I guess she would have just returned to Phoenix the next day like she said, given the money back and hoped for the best. Would have made for a boring movie though.
shareYeah. That was her plan.
shareSomehow, I didn't anticipate your question being as such. I thought you meant how else could she have been killed? Or how Norman's mother is brought in as the killer. How did it happen in the book?
The shower was the perfect place for a beautiful blonde like Janet Leigh, especially after the real estate office scene. It satisfies our voyeur instincts when we just saw Norman looking through the hidden peep hole. The shower scene was so shocking and perfect that we couldn't have it in the bedroom with robe and underwear or being dragged out to the dirt lot. The stairway would be too rough even though it was so violent in the shower. The shower scene with the curtain let us see Mother without actually seeing her. It also brought our imagination in with the large kitchen knife and all the blood, violence, and nudity.
The next time you watch the movie, turn the volume up during that scene and watch in HD. It's an incredible scene that cannot be replicated or replaced with a substitute.
You're right in the sense that I rather see Marion return to Phoenix and give back the money than settling for a replacement murder scene.
I guess she would have just returned to Phoenix the next day like she said, given the money back and hoped for the best. Would have made for a boring movie though.
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Its interesting to contemplate what an uninitiated 1960 audience thought Psycho was going when Marion told Norman she was driving "all the way back to Phoenix" and told him goodnight.
I always like to point out that Hitchocck made a trailer that spelled out a shower murder would be in the movie, and some 1960 reviews gave it away, as likely did word of mouth from those who saw it...but..
..what IF nobody knew where the story was going next.
For one thing, Hitchcock and screenwriter Joe Stefano get us IMAGINING Marion driving back to Phoenix the next day. We calculate: its Saturday night, if she drives all day and night Sunday, she can get the money to the bank and either Lowery nor Cassidy will know....but she's got to get $700 from her own account into that deposit(does she HAVE $700?, we are thinking ahead.)
Also Norman asks Marion when she is leaving the next morning and we get this exchange:
Norman: What time are you leaving?
Marion: Very early. Dawn.
Norman: Well, I'll meet you with some breakfast, how about that?
Marion: That would be fine.
We IMAGINE that next morning, and Marion and Norman getting one more time to meet and hey...if this is some sort of a romance...maybe its not goodbye. Maybe Norman goes back to Phoenix WITH Marion. Maybe Marion lets him in on her crime. Maybe...maybe...maybe..
An unitiated audience is picturing SOMETHING more that will happen in this story -- it has to, we're only 45 minutes in.
But I'm guessing an unitiated audience KNOWS its in a horror movie...that HOUSE...and starts to wonder if something is "going to happen" there -- not necessarily a shower murder, but SOMETHING scary. And maybe something where...Marion survives for the entire movie, perhaps held prisoner in the house and escaping and being chased, etc...because Janet Leigh is the STAR.
Anyway, everybody was thinking and imagining and guessing and next thing you know, we're meeting "Norman the peeper"(which suggests a new avenue for the story...he's "bad") and he's heading up to the house(slowly becoming "our new protagonist) and...
....well, the REAL story begins.
Somehow, I didn't anticipate your question being as such. I thought you meant how else could she have been killed? Or how Norman's mother is brought in as the killer. How did it happen in the book?
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In the book, Bloch places us(in Chapter Three) with Norman peeping into Cabin One and he can see Marion(Mary) IN the bathroom, nude and executing a bump and grind that (in Chapter Two) , we saw as her reassurance to herself that she still "had sex appeal." The twisted Norman thinks Mary is taunting HIM with that nude bump and grind and drinks himself into an angry stupor and passes out.
This surely would have been a "sexier" opening to the shower scene, but I doubt that Hitchcock could have filmed even a SUGGESTED nude Janet Leigh outside of the shower executing a bump and grind, and certainly not an engraged Norman. Everything got "calmed down" for the movie -- Marion isn't naked until she is in the shower -- and of course, not clearly seen as such.
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The next time you watch the movie, turn the volume up during that scene and watch in HD. It's an incredible scene that cannot be replicated or replaced with a substitute.
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Nope, and hey -- the Gus Van Sant shower murder just didn't seem able to "pump up the volume" on the music during ITS shower scene. Much quieter -- unless maybe some major home sound system could improve it. The music is even LOUDER when Arbogast gets it. Faster, and "angrier" , too.
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You're right in the sense that I rather see Marion return to Phoenix and give back the money than settling for a replacement murder scene
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To the extent I ever contemplated this question, it was on this basis: "What if Marion went straight to bed and didn't TAKE a shower?" I can only assume that Mrs. Bates would still sneak into the room and stab Marion to death in the bed. Maybe, mercifully, then Marion would be asleep pretty close to her death, but doubtful.
But Marion's taking a shower -- invented by Robert Bloch -- not only made sense dramatically (Marion hasn't showered in over 24 hours, she's tired and bedraggled and probably feels dirty and sweaty) but also symbolically(washing away her sins, a "re-birth and baptism") , dramatically(how vulnerable and trapped she is -- and we FEEL it -- everybody takes a shower sometime), and sexually(males in the audience are titillated and turned on by Leigh's near nudity.)
Nope , a shower murder "checked all the major dramatic/symbolic/sexual/horror boxes" and entered into film history post haste and forever.
>>The next time you watch the movie, turn the volume up during that scene and watch in HD. It's an incredible scene that cannot be replicated or replaced with a substitute.
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Nope, and hey -- the Gus Van Sant shower murder just didn't seem able to "pump up the volume" on the music during ITS shower scene. Much quieter -- unless maybe some major home sound system could improve it. The music is even LOUDER when Arbogast gets it. Faster, and "angrier" , too.<<
You didn't get the impression that it could've been a sex scene with Marion's (Janet Leigh's) moaning and groaning? Mother is killing Marion for having sex with Norman in her mind. If you crank the volume up and watch in 4K, then some of it comes through during the initial penetrations. It changes right away to a bloody and gorier bathtub scene and we're shook into reality of a shower murder.
With Van Sant's it may have been straight violence and the color adds to the effect. I don't get that with his version.
You didn't get the impression that it could've been a sex scene with Marion's (Janet Leigh's) moaning and groaning? Mother is killing Marion for having sex with Norman in her mind.
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And NORMAN is using the knife to substitute for the penetration he cannot bring himself to try personally with Marion. (The Hitchcock rapist killer is 12 years away -- in Frenzy, with Sean Connery's marital rape in Marnie as a way station.)
Hitchcock could not film a rape scene in 1960 of any detail(that would wait til 1972) but the shower murder is certainly a "rape substitute" and the big phallic knife plays its role.
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If you crank the volume up and watch in 4K, then some of it comes through during the initial penetrations. It changes right away to a bloody and gorier bathtub scene and we're shook into reality of a shower murder.
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On the Psycho DVD special edition, they have a version of the shower scene with NO MUSIC. Its less "scream worthy" but more graphic(in what we hear) and somewhat more heartbreaking. Janet Leigh screams early on, but then her vocals turn into gasps and grunts , a "No!" a few times, and finally, after the killer leaves and Marion starts sliding...Leigh lets out these quiet, pained moans...the life leaving her in sound as well as visuals. It IS heartbreaking.
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With Van Sant's it may have been straight violence and the color adds to the effect. I don't get that with his version.
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Trying to re-create the most famous shock scene of all time, Van Sant seems to have had trouble. It certainly IS a shower murder, but the music is too quiet and he tosses in stray shots of storm clouds. One thing I noticed was that the sound of the knife entering was more grisly -- as if the knife were hitting bone.
The biggest problem with the Van Sant shower scene is that...it came along as the SECOND such scene in movie history, so it has no life or surprise of its own. (Though I think you can see Vince Vaughn's face a bit under Mom's fright wig.)
She would have gone back to Phoenix, gave back the money and turned herself in for embezzlement
shareI think we as the audience were all for Marion at that point. It sounded like from her conversation with Norman that she was going to return the money. As for the money, I'm not disagreeing, but couldn't she have just returned the money or deposited the money in the bank on Monday? She had no idea of Arbogast following her. It was like she changed her mind. IOW, she didn't think about turning herself into the police but giving back the money. She had to come up with $700 though. Probably she though she would lose her job, but not go to jail. That said, we don't know what Tom Cassidy would do. He had already hired Arbogast and thought the money stolen.
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She'd lick the stamps...
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