P.S -the last thread got so long, no place else to type this. Yes Vertigo is a great movie to LOOK AT , but it does nothing for me story wise. It's visually stunning.
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Understandable. That thread passed 100; this is a good place to re-vamp the look at some topics.
Momentarily to your very good analysis of the Psycho trailer.
I'll refine my take on Vertigo here, and say: I agree with you.
I think it is a very "weird" aspect of Hitchcock studies that, while his career was rife with POPULAR and well reviewed hits like The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, Rebecca, Notorious, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Man Who Knew Too Much '56(with its glorious Albert Hall remake scene); North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, and Frenzy...Vertigo was sort of lifted out of poorly reviewed, low box office obscurity and transformed into 'the greatest Hitchcock of all time."
There's something WRONG with that and yet...its like a "controversy within a triumph". I sense critics thumbing their noses at us and saying "no, no, you ALL have it wrong: THIS is the greatest Hitchcock."
Its as if "1941" was extolled as the greatest Spielberg movie...
And yes...even though I think it is vital to the plot (OLD James Stewart clings to Madeleine as his last chance for love), every photograph of James Stewart in that hat embracing Kim Novak just looks WRONG. Maybe less wrong in 1958(when young actresses were often paired with much older men) but wrong.
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
To me, the power of Vertigo is the music and the cinematography and the locations on the one hand AND (within the plot) the look at how men worship women from afar and then belittle them once they have them.
There's also the issue of "desperately trying to bring back the past." I feel that in Vertigo, and I felt it when Frenzy came out in 1972..with regard to Hitchcock's career:
Frenzy got rave reviews, and Hitchcock even "gave his all" to make a trailer meant to copy the famous Psycho trailer("Here I am in Covent Garden, setting of another horrible murder.") But the feeling a lot of us felt was that "Frenzy" was an attempt to recreate "Psycho"(and its hit status, and its trailer) just like Scottie tried to recreate Madeleine in Judy. It was too late -- Hitchcock was too old, new filmmakers were on the scene(Spielberg with Duel in 1971)...we just couldn't bring Hitchcock back anymore than Scottie could bring Madeline back.
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
BACK TO THE TRAILER:
ecarle- we seem to have veered off into this topic!
I've always loved movie trailers and this was one of the best.
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Absolutely. Its rather hard for me to come up with a BETTER trailer than the one for Psycho, with its emphasis on "Hitchocck the tour guide." (One film earlier for NXNW, Hitchcock played the owner of the "Alfred Hitchcock Travel Agency" planning the NXNW trip as a vacation -- but THAT one had clips from the movie.)
By the way, I think Hitchcock -- basking a bit too much in his Psycho success -- really overdid it in his "Birds" trailer -- he's stuck in one room and he talks and talks and talks and TALKS before Tippi Hedren runs in screaming and we hear those great birds sounds.
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
With his "Marnie" trailer, Hitchcock (still written by James Allardice, shortly before the man's death) -- is in a fine, funny mood as he tells us directly: "Marnie is not Psycho, nor are there a flock of birds flying about , pecking people willy nilly" -- acknowledging his two recent hits, Hitchcock warns us that Marnie will be a drama, but picks his hook: "I would call Marnie a "sex mystery.""
James Allardice died before Hitchcock could make any more trailers. Hitch appears only in still form for the Torn Curtain trailer(a photo; he hated the movie) and appears only to speak briefly in the Topaz trailer.
Knowing that he had a "Psycho like hit" in Frenzy, Hitchcock pulled out the stops for a Psycho like trailer and -- looking sadly aged and frail -- did a good one for Family Plot, too.
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
Looking at the trailer with the old 20/20 hindsight, I feel as though I understand exactly where the story will go and how it will play out.
But realistically if I hadn't seen the movie, I'd have no idea what was going to happen! Hitchcock had that sly look about him through the whole trailer.
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Yes...he rather hams it up, but in a sophisticated way.
I like when he points at the painting on the wall in the parlor and says "Now this picture is very important...BECAUSE..." And then he shuts up..."well let's go on to Cabin One." Think of ALL the people who wanted to come see Psycho and find out WHY that picture was so important. I tell you, the way its staged, I almost can't remember why the picture is so important, myself...
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He gave some misdirection cues of course.
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Mainly about Mother:
"Now this young fellow, you had to feel sorry about him because he was under thumb of a controlling, manical woman..she was the WEIRDEST...well, come along to her bedroom."
I also love how Hitch opens the closet cabinet in Mother's room, looks inside and shudders. Again...audiences would go CRAZY wanting to see Psycho and to see what's in there. (Mother's flowered dresses..which ARE kind of creepy and are also "Norman's uniform for murder.")
In Mother's bedroom, Hitch sure gives something away, waving his hand over "the imprint of her figure on the bed." An imprint that could only be made by a dead body that never moves...and this clue is in the movie, too.
Hitchcock opens the door to one room never mentioned in the movie(the upstairs bathroom) and says "The bawthroom..." Funny little joke -- that bathroom won't be shown again until Psycho II.
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
Janet Leigh was the star and up until then, I don't think the star of any movie bit the dust in the first reel.
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What's interesting about that, I suppose, is just how big a star was. The key: not THAT big.
Imagine if you paid to see a movie with Tom Cruise(today) and he got killed in the first half. You might just want your money back. You came to see a TOM CRUISE movie.
But the star of Psycho was really Alfred Hitchcock. And Janet Leigh was big enough for us to feel the pain when she dies...but not that big. Had Hitchcock cast Marilyn Monroe or Doris Day or Liz Taylor and killed one of THEM off...they might just want their money back.
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And Hitchcock cast Anthony Perkins, so boyishly handsome and totally unlike the Norman in the book. Who would ever suspect what lurked under his sweet yet sad demeanor?
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Funny. We never see one shot of Perkins in the Psycho trailer, but Hitchcock's constant discussion of "this poor young fellow" under his Mother's domination conjures up Perkins in our mind. His name finally appears in credits at the end.
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
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Hitchcock 'gives away" that some murders will occur.
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Boy does he. Look at the DETAIL in which he describes the Arbogast murder(without giving name or sex of victim):
"She met the victim at the top. In a flash there was the knife(in the movie, the knife DOES flash in the light) and the victim tumbled and fell with a horrible crash. The back broke immediately(a grisly detail we don't "feel" in the movie.) Its difficult to discuss the twisting of the...the twisting of the...oh, I can't discuss it further...let's go upstairs."
Here's Hitchcock giving us a "mind picture" of the entire Arbogast murder, start to finish. And later giving us a "mind picture" of the shower scene("The murderer crept in, the water was running, there was no sound") AND a glimpse of the female victim screaming.
Look, if I saw THAT trailer in 1960 BEFORE I saw Psycho, you can bet that I would be bracing myself when Marion entered the shower and turned on the water; and when Arbogast entered the foyer and looked up at the stairs. I can't imagine an audience member who did NOT. IF they saw the trailer.
And this is why I find it "psycho" when writer after writer after writer(including Roger Ebert in his "Great Movies" essay on Psycho) say "everybody thinks the movie will be about Janet Leigh til the end of the movie-- and then she is killed in that shower.") These people did not see that trailer.
And note this: Hitchcock centers his trailer telling the story of NORMAN and his MOTHER. He says nothing about Marion Crane and her story and her theft. He could have. He could have cut all references to the murders and said "And to this motel came a young woman named Marion Crane, who had just stolen 40,000...and her adventures at this motel are most terrifying indeed."
Nope. That trailer is about a young man, his mother, a motel, an old house, and two murders.
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
It was more like he phrased everything so he could later say, "It's not my fault if the audience mistakenly inferred what I meant to imply." ha ha
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Ha. I suppose so...the trailer DOES obscure a few points...and flat out lies about the mother being real and alive.
I personally like Hitchcock's summary of what the terror in Psycho is REALLY about: "These people had no idea of the type of people they were being confronted with in this house. Especially the mother..."
That's Psycho in a nutshell. Neither Marion nor Arbogast REALLY know just how crazy Norman Bates is, and how much mortal(and bloody) danger they are in. Until its too late. And once WE know(about Monster Mother,not about Norman) the suspense and irony is acute, especially when Lila says to Sam about Mother: "I can handle a sick old woman!"
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I saw the trailer several times before I realized it was Vera Miles in the shower. Hitchcock probably wouldn't have used Janet Leigh even if she had been available. Another sly misdirection on his part!
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Yes, I suppose so. Maybe folks thought Janet Leigh would live til the end and Vera Miles would come along and get killed. But when Janet got in that shower...
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One other thing I really love about the Psycho trailer: Hitchcock and his writer James Allardice probably hatched the idea for this trailer when Hitchcock realized that the ENTIRE MOVIE was about the various "dangers and death traps" at the Bates Motel. The motel. The house. The shower. The staircase. Mother's room. The parlor. Its a great tour and it MISSES such vital locations as the fruit cellar and the swamp. The "topography of Psycho" is classic unto itself.
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[email protected] (5497)
4 years ago
ecarle- Another point you brought up about Janet Leigh...true, she wasn't a BIG star at the time. I should have said she "starred in the movie". I mean for all intents and purposes, she was billed as the lead. Audiences usually expect the lead in a movie to make it at least most of the way through the film. lol
Don't know if it's true. But I read that Hitchcock didn't want latecomers into the theater and asking, "Where's Janet Leigh?"
Hitchcock was the "star". But in another way, Janet Leigh's character's death was another "star" in the movie. Her death gets the ball rolling to tell the real story, i.e., who IS the "Psycho" in the title?
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
ecarle- Another point you brought up about Janet Leigh...true she wasn't a BIG star at the time. I should have said she 'starred in the movie". I mean for all intents and purposes, she was billed as the lead. Audiences usually expect the lead in a movie to make it at least most of the way through the film. lol
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I've been thinking about this since I wrote it and...Janet Leigh was actually a pretty big star. Not getting paid like Liz Taylor and Doris Day, and not always top-billed, but...pretty big.
And she'd been in movies for over 10 years when she made Psycho.
Her daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis, noted that her mother's marriage to her father, famous movie star Tony Curtis, made "Curtis and Leigh" a bigger celebrity thing than either actor was apart. They were kind of "early Karsdashians" or perhaps like Brad and Angie when they were big.
Moreover, going into Psycho, Janet Leigh had been third-billed in The Vikings(with Tony Curtis as her lover and Kirk Douglas as the villain); and in "Who Was That Lady?"(with Tony Curtis as her husband and Dean Martin as his pal.) Most of all for "Psycho" purposes, Leigh had worked for and with Orson Welles in Touch of Evil...where she is menaced at an isolated Mexican motel manned by creepy Dennis Weaver(far more "gooney" than Tony Perkins.)
Perhaps a bit too "paired" with Tony Curtis around Psycho time, Leigh had done well apart from him in The Naked Spur and Scaramouche. Leigh was "big enough." (MUCH bigger when she made Psycho than Anne Heche was when she poorly played Marion in the 1998 remake -- who cared about losing Anne Heche early?)
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
Don't know if it's true. But I read that Hitchcock didn't want latecomers to come into the theater and ask, "Where's Janet Leigh?"
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Oh yes, that's true. Hitchcock said that to Truffaut in their famous interview book, and elsewhere, and it certainly makes some sense.
Come in say, when Sam meets Lila and Arbogast in the hardware store, and you ain't never gonna see Janet Leigh in Psycho.
Still, my contention remains that the shower scene was NOT intended by Hitchcock as much of a surprise given that he made a trailer that leads up to and "hard sells" the shower murder as the BIG thing in Psycho. To me, the idea that the shower scene was meant to be a big surprise is "fake news" of a historic and profound variety. (On the other hand Hollywood hullaboo and promotion has ALWAYS been fake news -- nobody forces them to tell the truth.)
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
Hitchcock was the "star". But in another way, Janet Leigh's character's death was another "star" in the movie. Her death gets the ball rolling to tell the real story, i.e., who IS the "psycho" in the title?
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Oh, I certainly agree that Psycho as we have it "plays up" Marion Crane as our lead for a long, long time -- she's in every scene and sometimes hers is the only face ON screen(in her car.)
I will concede that audiences who did NOT see that trailer and did NOT know the story of Psycho likely were very, very shocked at that murder.
Also: it was a very, very shocking murder. So many "remembrances" of folks who saw that in 1960 were that the shower scene in all of its length and unprecedented violence hit them hard -and lingered in them as they left the theater(one matinee viewer said that the sunlight itself seemed dark and sinister) , and then followed them home to night and to sleeplessness.
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i.e., who IS the "psycho" in the title?
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Folks have had fun with that question. It has been noted, for instance, that first time audiences may have thought that Marion HERSELF was the psycho -- her embezzlement is pretty crazy to start with -- will she get WORSE? (No.)
When Tony Perkins enters the movie, the new question is: is HE the psycho? No -- MOTHER's the psycho.
Until we learn that nope -- Tony's the psycho after all.
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I read a "giveaway" article on Psycho from 1960 that said "Psycho...starting Tony Perkins in the title role."
Of course the movie takes great pains to compare Marion as a psycho(committing a crime she can't get away with) with Norman as a psycho(committing crimes he HAS gotten away with in the past -- but not this time.") The clincher? "We all go a little mad sometimes -- haven't you?"
We're all a little psycho.
Especially in 2020.
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[email protected] (5497)
4 years ago
That line by Norman Bates is another example of how iconic this movie is.
Near the end of Scream, Sydney's boyfriend whom we presumed was dead, says to her, "We all go a little mad sometimes."
I don't know of too many movies which lift a line from an almost forty year old film and expect the audience to "get it".
Also in Halloween, I never noticed it until I read about it, but Donald Pleasance's character was Dr. Sam Loomis.
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[email protected] (5497)
4 years ago
Yes, Hitchcock SHOWED some important things from the movie while not telling the audience much. But his walk through the creepy old house just made you want to find out what was hidden there!
Not only the master of suspense, but the master of slyness as well.
Referring back to Vertigo, it was to Jimmy Stewart's credit that he felt he was miscast in Vertigo and his next film which also co-starred Kim Novak, Bell, Book and Candle.
He was a superb actor but he never had a very youthful look even in his youth. He was only fifty in Vertigo but definitely a mature looking fifty.
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
BACK TO VERTIGO:
But I always come away with the same opinion that Jimmy Stewart whom I really like was too old and too miscast in the role of Scotty.
It just gave me a weird feeling seeing him pining over not one but what he thought was two women half his age.
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That's right. TWO women half his age. And Judy -- with her bra-less look and tight sweater -- is even more "sexual a catch" than the ice queen Madeleine who, indeed, looks a bit OLDER than her age.
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I have all the Donald Spoto books and he really tries to sell this one. I guess I just don't share his opinion.
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Its weird about Donald Spoto. I think he met and praised Hitchcock while Hitchcock was still alive, but after Hitchcock's death in 1980, Spoto wrote that extremely insulting and accusatory book about Hitchcock in 1983("The Dark Side of Genius.")
So Spoto is a "villain" who, nonetheless, helped lead the charge extolling Vertigo because, he wrote in 1977 "I fell in love with the movie the first time I saw it in 1958 and saw it (40? 50?) times since." Donald Spoto and Robin Wood seemed to single-handedly re-programmed Vertigo as the great one. And something has always seemed wrong about that.
Indeed, Vertrigo was out of circulation for 10 years, and when it came BACK, I think a lot of young people wrote(and felt, and said) "what's the big deal about this movie?"
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
Referring back to Vertigo, it was to Jimmy Stewart's credit that he felt he was miscast in Vertigo and his next film which also co-starred Kim Novak, Bell, Book and Candle.
He was a superb actor but he never had a very youthful look even in his youth. He was only fifty in Vertigo but definitely a mature looking fifty.
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Heck, he looked closer to 60. He had a "noble" reason for this: his WWII experiences, with command over many fliers who were killed in battle, took a toll on his mind and his body.
Back-to-back romancing Kim Novak in 1958(Vertigo in May; Bell Book and Candle in December), Stewart and his handlers seemed to "get the message." After those movies , Stewart would play loners(Anatomy of a Murder, Flight of the Phoenix) Westerners, and happily married fathers, with one exception: he got a "too young" romance with Caroll Baker in How the West Was Won.
Stewart also looks too old for Grace Kelly in Rear Window, but its four years earlier than Vertigo and the match is more 'elegant opposites attract." Interestingly Stewart is well matched with Doris Day in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much. They are a married couple with a child, so the sexual tension thing is done; and Day looks pretty matronly herself(in that boxy 50's suit.) In Rope, not only is Stewart single...it is kinda/sorta implied that maybe he is...gay.
By the way: rumor has it that Stewart may have looked old to us back then, but female co-stars like Grace Kelly and Kim Novak had the hots for him offscreen - -he was happily married and fended them off. Maybe.
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
Tying Vertigo to Psycho:
They DO have their intersects.
The Psycho house was inspired by the REAL McKittrick Hotel in Vertigo(well, its a real building CALLED the McKittrick Hotel in Vertigo.) And the staircase in the McKittrick Hotel is like a bigger, more polished, more "Technicolor" version of the Bates staircase -- and a private detective in a hat(Stewart here, Balsam with hat in hand in Psycho) is in both movies.
And both movies are about voyeurs who spy on women: Scottie. Norman.
And both movies are about mentally unbalanced men. Scottie: somewhat. Norman: a LOT.
And both movies are about a man who tries to bring a dead woman back to life: Scottie(Madeleine, through Judy.) Norman(Mother, through himself and some sawdust.)
And both movies are about obsession. Of their fans. (Vertigo: others. Psycho: me, others, Brian DePalma, Gus Van Sant.)
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[email protected] (5497)
4 years ago
I never realized how much the two films had in common. But if it's okay with you, I'd much rather have a late supper with Scottie than with Norman. LOL
I'm sure Stewart had his share of female admirers. He apparently dated a number of beauties before he married at the age of 41. He was a Hollywood rarity. He never had affairs after he married.
A guy who is known to be strictly off limits often paradoxically becomes even more attractive to women.
Jimmy Stewart had many attributes but looking young for his age was never one of them.
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
I never realized how much the two films had in common. But if it's okay with you, I'd much rather have a late supper with Scottie than with Norman. LOL
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LOL indeed. Scottie's a much safer bet...and even at the end of Vertigo, when Scottie SEEMS like he's finally ready to commit murder...I don't think he ever had it in him.
You know, Tony Perkins was "sold" (before Psycho) as " a young Jimmy Stewart type" and in some sort of weird time warp where James Stewart is 28 years old and the young stingbean of his 30's movies, you could see Hitchcock casting STEWART as Norman Bates(again, against type.) Lucky for Jimmy he was way too old for Norman in '59/60.
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I'm sure Stewart had his share of female admirers. He apparently dated a number of beauties before he married at the age of 41.
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That's right. The woman he married was a divorcee with children, but Stewart raised them as his own. Her name was Gloria and she was a very stylish woman with a very sophisticated deep voice; she joined Jimmy on several Jack Benny episodes and proved a wonderfully sophisticated comedy actress with her husband.
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He was a Hollywood rarity. He never had affairs after he married.
A guy who is known to be strictly off limits often paradoxically becomes even more attractive to women.
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Yes, the stories are there about the ladies liking him but...he seems to have stayed faithful. Also, Gloria had a habit of showing up on Jimmy's Hollywood soundstage sets -- especially on Rear Window after she heard of Grace Kelly's affair with Ray Milland on "Dial M."
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
Jimmy Stewart had many attributes but looking young for his age was never one of them.
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Nope...younger people today seem to find him ridiculously old looking for his parts. But he appealed to American audiences in the 50's as a Top Ten star always. He was very "American" when that was the way to be in movies. He also had a great VOICE(important for stars of that time, see also: Grant, Cagney, Fonda.) And he purposely repurposed himself(after 1950) in Westerns as a tough, raging type of guy.
No less than Clint Eastwood said that he related more to James Stewart as a Western star than to John Wayne.
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