MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > "Who Dat?"

"Who Dat?"

posted 5 years ago by ecarle (14979)
18 replies | jump to latest

Among the production photographs that emerged from "Psycho" is a pretty major one: Janet Leigh, from the shoulders up, standing in the shower and screaming at something -- or somebody -- out of the shot.

Its a great staged photograph, but it begs that eternal question: "If Hitchcock wanted to surprise his audience by killing off Janet Leigh in the shower...why did he have a promotional photograph made of Janet screaming in the shower?"

For posterity perhaps. I often felt that that photo may well have been "embargoed" in the year of Psycho's release, and kept for later years and film books. Maybe.

What I do know is that a huge 20 foot or so version of this photograph was hung on the side of the wall of the "Westwood Crest Theater"(in West Los Angeles near UCLA) in January of 1961. A photo of this display formed an "Oscar consideration ad" for Psycho, with the caption: "ACADEMY MEMBERS -- Have You Seen Psycho Yet?" So perhaps the photo was meant for Oscar voters only(outside of a big theater, though?)

Well, by January of 1961 I suppose most people -- certainly in LA -- knew of the shower murder in Psycho.

The photograph of Leigh screaming in the shower is interesting for what it connotes, though I'm betting it wasn't used this way, but still:

Janet's in the shower. She is screaming. (The water is off, btw, this is staged, not a freeze frame from the movie itself.)

Who is Janet screaming AT?

Who Dat?

And what's about to happen? Is Janet about to be strangled? Clubbed about the head? What?

Well the movie tells us: Who Dat? Mrs. Bates!What's about to happen? Janet Leigh is about to be stabbed with a very big knife BY Mrs. Bates.

Some movie book pages like to match up this staged shot of Janet Leigh screaming(without the obscuring rush of water that blocks her face somewhat in the movie) with the freeze frame shot of Mrs. Bates raising her knife high. Yin and yang. Victim and killer. The shower scene in two matching pieces. (Note in passing: posing as she does for the "shower scream" production photo, Leigh has a visible outline of a swimsuit -- or maybe a tennis dress -- across her tan shoulders and chest. Its rather poignant.)

Still, so as not to lose the lede(because I've got more of it): the photo of Janet Leigh screaming in the shower is perhaps most profound when you imagine seeing it without knowing what happens in the shower scene...it creates a sense of terror, of an unknown menace lurking on the other side of the camera who feeds our curiosity: who dat?

Another "who dat?" No production stills were made of the 1960 Arbogast murder. (Though for the Van Sant, one such still was made of Wiliam H. Macy standing at the foot of the stairs.) What we do have from the 1960 Psycho, in many books and on the net, is the famous shot from the movie of Arbogast with his face first slashed by the knife, mouth open in silent terror, eyes bugged out, head tilted back -- a study in horror, a man in extreme shock.

But...who is he looking at?

Who dat?

Well, its Mrs. Bates, of course. The killer. Hitchcock indeed stages Arbogast's famous fall from the viewpoint OF the killer(and, of course, the viewpoint of US) following him all the way down to finish him off. But given all the angles that Hitchcock could have given us of Arbogast and Mrs. Bates in the same frame going down the stairs together -- one falling, one in pursuit --its interesting that he stuck to a close-up on Arbogast's face as he fell, no other detail on Mother until victim and killer reached the bottom of the stairs.

Jump ahead 12 years for another Who Dat?

Frenzy. For the year that the movie was in production, post production and pre-release, the only photos from the production were only of Hitchcock. He had no stars in his new film -- not even British stars like Michael Caine , Glenda Jackson and Richard Burton(who turned down Rusk, Brenda, and Blaney)..so Hitchocck was the star. Boy was he photographed for Frenzy. In Covent Garden. Holding his own head(a dummy). Floating on the Thames(same dummy.)

When the film came out in 1972, the first review as in Life and...the only photo was of Hitchocck. Again!(In a "scene" from Frenzy, wearing his bowler hat from the film, but staged.) Young Hitchcock fans(me) started to crave some photo from Frenzy that was FROM Frenzy.

A week later, we got two. And Newsweek got the "Who Dat?" photo: Brenda Blaney, dead in her chair, necktie round her neck, eyes bugged out and tongue hanging out. It was creepy, stylish(the necktie), and funny at the same time -- a clear sense of Hitchcock was clearly there. Looking at the dead woman(unrecognizable not only as known star, but in terms of how she would look while "alive" in this movie), the question became:

Who done dat?

Well the Time photo told us: ANOTHER unknown actor(Barry Foster) posing in an ominous manner with a wheelbarrow and a sack of potatoes.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Now Frenzy had some "meat on the bones." A victim(in Newsweek). A killer(in Time.)

Later in 1972(in some film periodicals) and in early 1973(for a Hitchcock retrospective program at the Los Angeles museum of art)...a "new" photo from the Brenda Blaney murder scene was published: Brenda not already dead, but in the act of being strangled by a necktie. Its a shocking photo: the victim is in terror, pleading, and in pain all at the same time it seems.

And the "Who Dat?" element is cruel: Though Brenda getting killed is the focal point of the photo, we can see the hands of the strangler holding the necktie at either end, "framing" Brenda's neck and head. The hands are clearly male and "Hitchocck stylish" -- the strangler's hands are in shirt sleeve cuffs that jut out from sportcoat arms(there is a wristwatch on his wrist), this is a well-tailored maniac. And in terms of the movie, this photo DOES create mystery: who IS dat? Who IS this Necktie Strangler?

Funny thing: the movie wants us to think, for 30 minutes, that Jon Finch is the strangler. No, its Barry Foster. Except Barry Foster looking sinister and holding a necktie in a strangling pose is in a little corner of the Frenzy poster so -- big surprise.

Stiil, none of this takes away from the "Who Dat?" power of the shot of Brenda Blaney being strangled by the hands of an unseen killer -- Hitchcock here "separates away" the killer from his victim, makes us wonder: "Who Dat?"

In summary:

Marion screaming at someone, in the shower: who dat?
Arbogast staring in terror into the eyes of his killer: who dat?
Brenda being strangled by the hands of an unseen killer: who dat?

All three photos -- two production photos(Marion, Brenda), one still frame from the movie itself(Arbogast) summon up the profundity of Hitchcock on the art of murder, focus on the plight of the victims and compel us to wonder about the unseen killers:

Who dat?

PS. All of these photos can be viewed on the photo pages of the imdb pages on Psycho and Frenzy.

[–] Gubbio (3893) 5 years ago

Speaking of production shots, I always thought this one was interesting:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51WgsmWZrcL.jpg

Leigh, Gavin, and Miles never appeared in the same frame. By the time Gavin and Miles met up, Leigh was missing/dead! 😬

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Speaking of production shots, I always thought this one was interesting:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51WgsmWZrcL.jpg

Leigh, Gavin, and Miles never appeared in the same frame. By the time Gavin and Miles met up, Leigh was missing/dead!

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That's a helluva photo...likely used in some periodicals to help "divert attention" from Leigh's death, and it also has a certain poignancy: THERE, finally, are Marion and Lila together. The two sisters. (And indeed, Leigh and Miles have a fair amount of facial similarity...well, a little....)

As a "calendar" matter, Leigh was off the movie before Miles started. So they must have been called later(or earlier?) to pose for these shots.

[–] Doghouse (447) 5 years ago

Among the most charming relics - perhaps I should say holdovers - of the old-school Hollywood publicity machine is the posed publicity still, taken either on-set or, in what might be its quaintest form, in a photo studio. The on-set incarnation comes in two versions: the "Hold for a still, please" one made at the conclusion of a take, while actors are still in their positions for the shot; the dramatically arranged ones that suggest action not actually appearing in the film.

The "who dat" I remember being the most prevalent, particularly in the lead-up to Psycho's 1967 ABC broadcast debut, is the Anthony Perkins pose: cowering in terror; left hand warding off an unseen menace with fingers extended; right hand clamped over his mouth. I can't recall specifically, but I must have been aware at some level of the film's big "reveal," making the still that much more chilling: "He's the killer. What could be terrifying HIM?"

https://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Perkins,%20Anthony/Annex/NRFPT/Annex%20-%20Perkins,%20Anthony%20(Psycho)_NRFPT_03.jpg

Always taking this for a photo studio pose, I've only just realized this still was made on-set, in the basement stairwell (in which Lila hides when Norman comes into the house and charges upstairs). The giveaway is the balustrade shadow at the right of the still. With different lighting and framing, a variation in a similar pose reveals more of the set:

https://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Perkins,%20Anthony/Annex/Annex%20-%20Perkins,%20Anthony%20(Psycho)_01.jpg

That's all probably old news to you, but I must plead guilty to simply never having scrutinized those photos closely.

Continued...

[–] Doghouse (447) 5 years ago

Of the photo studio poses, the one that's most a throwback to the studio system days is the one of Miles and Leigh, protectively clutched by Gavin, against a backdrop of the ominous shadow of Mrs. Bates's rocker.

https://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Leigh,%20Janet/Annex/NRFPT/Annex%20-%20Leigh,%20Janet%20(Psycho)_NRFPT_03.jpg

It's the one most nostalgically reminiscent of those from the Universal Horror cycles of the '30s and '40s, with the nominal leading man and lady reacting to the presumed out-of-shot presence of the monster du jour: Karloff, Lugosi or Chaney. And I see that, before I posted these replies, our friend Gubbio has furnished another from the same photo session.

Although the three of them had no overlapping shooting days, they were all assembled, appropriately costumed (and bewigged, in Miles's case), somewhere, at some time. At Universal? Paramount? Some off-site photo studio on Seward, Gower or Romaine? And when?

Ah, sweet mysteries of publicity.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Among the most charming relics - perhaps I should say holdovers - of the old-school Hollywood publicity machine is the posed publicity still, taken either on-set or, in what might be its quaintest form, in a photo studio. The on-set incarnation comes in two versions: the "Hold for a still, please" one made at the conclusion of a take, while actors are still in their positions for the shot;
---
As part of this little "project," I reviewed the stills to be found on one of the Psycho Special Edition DVDs I own(I say one of them, because they don't share the same photos!). the "Hold for a still" ones are interesting: we get Norman and Marion on the front porch of the Bates Motel facing each other "very seriously"(this shot is in many books), but we also get them laughing in those same poses, and laughing with HITCHCOCK next to them in their same poses.

Indeed, there are "invasive" shots of Hitchcock standing such places as: in Norman's bedroom with Lila; in Cabin One as Norman wraps Marion's body; with Marion at the car lot...none of this "ruins" the movie for me(I still go right into that world)...but...its odd.

There are also good shots of Hitchcock directing Perkins by the swamp for the burial of Marion's car -- in broad, bright daylight (day for night would be used.)

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the dramatically arranged ones that suggest action not actually appearing in the film.

---

There were plenty of those made for Psycho, and they range from quite moody and dramatic(usually of the hauntingly "shadowed" Perkins) and somewhat silly(Leigh, Miles, and Gavin individually and together screaming or looking tense.)

Those ones posed against a white wall with a rocking chair are generally the "silly ones." Though each player dutifully posed (of Leigh, Miles, Gavin)...and when you "push the forward button" on the DVD, each player rather "runs through" their poses. You can practically tell the "good ones" to use from the misfires(eyes slightly closed, pose ridiculous.)

(CONT)

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Gavin in his shots alone poses in his windbreaker and slacks...an ensemble that fits some men fine in 2019. The dresses on Leigh and Miles, alas, are "old lady dresses."

Funny for Gavin: they had him pose for a couple of photos with his hands and fingers outstretched as if in a wrestling pose...to fight the evil, not fear it (its also rather a clue to how he subdues Norman in the movie.)

As an Arbogast fan, I have to note: evidently with one exception only(Arbogast in the office talking to Norman), the studio photographer almost NEVER took any candid shots of Martin Balsam. I guess he just didn't "rate" photos, being a featured player and all.

When I say "almost never," its because I've found three -- and only three --photographs of Balsam from Psycho in all the decades of looking. And one only turned up in 1998 to help on an article about the Van Sant.

The photos are:

Most famously: Arbogast in the motel office, Marion's photo in his hand, talking to Norman. (This one is on the imdb page.)

Less famously:

Arbogast in the dark on the motel porch, looking a bit silly-faced at Norman(as if doubting him), with Norman clutching his sheets (this photo I have only found in the later edition of Robin Wood's "Hitchcock's Films Revisited")

Even less famously:

A "posed photo" of Balsam as Arbogast sitting on a chair backwards, clutching the chair. He's got a cigarette in his hand. I guess one day somebody at Paramount or Universal said, "oh, go ahead, get a shot of Balsam."

But honestly, the vast, vast VAST majority of Psycho photos are only of Perkins(the most), Leigh(the second most), Miles and Gavin.

And Hitchcock, of course. HIs constant presence in so many photos -- alone or with his cast members -- reflect his superstardom at the time(that TV show) and evidently the fact that Psycho didn't have a megastar at Grant or Stewart level in it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

The "who dat" I remember being the most prevalent, particularly in the lead-up to Psycho's 1967 ABC broadcast debut, is the Anthony Perkins pose: cowering in terror; left hand warding off an unseen menace with fingers extended; right hand clamped over his mouth. I can't recall specifically, but I must have been aware at some level of the film's big "reveal," making the still that much more chilling: "He's the killer. What could be terrifying HIM?"

https://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Perkins,%20Anthony/Annex/NRFPT/Annex%20-%20Perkins,%20Anthony%20(Psycho)_NRFPT_03.jpg

---

Its a great "misdirection" shot -- mimicking a bit how Norman reacts to finding Marion's body in the tub(hand over mouth) and/or suggesting his terror at "Mother." But its all trickery, of course.

Lest I note here (for the first time in some time) that my "My Psycho Isn't Your Psycho" childhood memories are centered on the Los Angeles billboard(and TV guide ad) that merged this shot of Norman with hand on mouth, hand and fingers splayed(page right), with the Psycho house and "shadowy Norman Frankenstein" (page left), with the PSYCHO logo superimposed on both. Utterly terrifying ad to me at that young age -- it HAUNTED me.

And someday I'll figure out a way to get that ad re-printed here...

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Always taking this for a photo studio pose, I've only just realized this still was made on-set, in the basement stairwell (in which Lila hides when Norman comes into the house and charges upstairs). The giveaway is the balustrade shadow at the right of the still. With different lighting and framing, a variation in a similar pose reveals more of the set:

https://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Perkins,%20Anthony/Annex/Annex%20-%20Perkins,%20Anthony%20(Psycho)_01.jpg

That's all probably old news to you, but I must plead guilty to simply never having scrutinized those photos closely.

---

Not really old news, but...spinning through the photos on the Psycho DVD, I find that they had Norman go through a variety of poses in that area where Lila hides(and where the Door to Doom can be seen behind Perkins...and almost all of them are rotten(his face goes wrong about every time, or he grips the balustrade wrong) EXCEPT for that one.

The famous "My Psycho Isn't Your Psycho" shot of Norman with hand over mouth and other hand out-stretched was one of a group taken against "just a wall" from different distances, and sometimes with the owl on the wall. Several "famous" keeper shots were taken in this photo shoot.

I might note that most of Perkins' "posed photos" were done with him wearing the black sweater over white shirt ensemble that he wears in the Arbogast sequence. Turns out that Perkins favored that outfit in real life(it does make him look beautiful and svelte.) But Perkins dutifully did some photos with his jacket on(the Marion sequence) and with jacket and sweater off, white shirt only(Sam and Lila sequence.)

A great photo of Perkins clutching himself while wearing his jacket is the photo that made it into the TV Guide close-up. Scared me, too. I was young...

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

It's the one most nostalgically reminiscent of those from the Universal Horror cycles of the '30s and '40s, with the nominal leading man and lady reacting to the presumed out-of-shot presence of the monster du jour: Karloff, Lugosi or Chaney. And I see that, before I posted these replies, our friend Gubbio has furnished another from the same photo session.

---

Yes, Gubbio and you -- great minds thinking alike, the "photos of Psycho" are a great topic.

And on the subject in general: its a virtual plethora of "Who dat?" poses, isn't it. From the Universal horror era to Psycho. Its fun wondering what people are fearing.

Which reminds me: when I first went to see Alien -- opening night -- not a photo had been published of what the alien LOOKED like. One review I read said "he makes that shark in Jaws feel like a guppy." I was pretty excited to see "him." And lo and behold...he emerged only bit by bit, and teeny tiny(out of John Hurt's stomach) the first time. But a lot bigger as the movie went on.

But still..WHAT a "who dat?" The Alien. (Within a few weeks , a photo of the alien appeared in Newsweek for a cover story.)

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Although the three of them had no overlapping shooting days, they were all assembled, appropriately costumed (and bewigged, in Miles's case), somewhere, at some time. At Universal? Paramount? Some off-site photo studio on Seward, Gower or Romaine? And when?

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These ARE among the mysteries of Psycho we'll never really know. The film probably has one of the most comprehensive collection of photos ever assembled. Over the decades, somebody kept finding NEW ones and yeah, one had to wonder: when were they taken? Where? (Except poor Marty Balsam was like, never invited.)

[–] swanstep (2616) 5 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

These ominously shadowy publicity photos of Sam, Lila, and Marion together have always read to me as very B-movie-ish. Specifically I always imagine a '50s creature like The Fly or the mutants from This Island Earth just out of frame terrorizing our heroes. The shots don't really fit Psycho as we know it but they tell us something about, as it were, where Psycho was coming from: it was made cheaply (but with quite big stars) and partly in response to cheapie 'shockers' by William Castle and Clouzot and to the more macabre eps of AHPresents.

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I'm afraid that both Vertigo and North by Northwest have folks like Stewart, Novak, Grant and even Mason adapting some pretty "silly" ominous poses for their studio shots. (Lots of ones of Stewart menacing or about to strangle Novak, for instance.)

It was a different era. Same with a lot of trailers(though mercifully, not Hitchcock's.) The issue being: very intelligent and artful films were advertised as if they were made by and for idiots. Its a holdover, I guess, from the tawdry beginnings of "moving pictures."

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Hitch doubtless hoped he could personally turn Psycho into a big broad hit that people who'd never go to a B-movie or foreign-film shocker would see. But these publicity shots seem to me to reveal that Hitch hedged his bets; Psycho would *at least* be a hit with creature-feature kids, teens and other fans of macabre shockers.

--

The box office seems to show that this is exactly who made Psycho such a hit: kids who saw it at least twice(to check out how the twist played out) and often a lot more times than that. (future Time critic Richard Corliss saw it "five times in three days" in New Jersey). But poor newbie critic Andrew Sarris was out there trying to tell the world it WAS art, and stood in the rank of the "great international films."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

It would be interesting to see how and when these rather silly "promotion staged photos" fell out of Hollywood favor. I mean, stars "pose" all the time for photos...the Star Wars trio was willing to get "goofy" and aim their ray guns at unseen foes to promote that movie. But still, the pictures aren't that way anymore. Nor are the photos. Nor are the movies....

A double check on Frenzy: none of the cast members were posed in particularly fake ways, but Barry Foster took a few "grim and menacing" looking stills, and Jon Finch and Anna Massey posed for a rather "misfired erotic try" of her kissing his neck. Still...nothing as silly as some of that Psycho stuff.

[–] swanstep (2616) 5 years ago

I'm afraid that both Vertigo and North by Northwest have folks like Stewart, Novak, Grant and even Mason adapting some pretty "silly" ominous poses for their studio shots. (Lots of ones of Stewart menacing or about to strangle Novak, for instance.)

Ha! I did not know that. I'll have to check those photos out. It does seem, then, that this rather silly publicity photo-style *is* a hang-over from earlier in the medium or even from Theater Playbill photographic traditions. Compare: Hollywood took decades to completely ween itself off of folksy actor/character introductory (and sometimes conclusory as in Bad Seed (1956)) credits that harkened back to silents & the stage.

Note too that in that 1972 Cavett director-off we've recently discussed Altman argues provocatively that every film made so far still owes something important to previous media like novels & the stage. He anticipates, however, that completely native-to-film productions are on the horizon in the 1970s.... Anyhow maybe stuff like the persistence of stage-y publicity photos at least until the 1960s helps us see how Altman was right: Until 1970 or so there was still lots of older media DNA floating around in the business at a variety of technical levels.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I'm afraid that both Vertigo and North by Northwest have folks like Stewart, Novak, Grant and even Mason adapting some pretty "silly" ominous poses for their studio shots. (Lots of ones of Stewart menacing or about to strangle Novak, for instance.)

Ha! I did not know that. I'll have to check those photos out.

---

The Vertigo ones are perhaps "sillier" and more numerous than the NXNW ones.

In fact, I found only one "silly" one of Grant and one "silly" one of Mason in the NXNW collection:

Grant in a photography studio "Open room" photographed from above looking down at him, with his hands up in terror of something above him -- he's in the black slacks/white shirt for the Rushmore climax(having spent of the film in that gray suit of armor) so I suppose we're meant to feel he is "afraid on Mount Rushmore." But there is nothing around him, just blank space.

Mason, photographed gripping a wall with his face peering around it, looking menacing and kinda nuts.

It does seem, then, that this rather silly publicity photo-style *is* a hang-over from earlier in the medium or even from Theater Playbill photographic traditions. Compare: Hollywood took decades to completely ween itself off of folksy actor/character introductory (and sometimes conclusory as in Bad Seed (1956)) credits that harkened back to silents & the stage.

Note too that in that 1972 Cavett director-off we've recently discussed Altman argues provocatively that every film made so far still owes something important to previous media like novels & the stage. He anticipates, however, that completely native-to-film productions are on the horizon in the 1970s.... Anyhow maybe stuff like the persistence of stage-y publicity photos at least until the 1960s helps us see how Altman was right: Until 1970 or so there was still lots of older media DNA floating around in the business at a variety of technical levels.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

There is also a photo of a harp, with (I'm trying to remember) Mason playing it and Grant and Saint with their fingers in their ears, acting as if the music is bad. (BTW, maybe it was Grant playing it; maybe it was Saint, I can't remember.)

Also: Grant and Saint in a clinch (in a photography studio), but she's got a gun in his ribs....

Also in the NXNW collection: a "gag" photo of Hitchcock looking down on a sleeping Herrman is actually real. Herrmann was really asleep, Hitchcock tiptoed over with a studio cameraman and got the shot....

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Vertigo, again: Stewart acting like a ...psycho...Novak menaced. In one shot, they pose in that ridiculously low "window" of the bell tower -- how ripe that was for SOMEBODY to fall. But Stewart's hands are on Novak's neck.

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Back to Psycho: one of those "maybe true, maybe not" tales of the making of Psycho is that Hitchcock forbade the studio photography to capture any of the film's "big scenes." Hitch supposedly wanted fairly "neutral" scenes to be photographed, and certainly a lot of photos seem to match that desire: there's a famous photo of Marion getting her license out of her purse while the cop watches her. There were also plenty of staged "hubba hubba" embracing shots of Leigh and Gavin(no giveaways there.)

Of the famous shower scene, we've got one shot of Hitchcock talking to Leigh while she is in the shower(proving he DID direct it), and that still with which I opened my OP.

No shots of Arbogast anywhere near the staircase. (Again, for the Van Sant, a shot was taken of William H. Macy there.)

No shots of the fruit cellar climax except --- I think I've seen one of Vera Miles looking down (at Mrs. Bates) and screaming.

So, maybe Rebello was mainly right.

And maybe Martin Balsam only had three photos taken of him ...but Simon Oakland got none....

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

It does seem, then, that this rather silly publicity photo-style *is* a hang-over from earlier in the medium or even from Theater Playbill photographic traditions. Compare: Hollywood took decades to completely ween itself off of folksy actor/character introductory (and sometimes conclusory as in Bad Seed (1956)) credits that harkened back to silents & the stage.

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True. That Bad Seed ending -- a curtain call with the evil murderous child getting a spanking --is as bad as it gets. BTW, I think Hitchcock was offered The Bad Seed, but I expect he found the dramatics too overdone and the story distasteful. Just too miserable, watching that horrible little girl talk of her horrible murder of a little boy....the boy's drunken, distressed mother(Eileen Heckart) got a scene that will tear your heart out. All the more's reason that jokey spanking ending stank.

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Note too that in that 1972 Cavett director-off we've recently discussed Altman argues provocatively that every film made so far still owes something important to previous media like novels & the stage. He anticipates, however, that completely native-to-film productions are on the horizon in the 1970s...

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I haven't watched that yet, but I think Altman was kinda right, and kinda wrong. Wrong in that original screenplays are still hard to sell -- novels(even obscure ones), plays, short stories still get movies made from them. And comic books, of course.

But Altman was perhaps right in the plethora of CGI extravaganzas we now get, with the laws of physics ignored and much reality of any sort banished.

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Anyhow maybe stuff like the persistence of stage-y publicity photos at least until the 1960s helps us see how Altman was right: Until 1970 or so there was still lots of older media DNA floating around in the business at a variety of technical levels.

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Yep.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

My brain suddenly yielded a hokey photo of that nature as late as 1979:

For the nuclear plant thriller "The China Syndrome," its three stars posed in an empty white room(always a surefire sign of a "staged moment") in their roles: Jane Fonda as a TV newswoman holding a microphone up to Jack Lemmon, who looks morose; while cameraman Michael Douglas aims his camera at them. Not in a real setting, either soundstage or location. Just a white room. For some reason, these three fine actors all looked fake, fake, fake. I recall showing that photo around and saying something like "What is this photo? 1950 RKO?"