's novel -- Hitchcock let him live back in 1960.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

All things considered, I probably would have accepted a Psycho with Norman getting killed as much as the one we have where he lives. Endings can be arbitrary. But the version we have with Norman in the cell is so powerful and so historic I can't really imagine it any other way.

And again: somehow Hitchcock told the story so we didn't HATE Norman, didn't desire his death. (I think with Uncle Charlie and Bruno, each man was so evil towards the innocent characters, so arrogant and cruel and blackmailing, they HAD to die.)

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SPOILER for Bates Motel

I'm still wary of endorsing "Bates Motel" as having much of the same value or power of Hitchcock's much shorter version of Psycho(under 2 hours versus, what, 50 hours?) but the series gave us two things: Norman getting killed at the end(didn't his brother shoot him?) and Norman being mean and malevolent enough in his villainy so as to create our desire that he GET killed. (He was an evil adversary to Mom's cop boyfriend, for instance.)

It just goes to show you the delicate balance that Hitchcock and Perkins(well aided by Stefano, who softened the character created by Bloch --in the book , Norman delights in the idea that Lila will get killed in the house, and tells Sam so before knocking him out) worked in making Norman Bates a likeable guy at times.

But not THAT likeable. Norman's alive at the end, but gloating in evil triumph. Mother has gotten away with it, and Norman's face, to me, is the face of the killer we couldn't see when Marion and Arbogast got killed.

[–] swanstep (2616) 6 years ago

An interesting series of posts ecarle. I'm with you on almost every point: the end we have where Norman lives though completely 'taken over' is uniquely haunting.

One point I'd add and emphasize, however, is that the ending we have is Bloch's, preserved almost verbatim:

How could she kill them when she was only watching, when she couldn't even move because she had to pretend to be a stuffed figure, a harmless stuffed figure that couldn't hurt or be hurt but merely exists forever?
She knew that nobody would believe the bad man, and he was dead now, too. The bad man and the bad boy were both dead, or else they were just part of the dream. And the dream had gone away for good.
She was the only one left, and she was real.
To be the only one, and to know that you are real--that's sanity, isn't it?
But just to be on the safe side, maybe it was best to keep pretending that one was a stuffed figure. Not to move. Never to move. Just to sit here in the tiny room, forever and ever.
If she sat there without moving, they wouldn't punish her.
If she sat there without moving, they'd know that she was sane, sane, sane.
She sat there for quite a long time, and then a fly came buzzing through the bars.
It lighted on her hand.
If she wanted to, she could reach out and swat the fly.
But she didn't swat it.
She didn't swat it, and she hoped they were watching, because that _proved_ what sort of a person she really was.
Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly. . . .

[–] swanstep (2616) 6 years ago

I'd guess that it was this ending almost as much as the shower murder that sold Hitch on the project in the first place, and I'd guess too that Bloch as a short story specialist was probably even more proud of this simultaneously hushed and slam-bam ending than he was of earlier twists and kills.

Certainly in The Psychopath (1966) [spoiler]Bloch goes out of his way to create almost exactly the same ending and effect: Mother physically present but now dead, while the paralyzed/doll-ified/stupefied son looks on whimpering out 'Mama, mama,....'[/spoiler]

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

If she sat there without moving, they wouldn't punish her.
If she sat there without moving, they'd know that she was sane, sane, sane.
She sat there for quite a long time, and then a fly came buzzing through the bars.
It lighted on her hand.
If she wanted to, she could reach out and swat the fly.
But she didn't swat it.
She didn't swat it, and she hoped they were watching, because that _proved_ what sort of a person she really was.
Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly

---

Having elsewhere dissed Robert Bloch the novelist as being, I believe I said, "pulpy and pedestrian," I'm reminded that in this final passage of Psycho the book -- he was a pretty damn good writer and could be a profound one.

Stefano recrafted Bloch's lines a little here -- but a little -- the poetic pace of the book and movie are rather the same at the end:

She didn't swat it, and she hoped they were watching , because that proved what sort of a person she really was...

Hitchcock told Truffaut the he pretty much ONLY bought the book because of the shower murder "coming as it were, out of the blue."

But I think Hitchcock saw a lot more in that book than the shower scene. He felt the suspense of the story , the aching irony of the story...and the elements of the story(motel, house, shower, swamp, staircase, fruit cellar...)

As usual for Hitch, he wasn't too interested in being TOO praising of a collaborator.

Hitchcock biographer Pat McGilligan noted that Hitchcock hired Bloch to work on a psycho-related screenplay(which would eventually in a roundabout way, become "Frenzy") but cut off the relationship. Unlike as with Joe Stefano -- whom Hitch liked quite a lot as a fun companion -- Hitchcock found Bloch weird and off-putting.

But I think the fact that Hitchcock tried to work with Bloch indicates that maybe he felt bad for short-changing Bloch on the profits from Psycho.

Maybe.

[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

It's that old mischievous Hitchcockian "transference of guilt" again, isn't it? At its most subversive: Norman is charming and sympathetic (if a little odd), and it wasn't really him committing the murders, it was Mother...except that she'd been dead for ten years, so it was really him...sort of. And he isn't killed, but yet he dies, in a way...or so Dr. Richman tells us: "Norman Bates no longer exists."

And if Norman had been killed by Sam and/or Sheriff Chambers, would we have had the shrink at all? I'm trying to remember if I've ever seen a film (or TV show) involving post-mortem clinical psychoanalysis. Lots of speculating and theorizing by investigative types, but who is a psychiatrist going to get "the whole story" from when the only one (or the only ones) with it is (are) dead?

So, in addition to the other justifications you lay out, I'd add this one: after all that's gone before, we really want that explanation...from the shrink, from a cop, from somebody. And Norman has to be its source. I mean Mother. I mean...well, you know.

And mischievous ol' Hitch went in the opposite direction in his very next film: no explanation; no resolution. And it works.

Just the same, I like the "double burial" imagery, especially if, for example, it were juxtaposed with the film's final shot as it exists: a dissolve from Norman and Mother lowered to their burials to Marion being raised from hers. Could'a worked. And we would have accepted it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

It's that old mischievous Hitchcockian "transference of guilt" again, isn't it? At its most subversive: Norman is charming and sympathetic (if a little odd), and it wasn't really him committing the murders, it was Mother...except that she'd been dead for ten years, so it was really him...sort of. And he isn't killed, but yet he dies, in a way...or so Dr. Richman tells us: "Norman Bates no longer exists."

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Its pretty nifty, and I think the idea is more clear in the movie than the book: Norman is the killer -- he was practically born to kill(he killed mom and her boyfriend.) But in his later madness, Norman blamed Mother for the killings. And now captured and in a cell, Mother BLAMES NORMAN for the killings. Its as if Norman simply keeps shifting his "killing side" to another Other. Blames somebody else. Takes no responsibility.

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And if Norman had been killed by Sam and/or Sheriff Chambers, would we have had the shrink at all? I'm trying to remember if I've ever seen a film (or TV show) involving post-mortem clinical psychoanalysis. Lots of speculating and theorizing by investigative types, but who is a psychiatrist going to get "the whole story" from when the only one (or the only ones) with it is (are) dead?

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A fair point. I seem to remember SOME movie where the killer was dead and got explained by a shrink at the end, but I can't remember it now.

I'm reminded also that the killer in Dressed to Kill, DePalma's most direct Psycho homage, is alive at the end to be analyzed.

Funny there was never a sequel....

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

So, in addition to the other justifications you lay out, I'd add this one: after all that's gone before, we really want that explanation...from the shrink, from a cop, from somebody. And Norman has to be its source. I mean Mother. I mean...well, you know.

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Ha. Uh oh, we're edging here into the Mother of All Threads in our group history: The Psychiatrist Scene, good or bad.

Well whatever it is(good, says I), it WAS necessary. For reasons I have gone over before.

I'll keep racking my mind for a movie where the shrink comes in after the killer is dead.

And I'll take help.

And maybe its better if I'm wrong. No reason to be rude.

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And mischievous ol' Hitch went in the opposite direction in his very next film: no explanation; no resolution. And it works.

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Dem boids(as Gromek would say). Hitchcock and his colleagues said that the biggest issue raised by everybody throughout scripting and filming was "why are the birds doing this?" No explanation was given, though a few were floated in the movie, and of course in his self-hosted trailer, Hitchcock simply suggests: revenge. For being in cages. For being hunted. For being eaten.

But that's not REALLY enough of a reason, is it?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Just the same, I like the "double burial" imagery, especially if, for example, it were juxtaposed with the film's final shot as it exists: a dissolve from Norman and Mother lowered to their burials to Marion being raised from hers.

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A nice elaboration on my concept.

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Could'a worked. And we would have accepted it.

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Yes, we would have. Because the psychos died at the end of Strangers on a Train and Shadow of a Doubt.

But not, come to think of it, at the end of Night of the Hunter and the Peck/Mitchum Cape Fear. In the latter, the truly sadistic fiend Max Cady(Mitchum) is spared by Peck -- to "ROT in prison" but I dunno, I might have killed that big lug(who proves rather cowardly, just sneering in defeat rather than rushing Peck in a suicide manner). In the Scorsese remake of 1991, Cady(Robert DeNiro) DOES die, in accord with changed times.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

It's that old mischievous Hitchcockian "transference of guilt" again, isn't it?

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While we're on that very juicy Hitchcock topic, I'd like to raise a super-concise way the theme arises elsewhere in Psycho:

The first hardware store scene in Fairvale. Lila enters and pretty much accuses Sam of "being in this together" with Marion(the theft.) Lila is grilling the hapless Sam pretty good -- until Arbogast enters and pretty much accuses LILA of being in on it:

Arbogast: Where is she, Miss Crane?

Note that Arbogast's first question -- a suspicious, accusing one -- is of LILA, not Sam. So Lila goes, in a matter of seconds from accuser(of Sam) to accused (by Arbogast.) She gets a dose of her own medicine, learns what it is like to be suspected and not trusted. It continues:

Arbogast: Miss Crane, did you come up here on just a hunch?
Lila: Not even a hunch. Just hope.
Arbogast: Well, with a little checking, I could get to believe you.

I do like how Lila's having nothing of that take:

Lila: I don't care if you believe me or NOT!

Still, its a nifty roundelay:

Lila enters, suspects Sam.
Arbogast enters -- suspects Lila AND Sam...thus pushing the two into a partnership, really.

[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

"Still, its a nifty roundelay:

Lila enters, suspects Sam.
Arbogast enters -- suspects Lila AND Sam...thus pushing the two into a partnership, really."

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And yet another nifty roundelay: the economy - facilitated by film shorthand - with which Arbogast goes from suspicious accuser to sympathetic ally. He had parted from Lila and Sam with, "Where there's a boyfriend... She's not back there with the nuts and bolts, but she's in this town, somewhere. I'll find her." And it's expressed not with reassurance, but almost as a warning.

By the time Lila and Sam have risked a visit to the motel, she has re-evaluated Arbogast: "He liked me, Sam. Or he felt sorry for me, and he was beginning to feel the same way about you. I could tell the last time I talked to him on the phone."

The LAST time? The film gives no indication of others, but in between the hardware store meeting and his call from the gas station, we have that passage-of-time montage of dissolves from one motel to another that concludes with Arbogasts's arrival at the Bates place. Maybe they spoke in between, maybe they didn't. Doesn't matter. By the time we hear that "last" conversation, the warmth and familiarity of his manner with Lila just feels right.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And yet another nifty roundelay: the economy - facilitated by film shorthand - with which Arbogast goes from suspicious accuser to sympathetic ally.

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Yes. Part of the "magic" of Psycho is how its very few scenes of very short duration with some characters nonetheless yield a lot of depth and character.

How Arbogast evolves is particularly amazing.

I think what happens is that when he spends all that time with Norman interrogating him, we get a sense of the man that Sam and Lila could not in their brief hardware store meeting with him. Though he's tough and shrewd and exploiting his warmth with Norman in some ways, Arbogast IS aimiable and intelligent and soft-spoken with Norman -- not a bully, not a "cop."

And we take OUR knowledge of him to the phone booth -- where he reveals further warmth(and honesty) and we transfer that to Lila for later. ("He liked me, Sam, or he felt sorry for me -- and he was beginning to feel the same way about you.")

--

He had parted from Lila and Sam with, "Where there's a boyfriend... She's not back there with the nuts and bolts, but she's in this town, somewhere. I'll find her." And it's expressed not with reassurance, but almost as a warning.

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Yep. That first scene with Sam, Lila and Arbogast is possibly my favorite expository scene in Hitchcock, along with the Glen Cove library scene in NXNW, the first meeting of Blaney and Rusk in Frenzy, and...surprise!...Gavin Elster briefing Scottie in Vertigo.

But the Sam/Lila/Arbogast scene amazes against those other two because it is so SHORT. And yet so much gets established. Lila's suspicion of Sam, Arbogast's suspicion of Lila, EVERYBODY's suspicion of everybody and yet -- a certain caring humanity on the part of everybody too. Lila is desperately worried about Marion's whereabouts, Sam becomes so (before our very eyes) and the watchful, wary Arbogast is likely developing sympathy towards both Sam and Lila -- IF they prove not to be involved.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And Arbogast's conversation with Norman convinces him: they weren't involved. ("You'll be happy to know what I think, I think our friend Sam Loomis DIDN'T know Marion was up here.")

I'll talk a bit more about The Birds down-thread, but what possibly drove Hitchcock nuts was that, one film later in The Birds, he prided himself on having developed "more in depth characters" than the ones in the second half of Psycho, whom he called "mere figures." Its true that Melanie, Annie, Lydia...and to a lesser extent Mitch and Cathy -- get more to say and do in The Birds than the folks in the plot-driven second half of Psycho, but it just isn't all that interesting what the get to say and do. Perhaps because of the intense horror created by Marion's murder, we are very interested in the anguish of Lila and Sam(wanting to find Marion and fearing the worst) and we are very interested in Arbogast (THIS cool cat looks like he's got what it takes to solve the crime.) The characters in The Birds function APART from the horror and suspense of that film.

I've mentioned before that I think Hitchcock was "fishing for Oscar" with The Birds, telling writers, "Look, this is my most profound film yet, with real depth of character!" and coming up empty (except for well-deserved Best Special Effects nom that didn't pull through -- Cleopatra won.)

[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

"Dem boids(as Gromek would say). Hitchcock and his colleagues said that the biggest issue raised by everybody throughout scripting and filming was "why are the birds doing this?" No explanation was given, though a few were floated in the movie, and of course in his self-hosted trailer, Hitchcock simply suggests: revenge. For being in cages. For being hunted. For being eaten.

But that's not REALLY enough of a reason, is it?"
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For all its humor, there's subliminal allusion to the "nature fights back" theme that had arisen in the nuclear age, explored overtly at least as far back as 1954 in Gojira and Them, for instance. Whether Hitchcock intended such a thing in his trailer/lecture, I have no idea, but it plays to the zeitgeist of the time: muck around with earth-destroying power perhaps too great for mankind to handle, and you just might get revived prehistoric sea creatures or giant ants, grasshoppers, spiders and whatnot. 1960's The Time Machine got explicit about it: as bombs begin to fall on 1960's London, The Traveler observes, "Mother Earth, aroused by Man's violence, responded with volcanic violence of her own."

Just for the record, I don't for a minute assume that such messaging was designed into the film, beyond tapping into vague, we-could-all-be-dead-at-any-moment Cold War unease, but marketing's a whole other enchilada.

Realizing I'm somewhat more of a Birds booster than you are, one of the things I admire about it is the thematic connection it draws between the enigma of the attacks and the arrival of Melanie: invaders who upset the natural order and bring chaos, either to a family or a whole town. And as Hitchcock explained to Francois Truffaut, the final attack on Melanie is personal...ironic in the face of the hysterical mother's accusation. But again, it all plays into the Twilight Zone/One Step Beyond/Outer Limits/Thriller (and Alfred Hitchcock Presents) mood of unexplained mystery and uncertainty of the time.

[–] SavageBeauty (61) 6 years ago

I always thought The Birds was really about female/male relationships. This explains the dialog at several points in the film spoken by both Lydia and Cathy. 1963 was a groundbreaking year for all that feminist stuff too. Bodega Bay is trapped in another time (and still is!). The strange reverse courtship from Melanie was also a bit weird. Upsetting the natural order indeed. The author Daphne Du Maurier was bisexual: she had an affair with a women but she despised lesbians, go figure. Most of her stories have the theme of "a woman's place in the life", like Rebecca. Writers often encode symbolism, and I take the birds meaning more than just face value birds. I think it's much more deep than "birds are upset at humans" which is most often what you find fans saying. Next time you watch the film, really listen to that sad speech Lydia gives to Melanie about losing her husband. You know, most birds mate for life.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Hitchcock simply suggests: revenge. For being in cages. For being hunted. For being eaten.

But that's not REALLY enough of a reason, is it?"
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For all its humor, there's subliminal allusion to the "nature fights back" theme that had arisen in the nuclear age, explored overtly at least as far back as 1954 in Gojira and Them, for instance.

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Yes. Hitchcock was known for watching all sorts of movies in his private screening room to keep abreast of film trends. Diabolique and William Castle brought him to Psycho. Perhaps Gorjira(Godzilla) and Them brought him to The Birds.

Indeed, the title of the Newsweek review of The Birds was: "Hitchcock's Godzilla Picture," and I expect the shots of the kids running down the hill from the birds and downtown Bodega Bay in a panic most recaptured the feeling.

Later in the 70s when the "disaster movie cycle" struck (The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake and The Towering Inferno), Hitchcock said, "I made one of those movies. It was called The Birds," and further elaborated that such movies(including The Birds) eventually said that the personal romantic traumas and work problems of people don't amount to a hill of beans when the world starts falling to physical pieces. Universal offered Earthquake to Hitchcock btw. An interesting idea -- except the script was terrible.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Whether Hitchcock intended such a thing in his trailer/lecture, I have no idea,

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Well, the weird thing about the trailer is that it seems to rule out other reasons for the bird attacks and go for the obvious: we hunt and cage them, so they hunt and cage US. (Except as we know, life in the food chain has ALL animals hunting, killing and eating each other -- except for those vegetarians!)

Hitchcock's in his "comedy TV host" mode for much of the trailer(til it gets scary at the end, and he gets pecked on the finger)...so its like he doesn't feel like discussing nuclear war or the end of the world, or God's wrath or environmental issues. Nope: we hunt them, they hunt us.

About that trailer. It comes after the pithy "Alfred Hitchcock Travel Agency" trailer for North by Northwest and the absolutely classic "Alfred Hitchcock Tour Guide" trailer for Psycho and -- it is much worse than both of those.

Here's why: it goes on and on and on and on. Its as if there is a clue in the trailer for "The Birds" to the same Hitchcock Hubris that would harm The Birds against Psycho. In a word: overkill. An attempt to "top" Psycho, and an over-confidence on Hitchcock's part that "he is the star." I mean, that's HIM going on and on and on and on in that Birds trailer(and he's stuck in one room; in the Psycho trailer , he walked from place to place.)

The same Hitchcock Hubris that has him droning on for way too long in The Birds trailer could be seen in his selection of Tippi Hedren to anchor his big post-Psycho movie, and in the overlength of the first part of the movie(Psycho's beginning was overlong too, but its heading for the Shower Scene; all that happens in The Birds is that Tippi gets pecked on the forehead. And Psycho has a Sex Scene and an embezzlement up front.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

THAT said, I DO think The Birds ultimately wins out as a Hitchcock classic. Its his most famous film today alongside Psycho; its got the largest number of set-pieces in one Hitchcock movie and they are all amazing. Its got some of the greatest shots in Hitchocck(mine including the high shot over Bodega Bay as the birds fly down to attack the city; the explosive shot of the birds filling the sky behind the schoolhouse as the schoolkids run; the shot of triumphant crows on the front porch rail near the end, and the Final Shot.)

And there are some interesting human scenes in the picture: Lydia in her bed revealing her sense of abandonment to Melanie; Annie sharing her lost love to Mitch to Melanie; Cathy in tears relating the Death of Annie....and that whole great big wacky talka-palooza(with women AND men) in the Tides Diner.

[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

"Later in the 70s when the "disaster movie cycle" struck (The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake and The Towering Inferno), Hitchcock said, 'I made one of those movies. It was called The Birds,'"
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And when he came to the USA, it was ostensibly to make Titanic for Selznick. Disaster films were in the air in the mid-to-late '30s: San Francisco; Hurricane; The Rains Came, and films like The Good Earth and History Is Made At Night had calamitous set pieces as dramatic high points (locust plague and ship disaster, respectively). I might even include Gone With the Wind, in which the disaster was man-made.
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"...and further elaborated that such movies(including The Birds) eventually said that the personal romantic traumas and work problems of people don't amount to a hill of beans when the world starts falling to physical pieces."
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That surprises me a little. I've always thought of the bird attacks as the ultimate McGuffin, and the theme of the film as the same one that cropped up in so many of Hitchcock's: what happens to ordinary people when chaos suddenly intrudes upon their ordered existence, with an actual explanation for the attacks being of so little dramatic or thematic value that it's deliberately unaddressed.

Hitchcock's elaboration does seem to apply to the others, from the High and the Mighty up through The Towering Inferno, where the soap-opera problems of many protagonists become inconsequential in the face of calamity, and that's where I separate the Birds from that group, just as I do Gone With the Wind or Dr. Zhivago: all intimate stories about a small group with whom we can identify, and for which epic events like the Civil War, the Russian Revolution or unexplained bird attacks are merely backdrops.

[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

"Later in the 70s when the "disaster movie cycle" struck (The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake and The Towering Inferno), Hitchcock said, 'I made one of those movies. It was called The Birds,'"
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And when he came to the USA, it was ostensibly to make Titanic for Selznick. Disaster films were in the air in the mid-to-late '30s: San Francisco; Hurricane; The Rains Came, and films like The Good Earth and History Is Made At Night had calamitous set pieces as dramatic high points (locust plague and ship disaster, respectively). I might even include Gone With the Wind, in which the disaster was man-made.

---

All true. I think the main difference with the 70's disaster movies is that the disaster really WAS the focus of the film; I haven't seen all of those earlier ones, but didn't the disaster only come after about an hour or more of "story" -- in other words, the disaster was the climax.

Airport (1970) is said to be the first 70's disaster movie, but it is a one off. First of all, the disaster DOESN'T happen -- the plane lands safely(though an explosion on board kills the bomber and wounds a flight attendant.) The Poseidon Adventure really set the stage. The disaster happens early(tidal wave) and the rest of the movie is about survival. This format worked through the rest of the disaster movies pretty much.
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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

"...and further elaborated that such movies(including The Birds) eventually said that the personal romantic traumas and work problems of people don't amount to a hill of beans when the world starts falling to physical pieces."
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That surprises me a little.

--

I find your arguments here and in your second post very interesting.

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I've always thought of the bird attacks as the ultimate McGuffin, and the theme of the film as the same one that cropped up in so many of Hitchcock's: what happens to ordinary people when chaos suddenly intrudes upon their ordered existence, with an actual explanation for the attacks being of so little dramatic or thematic value that it's deliberately unaddressed.

---

Well, perhaps here Hitchcock found the sudden chaos to be "global." In his other movies, these things usually only happened to one or two people -- the "wrong man," the "tourist couple" the "young niece," etc. In The Birds, it happens to EVERYBODY -- though not really, doesn't it? It is focused on Bodega Bay and the outside world barely seems to notice or care...which is suspenseful.

----

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Hitchcock's elaboration does seem to apply to the others, from the High and the Mighty up through The Towering Inferno, where the soap-opera problems of many protagonists become inconsequential in the face of calamity, and that's where I separate the Birds from that group, just as I do Gone With the Wind or Dr. Zhivago: all intimate stories about a small group with whom we can identify, and for which epic events like the Civil War, the Russian Revolution or unexplained bird attacks are merely backdrops.

---

Again...interesting. A problem with ALL the 1970s disaster movies is that the human stories felt soap operatic and meaningless(even when nice people died -- like Shelly Winters in Poseidon and Jennifer Jones in Inferno.) I must admit Hitchcock and Hunter worked overtime to give the four leads of The Birds "gravitas and psychological underpinnings"(which is why he kept dissing most of his Psycho people as "mere figures.")

Before taking up your very interesting idea (the people -- not the attacks -- are the core of The Birds) I will note one thing in common between The Birds and The Towering Inferno that I've always liked in movies of that ilk:

The "disaster" does NOT arrive in top force and biggest destruction early on(like the tidal wave in Poseidon or the first earthquake in Earthquake.) Rather, the human characters take passing -- but only passing -- note of "little inconsistencies": Why did that bird peck Tippi? How come so many birds on the wire? Why did that bird crash into the door? ....Hey, the wiring burned out in that panel...anybody smell that smoke? Oh, there's a LITTLE fire on the 81st Floor? That can't reach here...

And then the movie moves on, the bird attacks get bigger and more deadly -- the fire gets bigger and a man dies in an elevator and emerges on fire in front of the guests -- and its GO TIME. Suddenly all the characters DO drop their stories and fight the disaster.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The Birds has this "one little thing leads to another" build-up that I always like in a thriller of this type. Its in Them, too, by the way: "Looks like a family was killed by a psychopath...hey wait, the general store owner too? What's that weird SOUND? Why the smell of formic acid? Giant ANTS?"
Go time.

But Hitchocck and Hunter cannily add suspense to the mix, too. The first people whom Tippi(and eventually Mitch) try to warn about the birds don't believe them --- starting with the local sheriff and moving on to about half of the Tides(especially the bird woman.) They Won't Believe Tippi! And then we get the Bodega Bay attack and FINALLY...everybody believes.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

In Hitchcock's case, additional credit is due for skillfully weaving the enigma of the attacks into the thematic content of the human drama. What's happening to the town is large-scale metaphor for what happens to the Brenner family: an outside force arrives and upsets the balance.

---

The film does pick that up as a "Hitchcock rhyme"(I do like those a lot)...you can just feel it.

And eventually the upset mother in the Tides spells it out: "They say this began when YOU came here" -- to Melanie. But its bigger than that, isn't it? Melanie disrupted the Brenners (and Annie) long before the birds came to call.

Recall that Joe Stefano turned down writing the script for The Birds because he felt of DuMaurier's short story: "It was short...but it wasn't a story." He knew that The Birds -- unlike Psycho -- really required an original screenplay with new, untested original ideas. A tough task.

Hitchcock and Hunter toyed with a murder mystery in Bodega Bay to tie into the bird attacks(hey, why not -- an embezzlement turns into a murder mystery in Psycho) but went against it.

Then they developed as story about a teacher coming to town but...instead they went with this New and Not Quite Improved Hitchcock blonde. But THEN, they elected to build upon Psycho by making this, too, a story about A Boy and His Mother, the former too old to be a boy, the latter too clinging to let him breathe.

But unlike with the stilted theatrics of Norman and Mother, Mitch and Lydia Brenner are REAL people -- well, real types.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And we end up with a very familiar situation at the Brenner household --and one totally different than the Gothic set-up in Psycho.

The patriarch has died, and only son Mitch has been moved into the position of Surrogate Husband(to Lydia) and Surrogate Father(to Cathy) and...well, its psychodrama galore, well-rooted in Psycho and every other smothering mother movie Hitchcock ever made(Notorious, NXNW, To Catch a Thief) and..very interesting in its own way I guess. Though not as interesting as the Psycho story, methinks -- the story in The Birds is interesting ENOUGH, and we care about Lydia and Melanie ENOUGH.

Though I've always found Mitch a bit of a pain -- poor Rod Taylor got to play a lot of guys with more macho and more heart than THIS guy. He's a courtroom attorney and a very smug one, and he delights in baiting and attacking Melanie as if she's on the witness stand. He seems to have destroyed Annie's spirit and probably knocked off a few more chicks even as Mother is the Biggest Bird of All.

Boy, does Mitch deserve everything that comes at him as the story goes along....
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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

That's why I personally find those scenes you highlighted above - Lydia and Melanie; Annie and Melanie; the diner scene, where the most overt thematic connection is articulated by the hysterical mother - to be among the film's most compelling. Except for the long build-up outside the schoolhouse, I've come almost to resent the attacks themselves as interruptions to the really interesting stuff.

---

Well, I've never heard THAT before...but I can see how, if you are wrapped up in the human story....the bird attacks are rather an interruption, a bother -- "standard action horror stuff" that pushes Hitchocck's so carefully developed human drama off the screen. (That The Birds made half of Psycho probably told Hitchcock he "should have stuck to sketchy characters, after all.")

There's also this: it takes a long time to really GET to the attacks (I'd say it starts with the birthday party --or do the sparrows come down the chimney first? See I don't know The Birds like Psycho) but once they come, they come fast and furious, one right after another. So that would REALLY be irritating, I suppose, if you want more human interactions.

Lydia's scene from her bed, with Melanie about her late husband, and expecting him home, and he's not there, makes Lydia the polar opposite of Mrs. Bates, btw. This woman loved a man, and raised a family with him(some late-age sex conjured up Cathy) and...he's gone. And Lydia fears abandonment. Who cannot relate?

And take a look , sometime, at how the long talk between Annie and Melanie in Annie's living room is staged and cut to match the Psycho Marion/Norman parlor scene. Annie takes Norman's position, and Melanie takes Marion's. Its a great "Hitchcock rhyme."

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Where Hitchcock and Hunter made their mistake, I think, is in rendering Melanie as a mere catalyst as much as a character. What little we get about her shallow and frivolous nature only accentuates the thinness of her definition, and once again at the climax, an attack interrupts just as she herself is becoming interesting by finding strength and purpose through crisis.

---

That's an interesting thought about the climactic attack (ON Melanie, and a brutal one that renders her near catatonic) really messing up the emotional arc.

But you also touch on a fundamental weakness in the character of Melanie herself: she never quite comes into focus. We never really SEE the destructive and carefree heiress whom Mitch hates so much; we get this polite and somewhat matronly(the hair) young woman -- pretty but cold, brittle not sexy.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I will single out here a real controversy with The Birds: According to Evan Hunter, the scene between Mitch and Melanie on the hill at the birthday party was not written by him.

Hunter said that Rod Taylor approached him on the soundstage(remember, the scene is set on a soundstage with a fake painting of Bodega Bay and cuts in from LOCATION FOOTAGE) and said "Did you write this?"(No, said Hunter.) "Have you seen this?" (No, said Hunter.)

Taylor felt it was bad dialogue and I must admit, some of it goes awful bad -- Melanie's sudden anger about her mother, Rod's line "You need a mother's love, my child," etc. Its a scene meant to give Melanie more "meaning," but it rather backfires and makes her look less sympathetic(with that Tippi Hedren warbling voice, its a bit worse.)

The big rumor is that HITCHCOCK wrote that scene. I dunno. I think it doesn't work visually or verbally.

And Peggy Robertson and others loved to kid Taylor about his line after the birthday party attack: "Could you stay overnight? I'd feel a lot better." They felt it emasculated him.

But the rest of the script holds up a lot better.

[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

"The big rumor is that HITCHCOCK wrote that scene. I dunno. I think it doesn't work visually or verbally."
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I can venture a theory on its purposes as "connective tissue" even if its writing and execution aren't up to par. First, Melanie and Mitch needed a "sincere" scene independent of the attacks that doesn't end in confrontation or involve some sort of sparring as all the earlier ones have.

Second, it invokes the "mother issues" that will be resolved in the final scene. On the one hand, Melanie's vulnerable only where her absent one is concerned. On the other, Lydia's emotionally adrift and disconnected: "Cathy's a child, of course, and Mitch...well, Mitch has his own life."

As they prepare to drive away, Melanie in her broken state gazes childlike into the eyes of Lydia, who cradles her and responds with a reassuring smile and maternal gaze of her own. Melanie's found a surrogate mother and Lydia now has a surrogate daughter who depends upon her in a way that her own doesn't seem to.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I can venture a theory on its purposes as "connective tissue" even if its writing and execution aren't up to par.

---

I'm glad you are there with this. In some ways, I'm just being "guided by the media." The story about this being a bad scene is from Evan Hunter, it was in an article on The Birds, and he had some defending to do, I guess.

And I CAN relate to how this scene shows us that Melanie really has no mother -- thus laying the groundwork for Lydia to become such (AND to welcome Melanie as a daughter-in-law.) And this: In Psycho, Hitchcock couldn't even bother to give us Bloch's backstory for Marion: both of her parents are dead. Hitch allows us to infer it, but doesn't fill in the story.

I'm also generally OK with the "soundstage hill." Its very Hitchcock, artificial amidst the reality; dream-like.

---

First, Melanie and Mitch needed a "sincere" scene independent of the attacks that doesn't end in confrontation or involve some sort of sparring as all the earlier ones have.

---

True. In some ways this is the last real connection scene between Mitch and Melanie before all hell breaks loose. Melanie and Lydia will have one more deep scene(Lydia in bed after seeing the dead farmer) but for Mitch and Melanie -- this is it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Second, it invokes the "mother issues" that will be resolved in the final scene. On the one hand, Melanie's vulnerable only where her absent one is concerned. On the other, Lydia's emotionally adrift and disconnected: "Cathy's a child, of course, and Mitch...well, Mitch has his own life."

---

Lydia's words there are intelligently delivered -- but they betray the tough realities she must face: her husband IS gone, Mitch and Cathy have to be given some breathing room. Mitch, for all his smugness and judgmental qualities, is rather Norman-like in having given over his life to his mother and sis -- or has he? Sexy bachelor by weekdays, hiding at home on the weekend.

--

As they prepare to drive away, Melanie in her broken state gazes childlike into the eyes of Lydia, who cradles her and responds with a reassuring smile and maternal gaze of her own. Melanie's found a surrogate mother and Lydia now has a surrogate daughter who depends upon her

---

I've seen The Birds enough times to really respond to this scene...I expect Hitchcock was trying for Oscar after Psycho with such warmth and human feeling.

But there's a terrible twist: Lydia and Melanie have reached this simpatico -- just in time for the birds to take over the world? You want to picture Mitch and Melanie getting married and coming to dinner at Lydia's -- but there is no sense that will be possible. The birds will rule.

Oh, well, at least Lydia and Melanie can die in each other's arms....

....but we can't be sure, can we?

[–] swanstep (2616) 6 years ago

We never really SEE the destructive and carefree heiress whom Mitch hates so much; we get this polite and somewhat matronly(the hair) young woman -- pretty but cold, brittle not sexy.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Right, we're supposed to believe that Melanie's an heiress of some reknown (like a Hearst or a Hilton or a Vanderbilt or an Ellison) so that her youthful hijinks automatically made the San Fran papers' gossip/society columns (Grace Kelly actually had this for Philadelphia). The Melanie we *see* feels both more controlled than that (it's hard to believe she ever had any youthful hijinks!), and doesn't act especially rich or snobby or spoiled

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Its an odd thing that has perhaps been accentuated by the Paris Hilton types of our modern age. Melanie as DESCRIBED to us (pretty much solely by Mitch, come to think of it) as this party hellion simply doesn't match the woman on screen.

I'm seeking to be more understanding of the viewpoint that Doghouse is nicely putting forward here about how the story and characterizations of The Birds work for him as they don't for me -- and this thought came to mind:

Perhaps the "sketchiness" of the Psycho characters WORKED for them, and the "depth" of the Birds characters worked against them.

I'm thinking of Marion Crane. She isn't particularly rendered in more depth than Melanie Daniels. Much of Marion's time on screen, she doesn't even speak -- in the real estate office, in her bedroom packing and embezzling; and very much on the road. Even in her big parlor scene with Norman, she's more often listening to HIM speak, than speaking herself.

And thus, we PROJECT Marion Crane's personality upon her from us. Sexy? Sure...the necking with Sam, the underwear changes(which are private to her, voyeurs like us and Norman get to watch)...she's a sensual being as Melanie cannot be -- Melanie is just starting out with Mitch , no real intimacy yet(one kiss, that's it, in the whole movie.)

But Marion is also...tense, paranoid, haunted, vengeful -- things we mainly get from her face during the drive, really.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Anyway, Janet Leigh wasn't given much of a character to work with and yet she got an Oscar nod -- probably for all that facial acting, the daring sexual stuff and...above all...the grueling shower scene(alive AND dead.)

And here's Tippi Hedren being saddled with a "madcap heiress" character who doesn't seem that way at all, and who must interact, in various psychosexual ways, with Mitch, Lydia, Annie...and even Cathy.

The conceptualization of Mitch has always seemed wrong to me in one key way. He's established as a criminal defense lawyer who represents "hoods" and yet he comes at Melanie as if he were a prosecutor out to "clean up the town" -- very judgmental, very throw-the-book-at-her. Edging the political button, he acts like a conservative while playing a guy in a liberal job. (And just how many killers DID he defend? Like the guy he talks about who killed his wife for changing the channel? Is Mitch perhaps deserving of the birds for reasons like that? He defended an abusive wife killer!)

Anyway, Evan Hunter -- with no novel or play to work from and under orders from Hitchcock to "deepen the characters" perhaps had to conjure people in The Birds who -- while "deeper" than the Psycho crew -- were more subject to criticism.

[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

"Well, I've never heard THAT before...but I can see how, if you are wrapped up in the human story....the bird attacks are rather an interruption, a bother -- "standard action horror stuff" that pushes Hitchocck's so carefully developed human drama off the screen."
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Upon consideration, I wish I'd put that differently. What I should have said is that, after countless viewings, the human relationships have come to be more dramatically compelling to me than the big special effects "action" sequences. It's rather like an umpteenth viewing of Bullitt: dramatic momentum pauses for the auto chase while 10 minutes of action take over. Nowadays, I'm always happy to get back to the battle of wills between Bullitt and Chalmers.
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"There's also this: it takes a long time to really GET to the attacks (I'd say it starts with the birthday party --or do the sparrows come down the chimney first? See I don't know The Birds like Psycho) but once they come, they come fast and furious, one right after another."
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I will say this for them: no two are alike; each has its special cinematic character. Following the first foreshadowings, the non-lethal one at the party; then the (again) non-lethal sparrows (you're not safe indoors, either); then the lethal results of one at the Faucett farm; then the all-out pursuit of the school children (with the long suspenseful lead-in); then the wholesale attack in town; another lethal aftermath at Annie's; then the (mostly) "audio only" one on the Brenner house; finally, the "visual only" silent attack on Melanie.

And we never SEE anyone getting killed by birds, and actually witness only one death: the poor slob who lights a cigar at the wrong place and time. The birds caused it indirectly, but they didn't perpetrate it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

"Well, I've never heard THAT before...but I can see how, if you are wrapped up in the human story....the bird attacks are rather an interruption, a bother -- "standard action horror stuff" that pushes Hitchocck's so carefully developed human drama off the screen."
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Upon consideration, I wish I'd put that differently. What I should have said is that, after countless viewings, the human relationships have come to be more dramatically compelling to me than the big special effects "action" sequences. It's rather like an umpteenth viewing of Bullitt: dramatic momentum pauses for the auto chase while 10 minutes of action take over. Nowadays, I'm always happy to get back to the battle of wills between Bullitt and Chalmers.

---

Oh, I hear THAT. When I put Bullitt in the DVD player for a quick look sometimes, I SKIP the car chase and zero in on Bullitt verus Chalmers (with Simon Psycho Oakland as Bullitt's tough boss defending him.)

The relationship between screen action and screen talk is an interesting balance. The older I have gotten, the more attracted I am to "the words." And look at Psycho. In many ways, it is more interesting to watch Norman TALK to Marion and Arbogast than to kill them. (That's an ultimate horror of the tale: Norman was good conversation -- too bad he was a killer, too.) Hitchcock, in Psycho and NXNW and The Birds, seemed to know that audiences dug BOTH experiences: the talk and the visual (like those nine minutes of Marion's burial WITHOUT talk in Psycho.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Frenzy -- which I like very much for other reasons -- has always felt to me like a movie where the talk simply wasn't as compelling as the action. That whole stretch after Brenda's murder and before Babs' murder-- roughly all "Blaney and Babs" scenes, plus some stuff with Oxford -- is well written and real, but pretty boring to me. Its not compelling talk. They aren't compelling characters. Which makes things pretty perverse in Frenzy: all the good scenes have Rusk in them...and they are pretty disturbing scenes, except his early chit-chat with Blaney.
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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

"There's also this: it takes a long time to really GET to the attacks (I'd say it starts with the birthday party --or do the sparrows come down the chimney first? See I don't know The Birds like Psycho) but once they come, they come fast and furious, one right after another."
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I will say this for them: no two are alike; each has its special cinematic character. Following the first foreshadowings, the non-lethal one at the party; then the (again) non-lethal sparrows (you're not safe indoors, either); then the lethal results of one at the Faucett farm; then the all-out pursuit of the school children (with the long suspenseful lead-in); then the wholesale attack in town; another lethal aftermath at Annie's; then the (mostly) "audio only" one on the Brenner house; finally, the "visual only" silent attack on Melanie.

---

There you go. And again -- from me -- this contention: there is no other Hitchcock picture with so MANY set-pieces. He was out to top Psycho, and in this realm, he did.

Except...he didn't. The shower scene alone seems to have made its play for movie history without needing another set-piece in the movie. Simply put, one shower scene EQUALS six Bird attack scenes.

This comes home in the scene where the birds attack Melanie at the end. Its clearly shot as a "match" for the shower scene, and more technically adroit(all those birds)...but...Melanie doesn't die, it somehow lacks the horror that Norman as Mrs. Bates brought to Psycho.

And of course -- for sheer scream levels -- the remaining two set-pieces(Arbogast and the fruit cellar) best The Birds set-pieces in HORROR as well. I think only the farmer with the pecked out eyes got a scream in The Birds -- maybe also that guy who runs up to the phone booth with Arbogastian blood on his face.

I think it boils down to this: a human monster with a knife is more scary than birds, as the killer.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And we never SEE anyone getting killed by birds,

---

No, and that's a problem. For one thing, it begs the question: how did the birds kill people? By pecking out their eyes? A long, gruesome death, yes? (From "shock" perhaps, which always seems imprecise as a cause of death.) Had we seen a shot of a man getting it in the throat from a beak...that might make sense.

Now, we do see the long process by which Melanie is ripped apart in little cuts, here there and everywhere, but she survives.

With Psycho -- when that knife went in, we KNEW death was on the menu.

I've read a lot of 1963 reviews of The Birds and many of them said "its just not as scary as Psycho." One critic said he felt that Hitchcock, abased by the criticism over the killings in Psycho, "pulled his punches in this one." And this: none of the children die. Its necessary in 1963, but rather selective. (Folks, I was a kid when I saw The Birds in 1963 and I thought the run down the hill looked FUN. I wished the birds would do that to ME. But I guess I was a sick kid.) Meanwhile, take a look at Jaws: victim number two is a young boy (which I contend was necessary to properly "villainize" an animal.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

and actually witness only one death: the poor slob who lights a cigar at the wrong place and time. The birds caused it indirectly, but they didn't perpetrate it.

---

That victim is rather another "debate point" in The Birds.

Is he the hard-drinking salesman played by Joe Mantell("Take our guns and blast them.") Some have said yes. Some have said that the salesman is long gone by then. Its clearly not Joe Mantell, but a stunt man would have been necessary. It SHOULD be Mantell -- then we'd get a joke that the warhawk was the first to go!

---

That death makes the point -- as later "animals attack" movies would do -- that the deaths could occur Rube Goldberg style -- explosions, car crashes -- rather than having the birds do the killing.

And that's more "disaster entertainment" than horror entertainment -- unless we're talking "Final Destination" which his a little of both.

Truth be told, after The Birds, Hitchocck would get back to human-on-human mayhem, and the murders would be quite brutal: the sailor in Marnie, Gromek in Torn Curtain, Brenda in Frenzy. By comparison, the killings in The Birds are almost sedate.

[–] swanstep (2616) 6 years ago

That death makes the point -- as later "animals attack" movies would do -- that the deaths could occur Rube Goldberg style -- explosions, car crashes....more "disaster entertainment" than horror

Indeed, there is a bit of that in The Birds. Overall though, for myself, I find The Birds plenty scary and tense, which testifies to Hitch's skill as a film-maker. I mean, it's one things to rely on suggestion etc. when you're dealing with a leopard or a shark, say, but birds, like rabbits, sheep, etc. aren't intrinsically scary to humans. The Birds *could* easily have tipped into comedy about its basic threat, but instead by the end Hitch has completely sold us on the idea that a 'birds revolt' scenario is The End Of The World, and feels roughly equivalent to nuclear annihilation.

I suspect that, deep down, Hitch was worried about *not* pulling this off and that, at least in part, all the family and lovers triangle drama was designed to distract the audience, to give it lots to think about between attacks. We aren't between attacks thinking about where the birds are? what they're up to? and how could they be such a menace anyway? Jaws *could* have followed this strategy too, e.g., if they'd kept Hooper's affair with Brody's wife from the book, but sharks' inherent menace - Spielberg's job is just easier - meant that eliminating such distractions was the right way to go.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

That death makes the point -- as later "animals attack" movies would do -- that the deaths could occur Rube Goldberg style -- explosions, car crashes....more "disaster entertainment" than horror

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Indeed, there is a bit of that in The Birds. Overall though, for myself, I find The Birds plenty scary and tense, which testifies to Hitch's skill as a film-maker. I mean, it's one things to rely on suggestion etc. when you're dealing with a leopard or a shark, say, but birds, like rabbits, sheep, etc. aren't intrinsically scary to humans.

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Absolutely. A great white shark is scary just THINKING about it. (Indeed, a few years before Jaws came out, I recall a documentary called "Blue Water, White Death" about great whites, and IT was scary -- I saw both that one and Jaws with a male friend who had a total shark phobia...he went nuts both times.)

Hitchcock, in accepting birds as his monsters even went so far as to eliminate more predatory birds from the story. No hawks, no eagles. No owls(Hey there, Norman!) As with his conversion of a shower into a deathtrap and a "sick old lady" as a killer, Hitchcock here found a way to make us feel terror about.. the regular, everyday birds we see around us all the time(though seagulls, you generally have to be at the coast, though I've seen them inland -- lost?)

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The Birds *could* easily have tipped into comedy about its basic threat,

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Ironically, I don't think the birds ever become funny -- they are quite murderous, and they kill Nice Annie -- but sometimes the STORY becomes unintentionally funny. A few bad lines here and there and the dangerous topic of "hysteria" (mainly seen in the Tides, mainly by the scared mother.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

but instead by the end Hitch has completely sold us on the idea that a 'birds revolt' scenario is The End Of The World, and feels roughly equivalent to nuclear annihilation.

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I think he wanted that rough equivalence. Setting aside the terrifying aspects of the bird attacks, by the time they are done with Bodega Bay, it looks like a war zone. They've blown up the gas station and cut off power to the Brenner home, likely other places. We see cars crash and a horse wagon overturn. (There is a fairly famous photo of Mitch and Melanie walking down a destroyed street littered with dead seagulls that -- is not a scene in the movie!)

But the terror IS there, suggested by some dark images: above all , the farmer with the pecked out eyes(one imagines his lonely death -- everybody else is attacked with other people around); but also the bloody-faced man at the phone booth and, Annie(off-screen, but powerfully spoken of by Cathy), and ultimately, Melanie herself, under an attack that is incredibly ferocious and WOULD have killed her had not Mitch intervened.

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There really seem to be split decisions in original reviews as to whether or not Psycho and The Birds were equally scary. The irony today, I think, is that PSYCHO is no longer all that scary to watch -- so it has flattened out to equivalence with The Birds -- modern horror is so much more horrible.

Though there I am speaking of the Saw/Hostel type gorefest. Jaws stayed at Psycho-plus levels of blood(Quint's death is very graphic, but he's a tough guy so we take it), and could be a mainstream hit. Today's gore is gorier.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I suspect that, deep down, Hitch was worried about *not* pulling this off and that, at least in part, all the family and lovers triangle drama was designed to distract the audience, to give it lots to think about between attacks.

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So often in Hitchcock movies, we are left to decide -- why did he do THAT?

An easy example: Family Plot was filmed in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, and if you know the cities, it is clear which is which on screen at a given time. But Hitchcock merges them into a fictional, unnamed city that he indicated "is on the East Coast." Huh? Why?

With The Birds, we have the decision NOT to have any music at all(Huh? Why? Perhaps a dig at Herrmann's supremacy in Psycho?) and...we get all this family psychodrama. Huh? Why?

He must have had his reasons. I keep guessing: Oscar. After Psycho, Hitchcock had everything he wanted (wealth, power, fame) EXCEPT Oscar...and he evidently started his work with Evan Hunter by showing him his wall of Oscar nomination plaques("Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.")

But also...Hitchcock was a very serious filmmaker at heart. I don't think he could have made a "Birds" that didn't have SOME human context and character to it. He didn't make monster movies, he wouldn't film something like "Them" where the whole story is about the investigation and the military blows the mutants away at the end. Hitchcock had other fish to fry.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

We aren't between attacks thinking about where the birds are? what they're up to? and how could they be such a menace anyway?

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Nope. Indeed, the film sets up the various characters so their characters are "put to the test" emotionally. Lydia has to reach out to Melanie. Mitch has to "become the man of the house" in a big way(his father's painting looms over the proceedings as if judging him.) Annie becomes a sacrifice. Cathy grows up fast -- and defends the lovebirds.

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Jaws *could* have followed this strategy too, e.g., if they'd kept Hooper's affair with Brody's wife from the book,

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I think that affair was put in the book primarily to give it a graphic sex scene. I read a lot of popular novels in the 60's and 70's, and I think the writers were REQUIRED to put one or more graphic sex scenes in their books. Books weren't like movies -- you had only your imagination with you. Harold Robbins and Jaqueline Susann made hay with sex, but there is plenty of it in the novel of The Godfather and some(the affair) in the novel of Jaws. (Which Robert Shaw uncharitably called "a piece of s---....a book written by a committee" to Time magazine; hey, it even had Mafia menace in the town fathers!)

In the book, the sex-charged affair unfortunately required Hooper and Brody to hate each other and duke it out on the boat -- with Quint as a referee! Of course, Hooper was a muscular stud in the book -- Richard Dreyfuss changed THAT.

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but sharks' inherent menace - Spielberg's job is just easier - meant that eliminating such distractions was the right way to go.

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Yes, he pared it down to the shark's menace, the occasional attacks, and a truly great trio of male characters, refined and improved from the book. Given the silliness of the teenage protagonists of Jaws II, I've always felt that the Male Trio of Jaws was as much responsible for its classic state as the shark.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Note in passing: I rather like how this thread about "What If Norman Died?" rather naturally veered off into a discussion of The Birds. We've kept Psycho in play as a comparison, but we've also gotten to talk about The Birds which-- due to the weird vagaries of these boards -- doesn't get much action at all on its board. Nor does Rear Window. Nor does NXNW. Nor does Frenzy(like, at all)

But also this: I've rather jumped in on the "negative" aspects of The Birds, and at the same time I've come to understand doghouse's greater valuing of the film. I am capable of changing my mind, I SHOULD be able to see the characters and dialogue in a new light. Perhaps I was unduly prejudiced by things like Judith Crist's TV Guide review when I was a kid("A dull and plotless tale beyond the birds") or critics who saw it the wrong way(Robin Wood took up the fact that The Birds was compared to much to Psycho, and wrongly so.)

It is clear to me that in the foursome of Vertigo, NXNW, Psycho and The Birds -- Vertigo and The Birds are the more "artful"(if not arty) films, with a lot more emotion on their mind than the entertainment machines that NXNW and Psycho were. Yes, NXNW is profound in its own way and Psycho matches profundity with the shocks -- but NXNW is an action movie and Psycho is a horror movie, and Vertigo and even The Birds(which SEEMS like a horror movie) have more on their minds in certain ways. If Hitchcock kept trying to tell interviewers that the characters in The Birds were more deep than most in Psycho -- I'm sure he felt that way.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

There are also some folks out there(Hitchcock scholar Ken Mogg for one) who have flat out declared The Birds as BETTER than Psycho.

And there was one British critic who felt that Frenzy(1972) was the first really good Hitchcock film since...North by Northwest!(1959.) Wrote the critic, "even Psycho and The Birds would have been senseless studies in sadism without Hitchcock's embellishments".No accounting for point of view, I guess.

In fact, I can NAME another critic who seemed to like Frenzy better than Psycho or The Birds. Stanley Kauffman wrote of Frenzy, "it is the best-acted Hitchcock film since North by Northwest." I expect Kauffman was prejudiced against John Gavin and Tippi...

But anyway, I think The Birds is like Vertigo in some ways...I had to teach myself to like it ...but its always impressed me with the effects and the action. (And hey, let's self-confess, here: The Birds is really about its women. Its a "chick flick." This Wild Bunch/Dirty Dozen/Magnificent Seven fan is gonna have problems with THAT.)

As a landmark film, The Birds is a landmark SPECIAL EFFECTS film(Oscar nommed)...and that links it to the Lucas/Spielberg/MCU decades in a big way, yes? And backwards to King Kong in '33.

[–] ProductionNow (1072) 6 years ago

No, and that's a problem. For one thing, it begs the question: how did the birds kill people? By pecking out their eyes? A long, gruesome death, yes? (From "shock" perhaps, which always seems imprecise as a cause of death.) Had we seen a shot of a man getting it in the throat from a beak...that might make sense.
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Yes, that gets me also. The victims of the birds die by indirect cause (except for the eye-pecking, which is not conclusive since he may have been dead before his eyes were pecked).
This makes the birds scarier than they really are, but, conversely, it also makes Hitch a marvel at making the unscary, scary. Or we can exchange "suspense" for the word "scary" if that's better suited.
Sure, a man with blood running down his face is horrific, but that man seemed to be lagging, as if he was so much in shock and THAT's why he wasn't running for cover, except to the phone booth.
Now, the phone booth: when I first saw this, I figured the phone booth was a distance from the diner since Melanie needs to take refuge in it, yet Mitch comes along and the booth is only a couple of yards from the diner, which would had taken Melanie 3 more seconds to run to the diner door on her own. The bloodied man, same thing.
With Annie, the birds "cover her", but there is no evidence of murder--unless she hit her head against the step while falling.
The Birds are doing a helluva lot of killing..without killing. But again, unlike The Swarm, Hitchcock made it work.

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

>>And a different ending. The shrink would be brought in to analyze Norman the same way, but the profound lines "when the mind houses two identities, there is always a conflict, a battle, and in Norman's case, the battle is over, and the dominant personality has won" would...have to go.<<

Norman did die according to the psychiatrist. We got Norman who committed matricide and killed her lover and couldn't deal with it. The other killings were done by Mother. (That said, I can't remember the explanations in the sequels, so this may have changed.)

You bring up some good points about him dying. If Norman actually died by being killed by Sam Loomis, then he would've died as his mother. This would mean justice was served in that the real killer we saw in Psycho was killed. If Norman as Norman was killed, then it would not have been as satisfactory since we did not see Norman kill anybody. It was explained that he did, but we're not as emotionally tied to seeing Norman as the killer..

Maybe you felt that the psychiatrist scene wasn't necessary. There definitely would be a bigger debate about what happened at the end as Mother the dominant personality took over.

ETA: It just hit me that Psycho was done with the crew of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. At the end of every epsiode, Hitch comes back to explain what happened to the bad guys/gals. Thus, it makes sense that the psychiatrist is there at the end to explain. He doesn't appear to be the type of director to leave the ending open.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Norman did die according to the psychiatrist.

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An interesting point. He's now his mother "probably for all time." (The psychiatrist couldn't see Psycho II yet. And by the way, the psychiatrist in Psycho II played by Robert Loggia was scripted to BE Simon Oakland from the original, but the makers claimed that Oakland "had trouble with his appearance." I think he died not long after Psycho II was made.)

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We got Norman who committed matricide and killed her lover and couldn't deal with it. The other killings were done by Mother. (That said, I can't remember the explanations in the sequels, so this may have changed.)

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Aw...the explanations in the sequels don't matter. There is one work of art here, adapted from one novel, by one master artist and his masterly team.

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You bring up some good points about him dying. If Norman actually died by being killed by Sam Loomis, then he would've died as his mother. This would mean justice was served in that the real killer we saw in Psycho was killed. If Norman as Norman was killed, then it would not have been as satisfactory since we did not see Norman kill anybody.

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Now, that's some nifty thinking! We may see Norman in that wig and dress coming at Lila...but its only mother there. In Norman's mind, at least.

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It was explained that he did, but we're not as emotionally tied to seeing Norman as the killer..

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I've sometimes imagined Psycho if Norman AS Norman appeared in the shower scene or came running out at Arbogast. Psycho wouldn't have been nearly the classic it is. (It would have been more like seeing Bob Rusk committing the killings in Frenzy.) Mother as MOTHER is terrifying. Mother as Norman in DRAG is terrifying. Norman, not so much.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Maybe you felt that the psychiatrist scene wasn't necessary.

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Oh, not me! I think it is a very necessary scene and a very good one -- well written and expertly played by Simon Oakland for "showboat attitude."

And I always note this. Without the psychiatrist scene, we would never know:

ONE: That Norman killed his mother and her lover. ("Matricide is the most unbearable crime of all.")
TWO: That Norman gutted and stuffed his mother.(Ugh! Eek!)
THREE: That Norman killed two other "young girls" before Marion(well, Mother did.)

Incredible vital information -- not to mention the discussion of what we saw and what it meant "plot wise"(Norman peeping on nude Marion triggered lust triggered Mother the Punisher.)

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There definitely would be a bigger debate about what happened at the end as Mother the dominant personality took over.

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I'm not sure I follow you here. My problem...

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ETA: It just hit me that Psycho was done with the crew of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. At the end of every epsiode, Hitch comes back to explain what happened to the bad guys/gals. Thus, it makes sense that the psychiatrist is there at the end to explain. He doesn't appear to be the type of director to leave the ending open.

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Another great point. Hitchcock's TV show and most TV mystery series of the time had what was known as the "epilogue" or "tag" scene in which the detectives (or lawyer Perry Mason) briefly explained the crime and how it was solved. A wild thought: what if HITCHCOCK had played the psychiatrist? Impossible, and it would ruin the movie. But let the scene play here in our imagination -- with Hitchcock's plummy voice and cadence telling the tale.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Hitchcock was oftered a number of roles as an actor, he said(without naming them.) I've learned of only one: Otto Preminger offered Hitchcock the role of "God"(not THE God -- a gangster with that name) in "Skidoo"(1968). Hitch said no, Groucho took it instead.

There are those who think Hitch might have made a good Professor Kingsfield in The Paper Chase(1973.) He was too old at the time. But Hitchcock's producer pal John Houseman had some Hitchcock to his voice as Kingsfield.

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

Norman, as his mother, made his character creepiness and scare factor go way up. You have to remember that mother didn't approve of other girls/women and Norman was attracted to other women. She wanted to keep him for herself, and did, until she met a man she wanted to marry. Norman became jealous and this set him off into crimes of passion. I remember discussing all this after watching the movie and it gives you the chills and disgust. It doesn't hit you while watching the movie. Psycho really hits home in that regard as you don't really expect an ending like that. Hitchcock saw to it that justice was served, in a way, but it was the type of ending that stayed with you. Other movies that had this kind of twisted ending was Silence of the Lambs but it had some black comedy to it. Or Se7en. That one had a lot of drama, but the ending settled it all. Another could be Chinatown where the main character doesn't get his man. A few Alfred Hitchcock Presents had great episodes have this kind of effect, but Hitch comes on at the end to give away what happened and conclusion.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Norman, as his mother, made his character creepiness and scare factor go way up.

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Absolutely! As I think I've recently mentioned on a thread on this board, had we seen only NORMAN in his regular male clothes attacking Marion and Arbogast, it would have been brutal and scary enough, but the concept of "Mother" was far scarier -- both times(the times when we thought it was an old woman; the times we learned it was a man in drag.)

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You have to remember that mother didn't approve of other girls/women and Norman was attracted to other women.

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Which really marked ALL women Norman met in his later years for death(Marion, the two women who preceeded her in death). Norman had created an "automatic kill switch" on his sexual urges...Mother.

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She wanted to keep him for herself, and did, until she met a man she wanted to marry.

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This is the "clinging demanding woman...and then she met a man" material from the shrink's speech(predated, we must always remember, by Norman telling Marion the same thing, "and then mother met this man...")

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Norman became jealous and this set him off into crimes of passion.

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"Since he was so jealous of HER, he assumed she was as jealous of HIM"...another interesting analytical line from the psychiatrist's speech.

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I remember discussing all this after watching the movie and it gives you the chills and disgust. It doesn't hit you while watching the movie.

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Hitchcock gave a few interviews in which he said that "the horror of Psycho doesn't hit you as powerfully in the theater as it does when you have to go home....in the dark." He likely meant the shock effects, but the entire back story is so twisted and powerful that Psycho obsessed many people in trying to "figure out" Norman Bates via both his past and his present.

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Psycho really hits home in that regard as you don't really expect an ending like that.

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Not in 1960!

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Hitchcock saw to it that justice was served, in a way, but it was the type of ending that stayed with you.

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As swanstep noted in the excerpts from the Robert Bloch novel, Bloch had pretty well plotted out this great ending(in the cell)...but Hitchcock and Perkins and Herrmann took it up a whole nuther scary level...and added the final shot of the car coming out of the swamp to return us to the reality of Marion Crane. Dead Marion Crane. And the 40,000 dollars(well, 39,300 less the car buy.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Other movies that had this kind of twisted ending was Silence of the Lambs but it had some black comedy to it.

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A great curtain pun: "I'm having an old friend for dinner." And something that happens maybe too much in modern horror movies: the audience WANTS that victim to die. He was a vain, horrible bureaucrat who knowingly put Foster's life in danger. He THINKS he has eluded Lecter...but he hasn't. And we envision his gruesome end without seeing it(the movie ends wonderfly with Lecter sashaying into the crowd to follow his prey, and disappearing.

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Or Se7en. That one had a lot of drama, but the ending settled it all.

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The Downer of All Times. I recall my agitation at the ending as it unfolded -- I didn't guess what was in the box until way too late. I didn't guess even when Morgan Freeman first looked in there and jumped up.

The horrible message of Se7en was: you can catch the killer, but you can't beat him. And the unseen sacrifice of a total innocent reminded you that she was in danger, all along.

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Another could be Chinatown where the main character doesn't get his man.

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Some have said that Se7en in 1995, brought back the "downer, you can't win" feeling of Chinatown and many other 70's pictures. But in Se7en, the bad guy IS caught. Problem is, that isn't enough to stop him.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

A few Alfred Hitchcock Presents had great episodes have this kind of effect, but Hitch comes on at the end to give away what happened and conclusion.

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All those achievements in film and here was Hitchcock radicalizing TV way before its time. Many many an episode ended with "the bad guy winning" and Hitch would rather halfheartedly come on to say, no, he got caught later (yeah, right.)

Or there was the ending of An Unlocked Window, in which a psychopath killed a very nice nurse. Hitchcock came on to tell us that the psycho was later caught -- but the psycho STILL managed to kill the "good girl" within the confines of the story itself. Hitchcock allowed that to happen(as the show's producer and script approver.)

Which tracks rather sadly with Marion in Psycho, and Brenda and Babs, in Frenzy...

[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

The gimmick with Hitchcock's epilogues on AHP is that the show would not pass the censors if anyone gets away with their crime. Which of course gave him the opportunity to add a dollop of humor. For example, after Barbara Bel Geddes has successfully clobbered her husband over the head with a frozen leg of lamb and got rid of the evidence by feeding it to the investigating cops, Hitchcock notes she was caught when she tried to do away with her second husband in the same way but a power failure had defrosted the lamb. I love that one because it doesn't really make any sense!

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

>>This is the "clinging demanding woman...and then she met a man" material from the shrink's speech(predated, we must always remember, by Norman telling Marion the same thing, "and then mother met this man...")<<

I think it was the Sheriff who said that Norman's mother killed her fiance and then herself. It's one of the memorable quote scenes.

SHERIFF: Your detective told you he couldn’t come right back because he was going to question Norman Bates’ mother. Right?

LILA: Yes.

SHERIFF: Norman Bates’ mother has been dead and buried in Greenlawn Cenetery for the past ten years!

SAM: You mean the old woman I saw tonight wasn’t Bates’ mother?

SHERIFF: Now wait a minute, Sam, are you sure you saw an old woman?

SAM: Yes! In the house behind the motel! I called and I pounded, but she just ignored me!

SHERIFF: You mean to tell me you saw Norman Bates’ mother?

LILA: It had to be, because Arbogast said so too. And the young man wouldn’t let him see her because she was too ill.

SHERIFF: Well, if the woman up there is Mrs. Bates… who’s that woman buried out in Greenlawn Cemetery?

It was a weird and comic relief line by a yokel Sheriff, but it made sense and you wonder who IS buried there if Mrs. Bates is still alive. A laugh to release the nervous tension

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

SHERIFF: Well, if the woman up there is Mrs. Bates… who’s that woman buried out in Greenlawn Cemetery?

It was a weird and comic relief line by a yokel Sheriff, but it made sense and you wonder who IS buried there if Mrs. Bates is still alive. A laugh to release the nervous tension

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Its a good laugh line, but it might just be the most important line in the movie, too.

Here's why:

Once the sheriff reveals that Mrs. Bates is dead -- the audience starts thinking: "Well if she is dead, then the only one at the house is Norman -- is he DRESSING UP to kill people?"

Hitchcock and screenwriter Joe Stefano -- having endangered their twist ending -- move to protect it:

SHERIFF: Well, if the woman up there is Mrs. Bates...who's that woman buried out in Greenlawn Cemetary?

Whew! The audience is turned in a new direction: Mrs. Bates IS alive, IS the killer...and she killed some other woman and had her buried in her place. (How this tracks with a murder-suicide where Mrs. Bates was a victim, we can only guess at. We guess she faked death and switched out the other woman's corpse? Oh, we don't think THAT far out.)

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Indeed, the sheriff introduces the information that Mrs. Bates killed her lover and herself. Norman had only hinted at the LOVER's death, to Marion("And the way he died...its nothing to talk about while you're eating.") Because Norman only felt that the lover was dead.

This is among the reasons(but not the ONLY reason) why the psychiatrist scene at the end IS important -- he has to "un-do" the false premises given to us earlier by first Norman, and then the sheriff -- about what REALLY happened to Mrs. Bates and her lover, and why she is REALLY dead.

By the way, in the book, the chapter where Sam and Lila meet the Chamberses, ends with the sheriff having the final line, too, but it is not nearly as important as the one Stefano and Hitchcock crafted. Instead:

"I know she's dead. Hell, I was one of the pallbearers!"

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

>>Once the sheriff reveals that Mrs. Bates is dead -- the audience starts thinking: "Well if she is dead, then the only one at the house is Norman -- is he DRESSING UP to kill people?"<<

Long ex
I agree to a point. Hitchcock uses psychology and what the audience knows to his advantage. He shoots pov shots to lead us where he wants to go which is beyond the discussion here. Obviously, we're trying to discover the mystery.

That Mrs. Bates was dead never occurred to me nor the audience because we and the characters in the movie saw her alive and know she's the killer.

Lila and Sam are trying to get the Sheriff to help because they think Marion and Arbogast are in the house. The explanation is in the house. The house is a mystery and suddenly it's evil. We are seeing the scene from their pov. The part we can't explain is the Sheriff saying she poisoned her lover and then killed herself. New MacGuffin. But we, as Lila and Sam are not going to discuss what happened with the sheriff then because Sam saw Norman's mother and because of the urgency.

So, that's when he says that comic relief line to throw us off. It works perfectly. Even if someone thinks about it, they would deduce that Norman is covering up for his mother's crimes. Again, perfect. We've figured out that it's the mother who is psycho and Norman is covering up for her. We saw this already, but it's been reinforced. Who doesn't know is Lila and Sam, so we have to see what they're going to do about it. So now, it's a matter of what happens next and Norman hides his mother in the fruit cellar to protect her. The who is buried in Greenlawn cemetary becomes another one of her victims.

Next, we get the church scene which is shows Sam and Lila still concerne. Wouldn't you be if the Shieriff didn't get involved? However, the nice day church scene we find the sheriff's been out there already and has confirmed what happened with Norman. What reason is there for him to get involved in robbery?

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

That Mrs. Bates was dead never occurred to me nor the audience because we and the characters in the movie saw her alive and know she's the killer.

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I am liking you taking my analysis of this scene(and the Sheriff's line) in a new direction.

We have certainly heard Mrs. Bates and we think we have seen her. So the sheriff's revelation of her death may be more confusing than anything else.

Also, I think that 1960 audiences may have had a LOT of trouble figuring out that Norman wears a dress and becomes a woman as the killer. It simply doesn't compute.

That said, the sheriff's information puts "in plain sight" the solution to the mystery -- if one thinks about it. Well, if Mother is dead....Norman lives alone. Norman is the killer. That's who we saw (we may realize we never saw Mother's face during the two murders.)

But Hitchcock always used a bit of a cheat to "keep mother alive": Her voice. I know it was voiced by both a woman(Virginia Gregg) and a man(Paul Jasmin), but it is the voice of an old woman, it connects not at all to Tony Perkins' voice...and it is likely the main reason we believe in Mother as a separate being.

So...in agreement with you...though the sheriff is giving the audience the solution(Mother is dead; Norman is the killer), it is a solution that we RESIST. We've seen Mother kill people and we've heard her speak.

That said, the "Who's that lady buried up in Greenlawn cemetary?" is a great "diversion."

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

So now, it's a matter of what happens next and Norman hides his mother in the fruit cellar to protect her.

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With the great concise line "He came after the girl, and now someone will come after him." This sets up suspense when Sam and Lila go to the motel. Norman is almost expecting them.

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The who is buried in Greenlawn cemetary becomes another one of her victims.

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That's the impact of the line, isn't it?

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Next, we get the church scene which is shows Sam and Lila still concerne. Wouldn't you be if the Shieriff didn't get involved? However, the nice day church scene we find the sheriff's been out there already and has confirmed what happened with Norman. What reason is there for him to get involved in robbery?

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I would like to note here that when Van Sant made his "shot by shot, line by line" remake of Psycho in 1998, he removed the entire church scene! He seems to have thought it was unnecessary. But it is quite necessary -- the suspense is ratcheted up in that the Sheriff tells Sam and Lila he has BEEN to the motel and there's nothing going on. I think we are also pleased to see that the sheriff DID go out there...before church. He did his duty as best he could...but not well enough, obviously. (And he escaped being killed....)

[–] SavageBeauty (61) 6 years ago

"The who is buried in Greenlawn cemetary becomes another one of her victims."

The Psychiatrist explains at the end that Norman stole her body and they buried a "weighted down" coffin.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The Psychiatrist explains at the end that Norman stole her body and they buried a "weighted down" coffin.

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True...yet ANOTHER reason for the psychiatrist scene's necessity...

....but I suppose what we are saying here is that, at this earlier point in the story, we are being misdirected to believe that this woman is another victim of Mrs. Bates.

That said, you might say that the psychiatrist directly answers the Sheriff's question...Hitchcock leaves no loose ends.

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

[deleted]

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

>>With the great concise line "He came after the girl, and now someone will come after him." This sets up suspense when Sam and Lila go to the motel. Norman is almost expecting them.<<

That's right. The house has become creepy when Arbogast arrived. And it becomes even more of an issue with the mother inside. I still think that line the about who's buried because while it caused a laugh, it still is another mystery which we can't deal with now. The easiest explanation is it was another one of mother's victims.

I'm trying to remember what the sheriff's wife said in that scene. Actually, I'm trying to remember the details of the death of mother's fiance and her "suicide." Lila pleaded with the sheriff to call Norman, but didn't the sheriff's wife say something else about the mother's death? Anyway, Sam and the detective seeing the mother was a valid challenge to what happened. Just not enough to convince the sheriff to help.

I just re-watched that scene and the wife said she helped pick out the burial dress in periwinkle blue.

If someone thought at this point to suspect Norman, then it's beyond what Hitchcock was trying to do with his camera. There is conflict between what the sheriff says about the mother being dead and what Sam and Lila believe. Both the detective and Sam says they saw the old woman. There is something to revealed to think the mother is dead, but then comes that funny line.

I've read what Hitch said about his directorial style and he controls the camera. The actors can pretty much act what they want for their character (unless it's bad and needs improvement), but he has total control of the camera and they must follow it and not the other way around. Sure, it's misdirection like that of a magician or illusionist, but it's difficult to break it (psychology) while watching the movie for the first time. The mind believes what it sees and hears.

I saw Van Sant's version once and it's only colorized. (continued)

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

Continued.
Van Sant's version did not have the right actors. It's shot in color and doesn't have the right feel and dread. It's a poor imitation fit for TV. It would've been better if he wrote his own screenplay and changed the story to more recent time like the 80s. Hitchcock controlled who he chose as the actors. He liked to use actors whom he was familiar with, but in Psycho he had some new actors in main roles like Janet Leigh, John Gavin and Anthony Perkins.

Since I re-watched that scene, I also heard that line again and still laughed. It's a great line and scene. We see Lila's face and it's like she's thinking wtf is wrong with the sheriff to not get involved, but also thinking about what he said. Her face shows some dread, since murder and suicide was discussed, but also frustration. If it was me, then it would be a scrunched face.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

With the great concise line "He came after the girl, and now someone will come after him." This sets up suspense when Sam and Lila go to the motel. Norman is almost expecting them.<<

That's right. The house has become creepy when Arbogast arrived. And it becomes even more of an issue with the mother inside.

---

I have always twinned Psycho and Jaws as both creating "zones of danger" which create immediate suspense for much of their film's running time.

With Psycho that zone of danger is The House with Mother Lurking Inside. When Arbogast goes in and gets killed, the zone of danger intensifies, and then we get the long, terrifying sequence of Lila going from room to room.

With Jaws that zone of danger is ...the ocean itself!...whether close in near the shore at the beach(where the female swimmer and the boy get it) or out at sea(where Quint gets it)..the audience is in terror and suspense any time anyone goes into the water. Indeed on the Orca with the three leads, it is implied that if any man FALLS INTO the sea, they will die immediately. (Hooper ultimately goes down there in a steel cage.)

Psycho perhaps has an extra zone of danger -- once Marion dies -- in the entirety of the Bates property. The house AND the motel. Mother came down from that house to kill Marion in the shower, and there are tense parts of the Arbogast and Sam/Lila scenes where you wonder if she is lurking around the corner of the motel waiting to strike, too.

---

I still think that line the about who's buried because while it caused a laugh, it still is another mystery which we can't deal with now. The easiest explanation is it was another one of mother's victims.

---

Indeed, we can't deal with it now. The suspense is strong and the mysteries are piling up. But it underlines Mother being the killer.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I'm trying to remember what the sheriff's wife said in that scene. Actually, I'm trying to remember the details of the death of mother's fiance and her "suicide."

---

Well first the sheriff fills us in:

Sheriff: She poisoned this guy she was ....involved with(premarital affairs were frowned upon in '60)...and then took a helpin of the stuff herself. Strychnine. Ugly way to die.

A line with the great concision and macabre quality of much of Joe Stefano's Psycho script! Why IS strychnine an ugly way to die? Its not something to talk about while you're eating!

Then the sheriff's wife jumps in:

Sheriff's wife: Norman found them dead together...in BED. (I think we are in agreement that line was meant to be funny in 1960...the lady is scandalized.)

----

Anyway, Sam and the detective seeing the mother was a valid challenge to what happened. Just not enough to convince the sheriff to help.

---

Indeed, the sheriff can't get his head around it. Remember what Hitchcock told Truffaut about the first of the two scenes with the sheriff: "I tell people my characters often don't go to the police because it is dull. This scene is a perfect example of that."

But "dull" also means "not believing." And that's suspenseful. You've even got the sheriff the next morning trying to reassure Sam -- "I know you're not the seein' illusiions type" -- but the sheriff can't believe anything else.

---

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I just re-watched that scene and the wife said she helped pick out the burial dress in periwinkle blue.

---

In a black and white movie, can't we all SEE that color? And isn't it kind of too "cutesie" for the brutal maniac Mother has proved to be?

----

If someone thought at this point to suspect Norman, then it's beyond what Hitchcock was trying to do with his camera.

---

Perhaps. I never had the opportunity to see Psycho without knowing the twist ending in advance, but figure that the information that Mother is dead MIGHT create suspicion about Mother not being the killer, and Norman being The One. The sheriff's line is funny...but I also think it is there to make sure we don't suspect The Truth About Norman.

---

There is conflict between what the sheriff says about the mother being dead and what Sam and Lila believe. Both the detective and Sam says they saw the old woman.

---

And from conflict comes mystery, and a fervent desire for the audience to get the solution.

---

I've read many 1960 reviews of Psycho, and the Newsweek review said something like this:

"Psycho depends on a single specific twist. Many people will try to guess it in advance. Right guessers will deal themselves out of the suspense. Wrong guessers will be enthralled all the way through."

One wonders who was a "right guesser" when the sheriff told us Mother is dead.

BTW, I disagree with that Newsweek assessment, and so did Hitchcock. He said -- and I too believe -- that even if you have guessed Norman is the killer, you still fear for the lives of his victims and potential victims. But you ARE dealt out of the suspense when Norman is down at the motel with Sam and Lila cruises the house. Newsweek was right about that.

Except: Perhaps "right guessers" were still so unsure if Norman was the killer that they were STILL nervous when Lila explored the house.

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

Part 2 of my last post.
And if we think about it, this happens with law enforcement because they usually do not get involved in missing persons cases right away, especially where one is a fugitive from the law fleeing from another state. Thus, it's up to Sam and Lila. Sam starts to take the lead. I think at this point, Marion's lead character had transferred to Arbogast for a while and now it's Sam and Lila.

BTW, I mentioned the pov shots and if you watch Psycho in 4K, then you'll get a greater feel of this.

The other thing I want to bring up is that the critics panned the movie as cheap after they saw it. The slasher film genre was born and they didn't exactly embrace it. I imagine they just followed where they were led. It also goes to show this movie should be seen with an audience to get the full effect. If someone could erase specialized memories, so that we could see this movie afresh, then they got a gold mine.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Part 2 of my last post.
And if we think about it, this happens with law enforcement because they usually do not get involved in missing persons cases right away, especially where one is a fugitive from the law fleeing from another state.

---

Yes, I think that the suspense of Psycho depends in part on how law enforcement takes a "wait and see" approach on missing persons --- "They'll turn up." Though in asking Sam and Lila to "put this in the lap of the law," the sheriff is gently saying: "Look, Marion has committed a crime, I'll wait a little longer but soon we will have to turn this into a criminal matter."

---

Thus, it's up to Sam and Lila. Sam starts to take the lead. I think at this point, Marion's lead character had transferred to Arbogast for a while and now it's Sam and Lila.

----

Its nifty how Psycho keeps "changing the protagonist": from Marion to Arbogast to the "unit of Sam and Lila." Anthony Perkins is the top-billed star, though, but never feels like a hero. Rather all of these other heroes keep running up against him. And getting killed twice.

On the other hand, Hitchcock scholar Robin Wood found all these protagonists to be ONE protagonist: "The protagonists of Psycho are ONE protagonist," he wrote, "and that protagonist is the audience." We explore the mystery, go deeper, eventually get deep up into the house(Marion never went in there, Arbogast didn't get very far.)

---

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

BTW, I mentioned the pov shots and if you watch Psycho in 4K, then you'll get a greater feel of this.

---

I think I need a quick education on 4K ..do I have to have a special TV to watch? And what DO I watch? The Blu-Ray DVD of Psycho?

POV shots are important in most Hitchcock movies, but Psycho could have the most of them, ever.

----

The other thing I want to bring up is that the critics panned the movie as cheap after they saw it. The slasher film genre was born and they didn't exactly embrace it.

---

Yes, I've read many 1960 reviews and they almost uniformly didn't know what they were looking at, with the exception of Ernest Callenbach in Film Quarterly -- who saw Psycho, rather than epics like Ben-Hur and The Nun's Story -- as where the movies would be going.

Hitchcock was working from various b/w shocker influences(Diabolique, House on Haunted Hill) but Psycho basically said: "the forbidden-fruit entertainment of this movie will be to see people get bloodily and graphically stabbed to death." Had the shower scene ended with Mother pulling back the shower curtain and had the Arbogast scene faded out on his entering the house...with no gory murders...the film would not have been historic. Just another well-made mystery story.

--

I imagine they just followed where they were led. It also goes to show this movie should be seen with an audience to get the full effect.

---

Hitchcock refused to give the critics private screenings. They had to go to the theater and experience it with an audience. Evidently, this made some of the critics mad and they wrote bad reviews.

---

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

If someone could erase specialized memories, so that we could see this movie afresh, then they got a gold mine.

---

As I have mentioned before and will treasure forever, I sort of got that experience. After almost a decade of seeing Psycho on TV(with no audience) and at revival house screenings(with no real audience reaction) I went to a college screening in 1979 which evidently duplicated exactly the 1960 experience.

Which is to say, a LOT of screaming. Huge screams which exploded and shook the theater and felt like a wave of hysteria. And -- after Marion was killed -- a certain continual tension and murmuring -- "who will get killed next?" The screams during the Arbogast murder kept getting BIGGER with each moment of the scene(music starts, mom runs out, Arbogast's slashed face, the finishing off at the bottom of the stairs) and you couldn't hear the Sam/Lila dialogue in the next scene(people were still screaming). Screams when Lila turns Mother around in the fruit cellar leaped up HIGHER AND LOUDER when Norman entered. And you couldn't hear the first half of the shrink's speech(people were still screaming.) Two big screams I didn't know were there before: (1) Norman appearing behind Sam in the motel office doorway("Looking for me?") and (2) Lila seeing her reflection in the mirror.

I know it is a "minor thing" -- seeing a movie -- but that 1979 screening of Psycho is something I've always considered to be a blessing. I stumbled into the screening -- saw a flyer on a wall about two hours before showtime. Had I not seen Psycho that one time, that one way -- I never really would have experienced Psycho. I would only have seen it.

[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

I of course recall your recounting of that experience but, oddly, I've never thought to reflect on my own theatrical viewings of Psycho. The first was only eleven years after its initial release (and four after that first network broadcast), followed by probably a half-dozen others over the next decade or so. It could easily be counted upon to turn up regularly at any of the many revival houses around L.A. in the '70s.

I supposed I simply assumed that those audiences were comprised of others who, like me, had already seen it at least once, but I imagine they must inevitably have included some for whom it was a first, even if they had some idea what to expect, plot-wise. Thinking back on them now, I don't really remember any that didn't react as you describe (it wasn't until home video that I again heard Sam say, "Sometimes, Saturday night has a lonely sound. Ever notice that, Lila?").

It really is very much in keeping with the roller coaster analogy that Hitchcock drew in interviews about people who would scream, get off laughing, and return for another ride to scream in the same places again.

I figure the closest I must have come to those truly unprepared 1960 viewers was during first-run showings of The Exorcist and Alien, where one could be pretty sure most if not all others in the theater were equally apprehensive, surprised and shocked (and I'd guess you have your own similar recollections).

I'm not sure we ever got around to talking about your impression of the screening a couple or so years back that you planned to attend (when it was playing around the country as "event" bookings for a week or two). Did you? And did we? I'll feel terrible if the answer to the second question is yes and I've simply forgotten, but I'd love to have my faulty memory refreshed if so.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I of course recall your recounting of that experience but, oddly, I've never thought to reflect on my own theatrical viewings of Psycho. The first was only eleven years after its initial release (and four after that first network broadcast), followed by probably a half-dozen others over the next decade or so. It could easily be counted upon to turn up regularly at any of the many revival houses around L.A. in the '70s.

--

Yes. You recall that my "personal story" with Psycho was rather of "chasing it," and its always getting away --- I couldn't see the 1965 re-release(though I saw the trailer in a favorite old theater I visited in that year(and was terrified.) Then came the heavily promoted and then aborted showing on CBS in 1966. Then came the "really big deal" -- the actual showing of the film on local KABC-TV 7 on November 18, 1967(sweeps month for ratings.) Not allowed to watch that one, I basked in the recounting of other students the week after -- the movie took shape in my mind. Then KABC show it again on February 17, 1968 , and I DID get to see it -- but only up through Marion driving in the rain before the folks came home and I turned it off(they didn't, I did -- fear of authority.)

It took a few more years to see Psycho on TV but here's my point: once it started showing up in 1970, it became a "regular feature" at least once a year on TV, shown at all times of day(late night; 8:00 pm on local channels; the 6:00 movie, even the noontime movie.) Psycho went from being verboten to being "always around." (This in the 70's when Rear Window, Vertigo and three other Hitchcocks were out of circulation.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

You could say that Psycho was "devalued" once it got shown so often --but not for me. I dutifully showed up for revival house screenings and often dragged "newbies" along to see it with me. It was often on a double bill(at revival houses) with another Hitchcock movie. I saw it with Saboteur once(as Universal productions, even though Psycho was a Paramount release, Saboteur and Psycho feel rather similar.) I saw it with The Birds once -- sorry, The Birds got a lot of laughs at it on that double bill; Psycho survived with only a few derisive laughs at it. Young people were just as snarky in the 70's as today.

Best: I saw Psycho with North by Northwest...just one time. It was rapture, my two back-to-back favorites, back to back!

But I don't recall much of any screaming at Psycho any of those times -- usually some groans or murmurs (Oh!) when Mother ran out at Arbogast. One time I remember a woman in front of me turning her head and covering her eyes when Mother jumped on Arbogast on the floor -- she expected worse than was shown.

And, oh, one time, right after the fade out on Arbogast getting killed...the audience applauded and cheered. I think they were "dazzled" by how suddenly and spectacularly Hitchcock dispatched the man , and how cinematic it was. It was like "Man, that Hitchcock really CAN put on a show!"

But for all of that, and for all of those viewings of Psycho, it was only at that 1979 one that I got all the screams, all the time. That's where I learned that those critics who think Psycho isn't much good in the second half missed the point: except for the shower murder, ALL THE SCREAMS are in the second half. Perhaps judging Psycho on the basis of "narrative" or "character" in that second half is beside Hitchcock's own point: he made the movie to generate emotion. And he got it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I supposed I simply assumed that those audiences were comprised of others who, like me, had already seen it at least once, but I imagine they must inevitably have included some for whom it was a first, even if they had some idea what to expect, plot-wise.

---

One danger in writing in too much "spoiler" detail about Psycho today in 2018 is that all sorts of new young audiences will encounter it(knowing it is a classic they should see, as Moby Dick was a book they should read) without knowing what's going to happen. I still think it can be "spoiled away" because it does seem like thanks to Bates Motel and other things, Norman being the killer is pretty much a given, as is a woman getting killed in a shower(Arbogast's death is not as well known, hence it is usually still the biggest shock surprise to new audiences.)

---

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Thinking back on them now, I don't really remember any that didn't react as you describe (it wasn't until home video that I again heard Sam say, "Sometimes, Saturday night has a lonely sound. Ever notice that, Lila?").

---

Well that is a very interesting comment to me. In other words, revival audiences with whom you saw Psycho DID scream?

The burial of that Saturday Night line reflects the fact that Arbogast's murder is the one shock in Psycho that feels "modern." Its a "jump shock" based on Mother running out at Arbogast as the music screeches. Whereas Hitchcock opens both the shower murder and the fruit cellar climax with more time for the audience to brace themselves(or in the case of mother in the chair, simply to look at her.)

I like to say that, the suspense build-up is so powerful as Arbogast climbs the stairs, and the music is so shocking that -- Marilyn Monroe in a bikini could have rushed out of that room and KISSED Arbogast and audiences STILL would have screamed.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

A year or two before Psycho was William Castle's House on Haunted Hill, a scare picture built for a pre-teen audience.

It had a pretty famous "jump shock" too -- but a silly one. A young woman wandering around a big empty room with a candle turns to see: a tall white haired ugly woman looking at her, with her gnarled hands up in menace. Its a big scream -- followed by a big unintentional laugh as the woman sort of "rolls out of the room" as if on wheels.

Castle got a scream out of that scene , but it was a fairly dumb scene. Hitchcock with Arbogast took it up a few notches, in content as well as style: we get the initial "surprise shock" scream that Castle got -- but Hitchcock keeps going, to murder most foul, to something happening that audiences couldn't believe would be SHOWN. The knife slash down Arbogast's face, the lingering fall, and the brutality at the bottom of the stairs. THAT created screams that would forever blot out Sam's first line in the next scene. And quite a few lines after that.

But here is a "hidden lede": I recall screams from the Arbogast murder drowning out the next scene at the hardware store; and I recall screams from the fruit cellar climax drowning out the first lines of the psychiatrist scene.

But I don't recall screams from the shower scene drowning out anything.

Probably because Hitchcock built the shower scene so that no lines follow the murder (other than Norman's Oh God Mother Blood Blood! which seems like it should be copyrighted.) But also because the shower scene is an extended stabbing that ends slowly with Marion sliding down to death.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Now here, my revival screenings may have failed me. Both Peter Bogdanovich and, of all people, Teresa Wright, on a Psycho DVD doc, spoke of how at the NYC showings of Psycho they attended in 1960, the screaming at the shower murder shook the building and took over everything. In the movie "Hitchcock," which couldn't show any clips from the movie, we HEAR the audience screaming away at the shower murder as Hitchcock(Anthony Hopkins) delights in the lobby, and I guess that's how it was in 1960.

More simply put: I don't recall the shower murder getting screams as big at that 1979 screening as Arbogast's Murder and the Fruit Cellar. But this: its probably that the incredible impact OF the shower murder set the stage for all that screaming later(Hitchcock said he planned it this way, of course.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

But here is a "hidden lede": I recall screams from the Arbogast murder drowning out the next scene at the hardware store; and I recall screams from the fruit cellar climax drowning out the first lines of the psychiatrist scene.

But I don't recall screams from the shower scene drowning out anything.

Probably because Hitchcock built the shower scene so that no lines follow the murder (other than Norman's Oh God Mother Blood Blood! which seems like it should be copyrighted.) But also because the shower scene is an extended stabbing that ends slowly with Marion sliding down to death.

---

I return to suggest that my 1979 viewing of Psycho with a crowd was perhaps NOT an exact replicate of a 1960 full house showing. Because I DO remember that the crowd did NOT scream much during the shower murder -- all the screaming seemed to start with the Arbogast staircase murder.

So I have to wonder -- did 1960 audiences just "keep on screaming" for a few minutes after Marion hit the floor in the shower? Was the dramatic camera move out of Marion's eye, to the newspaper, to the house -- accompanied by leftover screams? Was Norman's "Oh God Mother" line drowned out by screams?

Unlike as with the dialogue scenes after Arbogast's murder(Sam and Lila at the hardware store) and after the fruit cellar climax(the psychiatrist scene)...there is just one line in the 9 minutes after the shower murder(Oh God Mother...). I suppose in 1960, that long silent clean-up sequence served well the issue of people still screaming after the shower murder.

---

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

A corollary to how screaming used to drown out dialogue in the next scene: some of the best and funniest screen comedies were famous for LAUGHTER drowning out lines on the screen.

Billy Wilder tried to beat this problem with one scene in Some Like It Hot where Jack Lemmon keeps pausing and shakes maracas in his hands as he explains his plan to marry Joe E. Brown to Tony Curtis. Each maraca shake was meant to "stall for the laugh."

Certainly a great pleasure of going to the movies, once upon a time, was to see a comedy where a big laugh scene would get the audience going higher, longer, and louder with their laughs. Its really the "flip side" of screaming.

I remember oddly enough one scene in the movie "Silver Streak."

Its loosely based on North by Northwest and Patrick McGoohan is a Vandamm type holding Gene Wilder and Jill Clayburgh hostage in a train car. Richard Pryor enters dressed as a waiter and does all this comedy schtick and the audience is laughing already.

Then Pryor purposely spills coffee on McGoohan. McGoohan rages "You N-WORD!" and smilin' Richard Pryor pulls a gun and turns into an enraged tough guy: "Who you callin' N-word? I oughta slap the white right off your face!"

I never heard Pryor's lines; the moment he pulled the gun and started yelling at McGoohan, the audience laughed and cheered and applauded. Same thing earlier in the film when Pryor coaches Wilder on how to put blackface on and act like a black man -- laughter rising and rising and rising.

Here is when the movies are simply ...fun. A "communal event."

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I'm reminded of William Friedkin's line: "People go to the movies for one of three reasons: to laugh, to scream, or to cry."

A theater full of screaming or laughing, is fun to hear. A theater full of people sniffing and lightly sobbing during a tearjerker is a bit more embarrassing. BEING one of those people is more embarrassing still.

ET is my favorite movie of 1982 and Terms of Endearment is my favorite movie of 1983. But today, I only watch them alone, on DVD.

Can't let 'em see me cry....

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

>>I think I need a quick education on 4K ..do I have to have a special TV to watch? And what DO I watch? The Blu-Ray DVD of Psycho?<<

Generally speaking, a 4K upgrade of a classic film is a major production by the studio and would probably involve releasing the movie to theaters for limited showings first along with a release to a blu-ray and uhd version. The process involves either converting to 2K (cheaper) or 4K (more expensive). There are several reasons to do this as it is state-of-the-art archival instead of keeping film and negatives that are subject to continuous degradation and dangers of fire. I think much of older film is already gone. With buying a 4K blu-ray or uhd, then you'd probably want to upgrade your TV as an older TV would enhance the soap opera quality and make it less enjoyable to watch. I've posted about this in the Vertigo moviechat thread.

https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/4k-restorations-of-classic-films/

As for Psycho, it has not been converted yet for 4K blu-ray or uhd unlike Vertigo. However, one can watch it here (still available for time being; do not register) -- https://movies-4k.com/psycho/.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

It really is very much in keeping with the roller coaster analogy that Hitchcock drew in interviews about people who would scream, get off laughing, and return for another ride to scream in the same places again.

---

Absolutely. I think quotes attributed to Hitchcock as feeling it was a "comedy" didn't quite get what he was saying. He was saying it was a FUN movie(he used that line in a "Movie" magazine interview), indeed like a roller coaster (or taking a crowd through the Haunted House at the Fair.) And when folks are screaming, it IS fun.

But in 1960, what it took to MAKE audiences scream like that was -- violence and shock beyond what Americans studios had produced. In other words, Psycho is fun BECAUSE the murders are so shocking, and critics who didn't hear the screams were more offended by the violence accordingly.

And of course Psycho -- with only two murders -- spends a lot of time making audiences fear just when that next murder will come. (Funny: after Arbo gets it, there ARE no more murders, but we keep expecting one.) Its a "suspense machine" in which the wait for murder is stretched out incredibly tight. Lila's exploration of the Bates House has all sorts of revelations, but I'll bet 1960 audiences watched this through their fingers -- Mother could jump out with her knife at any time. That's fun, too. And when Mother finally "appears" in her chair in the fruit cellar and Lila approaches her -- the screaming doesn't stop.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I figure the closest I must have come to those truly unprepared 1960 viewers was during first-run showings of The Exorcist and Alien, where one could be pretty sure most if not all others in the theater were equally apprehensive, surprised and shocked (and I'd guess you have your own similar recollections).

--

Its funny. I don't remember any screaming at The Exorcist, but then I saw that one quite a few months into its run. (Also no one is attacked and killed on screen in The Exorcist, as in Psycho, Jaws, Alien, etc.)

Alien gets its big jump scream a few victims in -- when Captain Tom Skeritt suddenly flashes a light while he is alone in a tunnel and There it IS. But the infamous "chest buster scene" got more in the way of groans and "ewws" and shouts from the audience as I recall.

Indeed, I think that groans and "ewws" as the grossouts of modern horror have largely displaced the screams of a more innocent generation of moviegoers. We all got jaded and tough.

As I've noted before, other than Psycho 1979, the two big screamathon movies of my life are Jaws as released in 1975 and Wait Until Dark in 1967(though I saw it in 1968-- this was around the time of those KABC Psycho showings. Interesting.)

But with Jaws, I got a "reverse revelation" to Psycho.

I saw Jaws opening day June 1975 and it was screams all the way. In that one, you can't hear Hooper and Brody talking to the Mayor(by the billboard) given the leftover screams from the head popping out of the hole in the boat one scene before. And the famous line "You're gonna need a bigger boat"(or is it "We're gonna need a bigger boat") is actually drowned out by the screams from the shark having jumped up moments before.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Anyway, nothing but screams at that full-house opening day June 1975 screening --but -- a few months later in October of 1975 , I saw Jaws again and.....nothing. No screams. And only a few people in the theater. I remember feeling like Jaws had "deflated into nothing" right before my eyes. (Funny: I saw Jaws another time in between those two screenings, but I can't remember if there were screams or not. Probably yes...or the October no-scream version would not have been so striking.)

As for Wait Until Dark, it has the next most famous "jump scare" in movie history to that time, mentioned alongside Arbogast Meets Mother in the literature: Alan Arkin isn't dead after all, and he leaps out with his knife to try to kill blind Audrey Hepburn. What I remember about that is that the jump scare got a big scream -- but everybody KEPT screaming, desperately and at the top of their lungs, as Arkin crawled across the floor (using his knife to dig his way) to kill Hepburn.

It was incredible. My local neighborhood theater became a place of raw, delicious screaming terror. And Arkin failed to reach Hepburn before he died, so cheers and applause were in order at the end.

PS. DePalma's Carrie has a pretty famous jump scare right at the end(Carrie's hand coming out of the grave to grab the heroine) but I always felt that THAT one was a bit paltry compared to Arbogast and Arkin's Leap.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I'm not sure we ever got around to talking about your impression of the screening a couple or so years back that you planned to attend (when it was playing around the country as "event" bookings for a week or two). Did you? And did we? I'll feel terrible if the answer to the second question is yes and I've simply forgotten, but I'd love to have my faulty memory refreshed if so.

---

Well, I saw that screening, and maybe we discussed it but...you know at our age, recent memories fade faster than, say, memories of Psycho in 1979.

I will say this: while it is fun to see Psycho at Your Friendly Neighborhood Multiplex in 2016(or whatever it was)....the movie didn't really grab the audience with screams. As I recall the theater was about 1/3 full with a surprising number of teenage/college age youth. I figured that maybe their teachers had assigned them "Psycho" for extra credit. I do remember that no one walked out, that laugh lines got "real" laughs(not at, but with), and a smattering of applause at the end.

I think Psycho still impresses first-time viewers for its craftsmanship, its cinema, its acting, its music, and its script.

Back in April of this year, I saw Vertigo at the Mulitplex on its 60th Anniversary(1958-2018.) I figure we'll get 60th revivals of North by Northwest in 2019; Psycho in 2020; and The Birds in 2023.

Don't miss them!

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Thank you for the 4K education!

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

For now, you can still wait on the 4K/UHD upgrade in TV and discs as they're still a premium on the discs. They've come down in price tremendously as more and more people are buying 4K TVs. I think 4K/UHD will will probably be more popular than 3D TVs and become mainstream, if not already. Blu-ray gave us a noticeable and huge improvement in sound quality and a bit in picture quality and definition. 4K/UHD should do for the picture what blu-ray did for the sound.

I don't think the 4K Psycho link is actually 4K since there is no 4K blu-ray disc. It's probably in blu-ray 1080P. Yet, it's a good comparison to regular DVD. I don't think the film has been converted to 2K/4K either.

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As for archival, I assumed that digital (since today's movies are digital) was the way to go, but found out I was wrong. I don't think many theaters use film projection anymore, if any, but have gone to digital projection. However, film is still cheaper way to store, so the studios have been converting the digital to polyester film and storing. Until the costs of digital storage come down even further, it won't be the first choice of archival. There is something called digital decay, too, as the archival has to keep for at least 100 years.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/standards/will-todays-digital-movies-exist-in-100-years

Digital decay is a huge technological problem.

"For instance, according to CNBC, the US Military still uses 8-inch floppy disks to coordinate nuclear operation."

https://merlinone.com/digital-decay/