why is sam's and marion's relationship illicit? - Psycho (1960) Discussion

[–] swanstep (2622) 5 years ago

@LetThem. It's just the illicitness of sex outside marriage that's being alluded to. Obviously there was a lot of hypocrisy about the 'no extra-marital sex' norm in 1960 but it was real nonetheless. E.g., it took until *1972* for the US Supreme Court to strike down all the laws various states had restricting sale of contraceptives just to married people!

I think we're also supposed to believe that Sam and Marion have to grab hours during the day during business trips so there's a measure of 'hiding from employers' built into these long lunches... in sleazy pay-by-the-hour hotels. So that's two sorts of lower-level illicitness buttressing the major sort of illicitness.

Note that the opening scene fraught with illicitness was not in Bloch's novel and IIRC it was Stefano's invention of it to start the film that convinced Hitchcock that he'd found his writer. In the book, Marion and Sam meet on a cruise and she's visited him once up in Fairvale in the year since and that's all. Marion's super-frustrated by Sam's debts and getting older, etc. but they're not seeing each other enough to be triggering 'no sleazy extra-marital sex' norms.

Another problem that Stefano's invention creates is the nature of Sam's business trips. At one point Sam says he can come down to Phoenix next week as well. I don't find it especially plausible that an indebted small town hardware store would support that sort or amount of business travel. Stefano tried to explain away this problem with some too cute, Lowery-anticipating dialogue about tax-deductiblity (of the trips) but Hitch cut it.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Stefano tried to explain away this problem with some too cute, Lowery-anticipating dialogue about tax-deductiblity (of the trips) but Hitch cut it.

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There's the value of reading the Stefano script again...Hitchcock evidently instructed his writers to "put everything in there" and then he would decide what to cut.

In Ernest Lehman's script for North by Northwest, Thornhill has a few pretty good explanations to tell Vandamm and Company (in the Glen Cove library scene) why he can't possibly be George Kaplan. Hitchcock cut them -- no need to undercut his own storyline!

Indeed, Stefano evidently "sold himself" as a writer to Hitchcock by pitching that the movie open with that "1960 style sex scene," but I've always felt that the thought processes Stefano went through, probably almost required it.

The book opens with Norman and Mother arguing in the house. Then Norman hears a telltale bell ring(Marion's tires triggered it down at the motel) and he goes down to check Marion(well, Mary) in. Chapter Two is a Marion's drive to the Bates Motel, filled with flashbacks to Sam, Lowery and Cassidy, but no cop stop scene, and memories of TWO car switches.
Chapter Three: Mary meets Norman on the motel porch.

Problem: you couldn't OPEN the movie Psycho with Norman and Mother together in the same room. That's all in his mind. Hitchcock would rigorously keep Mother "in the distance" in the movie(up in that window when Marion first sees her); he could NOT start at the motel.

Nor would an opening sequence of Marion driving and flashbacking all the time have worked too well. Oh, it would have worked, I guess...but not well.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

So...now the "linear story" starts with Marion. In Phoenix. No flashbacks. We meet Lowery and Cassidy in real time, watch the embezzlement in real time. We get one car switch scene and one "new" cop scene(for maximum suspense.)

But...and here Stefano DID earn his keep...why not start with Sam and Marion "shacking up"(as Stefano phrased it to Hitchcock.) Add in all that illicit stuff and...and this is crucial...manage to shoehorn a classic Hitchcock kissing scene right up front to a story that otherwise could not support such a scene. (Honestly, once Marion hits the road, neither Marion, nor later, Lila, have any time for romance.)

I've always wondered the extent to which the repressed "lack of sex' on American movie screens in the 40s and 50s reflected what was really going on in the bedrooms of America. Psycho went a few steps forward in suggesting that sex outside of marriage was going on.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Another problem that Stefano's invention creates is the nature of Sam's business trips. At one point Sam says he can come down to Phoenix next week as well. I don't find it especially plausible that an indebted small town hardware store would support that sort or amount of business travel.

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Yes, for a "classic," Psycho has a certain amount of simplicity to its plot line that doesn't much survive scrutiny. An impoverished guy can keep making that trip? Plus...I keep trying to figure out where the airport is. Clearly, Sam, Lila, and Arbogast all fly to the Fairvale area. In real life, the small city of Redding, California, is near the fictional Fairvale. Redding doesn't have much of an airport. One would have to drive hundreds of miles to San Francisco or Sacramento to get to a major airport.

Oh, well. Its only a movie.

PS. The script has a scene of Arbogast renting a car in Fairvale, having taken a cab from the airport to follow Lila to the hardware store. Hitchcock just cut this all out and we "went with it." I suppose we could assume(in the movie) that Arbogast rented his car AT the airport.

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[–] ProductionNow (1072) 5 years ago

In short. "nice" women did not sleep with unmarried (or married) men in sleazy hotels on a regular basis, then. No, now they do it in airplane restroom stalls.

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[–] LetThemEatCake (2717) 5 years ago

but what stopped them from getting married in the first place? I assume his debt.

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[–] ProductionNow (1072) 5 years ago

but what stopped them from getting married in the first place? I assume his debt.
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I'd say it was partly poetic license (needing a plot device). In reality, I think 2 people who feel they have met their soulmate should choose to be together, instead of being apart and lonely. Marion could work, she didn't need Sam to support her while he paid his alimony.. She suggested marriage, so it was him resisting.. What's more painful, longing for each other, or living in a less than ideal place?

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[–] MizhuB (165) 5 years ago

I agree that Marion could work to support their income.

But Sam says to her, 'Sure. And live with me in the back of a hardware store in Fairvale?'

If she also worked, they wouldn't have to.

I'm thinking that maybe..just maybe...it being the times (late 50's, early 60's), once women got married they were supposed to just become stay-at-home wives.

I dunno. Just throwing that out there.

As for the original question, he was divorced, they weren't married, and they were having SEX. At the time, that would definitely be considered illicit.

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[–] ProductionNow (1072) 5 years ago

I think the stay-at-home-wives has been over-estimated. Think about all the people who worked in dental offices and answered the phones, worked at store registers, and factories. I dont' think they could have mostly single (having children was different). Tv shows has also made it look like they were all stay-at-home wives
Anyway, if I were Marion, living with Sam in the back of the hardware store (which was good enough for him) wasn't much worse than the seemingly modest apt she had

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[–] MizhuB (165) 5 years ago

Point taken.

I never got the impression that Marion was living in a modest apartment. We're only shown her being in one room (her bedroom).

I always thought that she lived with her sister, Lila, in a house.

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[–] swanstep (2622) 5 years ago

I always thought that she lived with her sister, Lila, in a house.

Yep, Stefano wrote an all-description scene for *after* Marion's (Mary's) bedroom scene that would have clarified this:

EXT. MARY'S GARAGE - (DAY)

A two-car garage. One car is gone. Mary's car is parked in
the driveway. The CAMERA is low enough so that we can easily
read the Arizona number plate in the foreground.

Mary comes out of house, starts for the trunk, intending to
put the suitcase in, changes her mind, places the suitcase
and her handbag on the front seat, gets in, starts the car,
begins to back out of driveway.
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Hitch cut this along with other what we might call over-explaining, too cutely over-written and on-the-nose parts. Streamlining in this particular case also has the advantage for Hitch of assisting a subterranean motif in the film of atomized characters in small rooms like cages. It feels *right* that Marion's bedroom in its one scene seems more like an isolated hotel or motel room than part of a connected, homey two-car-garage dwelling.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

A two-car garage. One car is gone. Mary's car is parked in
the driveway. The CAMERA is low enough so that we can easily
read the Arizona number plate in the foreground.

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Hitch cut this along with other what we might call over-explaining, too cutely over-written and on-the-nose parts.

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This was the case with the script for NXNW, too. Hitchcock gave his writer(s) the latitude to turn in a "wall to wall" script, and then pared down scenes, cut lines. Hitchcock's sense of "line editing" was pretty scrupulous. Bad jokes and over-explanation were thrown out(though he found the psychiatrist scene just long enough.)

But the elimination of the outside of Marion's shared house with Lila is something that happens elsewhere in the script, too. For instance: a shot of the front of the hotel and Marion running out to catch a cab after leaving Sam. Hitchcock may well have cut this "establishing building shots" simply for cost cutting reasons -- but I think the effect is as you say, swanstep: Psycho is a movie that shows us "people in private traps" -- rooms, showers, stairwells, fruit cellars. The claustrophobia is t thick.

And it is ironic: 1960 was a year in which, to fight the spare sets and scenery of TV shows, movies gave us "casts of thousands," opulent sets, sweeping vistas(like Mount Rushmore and the Indiana plains)...but not so in Psycho. Its as if Hitchcock was daring to see how LITTLE he had to show his audience and still have a "movie-movie." Hitch DIDN'T spare costs on the outside of the house; KEY ROOMS of the inside of the house..Cabin One...and the bathroom. And as someone wrote, "the 1960 audience didn't notice how cheap Psycho was, they just noticed how powerful and terrifying it was." (That said, NYT critic Bosley Crowther wrote of Psycho, compared to most of the 50's Hitchcocks before it, "its obviously a low budget job.")

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I've always been bugged by how little Hitch showed us of the gas station where Arbogast makes his plot device fatal phone call. A bit of a sign that says "GAS"; a hedge, a phone booth. How I craved a nice long shot of the empty old highway stretching out into the rural distance as Arbogast pulled in. Nope...Hitchcock wouldn't even give us that.

And Van Sant only gave us a little more -- still a close-up on Arbogast(Macy) in a phone booth, but we can see behind him part of a country western saloon with its neon sign flashing (I think with dancing legs.) No gas station this time.

A great unanswered trivia question: those various exteriors in the script, plus one scene with MARION at a gas station(en route to the Bates Motel); plus a much longer dialogue between Sam and Lila en route to the Bates Motel at the end: were the scenes shot and cut? Or just the script pages thrown away? No scenes exist....

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[–] LetThemEatCake (2717) 5 years ago

would salaries back then allow for a woman to live decently on her own?? Also, I get the impression Marion lives with Lila, not sure why lol.

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[–] ProductionNow (1072) 5 years ago

Good question, and it would depend on location. People could afford to live alone then on a limited income; my mother raised 2 children alone on a menial-salary in the early 60's. You could buy a house for 10K in the 50's, and rent a small apt (studio) for not be more than 100.00 per month. Phoenix seemed like like a low-coast rental/sales market then. Even in Manhatten (the most expensive market), remember how the "Ricardos" were paying less than $200 per month for a 1 bedroom on the upper East-side in the mid-50's?

For some reason (maybe deja-vu) , ever since I was very young and first saw the film, I always imagined her in some furnished small apt, perhaps because her exit-scene was kind of claustrophobic and it's all they showed of her home as she leaves with her her furniture behind. But, fellow posters and the book cleared that up; I didn't about her living with LIla previously. I think that scene makes Marion look more desperate and isolated (as Swanstep implied)

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[–] swanstep (2622) 5 years ago

I didn't about her living with LIla previously.

Marion's living with Lila is mentioned in the first scene with Sam:

MARION:
(putting on her blouse)
Oh, we can see each other. We can even have dinner--but respectably--in
my house, with my mother's picture on the mantel, and my sister helping
me broil a big steak for three.

SAM:
(picks up his shirt and sits in a chair)
And after the steak, do we send Sister to the movies? Turn Mama's
picture to the wall?

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[–] ProductionNow (1072) 5 years ago

swanstep,
I may have worded it badly. I remember that conversation between Sam/Marion very well, but didn't' put 2 = 2 together, until hearing from posters about them living together over time, since imdb. That intimate conversation does indicate that they live together, I suppose (unless Lila happens to be invited for Sam and Marion's respectable dinner date)

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[–] LetThemEatCake (2717) 5 years ago

I think when she talks about having dinner with Sam, she mentions Lila and her mother's portrait, makes me think the two live together.

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[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

IF Lila lives with Marion (we don't know if she does), why would she have a problem with it?

When Lila shows up at Sam's store, it's clear they haven't met before. So no, I don't think that Lila and Marion live together.

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This is a good example of how "we can only really go with the information that the movie gives us." In Joseph Stefano's screenplay as written for Psycho, we actually SEE the house where Marion lives(an external shot as she loads her luggage into the car for escape) and there is "room for a second car"(Lila's, but she's gone..to Tucson over the weekend to do some buying, as Caroline said.)

But the kicker is that in the screenplay, Lila reminds Sam that she and Marion live together.

Under this circumstance - in 1960 at least -- likely Marion would not want to have Sam over for sex in her bedroom if Lila were expected home(and she was; Caroline tells Marion that Lila will be gone for the weekend AFTER the conclusion of the Sam/Marion tryst.)

But given that we know nothing of Marion's living arrangements beyond what's suggested ("My sister can cook us a nice steak for three" -- THREE! Lila has no boyfriend?)...we have to go with what we see.

And what we see is: Sam and Marion in a "by the hour" hotel room, by some choice -- some REQUIREMENT? -- likely indeed dictated by 1960s mores. "Pre-marital sex" was a bad thing (in some quarters, maybe not all.)

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[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Not buying it.

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Fair enough. OK.

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Marion's a working girl, lives in a big city (MAYBE it would be different if she lived in some small community in the middle of nowhere).

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But Phoenix isn't THAT big a city in 1959/1960. Why, Mr. Lowery sees Marion leaving town...evidently not going to the bank and home...

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Neither she or Sam have a spouse or significant other to hide from. It's at least known that they're "seeing each other". Are we supposed to believe he can't visit her home on a Friday without a scandal erupting?

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Hard to say. 1960. A more religious time. "Pre-marital sex" frowned on in some quarters. Maybe Lowery would fire her over it. Maybe Sam's worried about his Fairvale customers frowning if Marion comes to town without marrying him. Doesn't want word "getting back from his Phoenix business trips" about a woman.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I think we have to accept that this is a goof. There's some similarity to Family Plot here: think of the scene where Adamson's live-in girlfriend visits his store and pretends to be somebody he's never met. Like, what?

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That's a great catch on Family Plot. I think THAT scene gives us the information -- LATE in the movie -- that Arthur Adamson(aka Eddie Shoebridge) has been HIDING Fran from his "respectable business." She's a pre-marital sex partner, yes(no biggie in 1976)...but also his partner in crime. Mustn't "surface." (Many a crime show -- like Breaking Bad -- has scenes where the villain says "you are never to be seen with me" to a henchman.)

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There must've been an explanation in the script that didn't make it into the movie.

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Oh, Psycho is a pretty typical 1960 script -- even with Hitchcock overseeing it. Hitch could be a stickler for plot sometimes, and barely care other times. He cut a LOT of backstory out of Psycho for Sam and Lila -- he just didn't care about the characters.

Even Sam's "business trips to Phoenix" are suspect. He's established as a POOR man. But he flies to Phoenix regularly for business meetings? Maybe they are paid for by a manufacturer. Maybe he doesn't stay overnight(hence the lunch hotel room.) Clearly he met Marion on one of those Phoenix trips(the cruise from the book isn't mentioned.) Hitchcock used to say, "I could shoot scene after scene to explain these things. But logic is dull."

What Hitchcock never foresaw -- decades later -- was places like Moviechat, where plot hole spotting is practically the main reason the chats exist...

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