When Sam shows up looking for Arbogast...
I love the expression on Norman's face like "Can't they just leave me alone?".
shareYeah. In the book you hear his thoughts in that scene and he's calling them some lying bitches.
shareThis is a great shot in a great movie...and a "lesson" in film making and film writing...and also a lesson in how sometimes things just "accidentally" conspire to make a film great..and a classic.
This shot also demonstates -- simultaneously -- how Psycho IS a comedy of sorts(though a very subtle, deadpan comedy) even as (also demonstrated by this shot) it is dramatic and profound.
Let us count the ways:
NARRATIVE:
Hitchcock gave us about nine minutes of Norman cleaning up the bathroom, carrying Marion's body to the car and..in a bit of a "surprise reveal" -- showing us a swamp RIGHT ON THE PROPERTY for "car and body disposal"(compete with humorous suspense sequence when..the car won't sink...for awhile.)
Arbogast's body disposal and burial? THIS SCENE...30 seconds, perhaps, with cuts back and forth to Sam yelling.
The disposal of Arbogast's body is a brief memory for Norman in the book -- wrapping the dead private eye in the foyer rug("No blood...these rugs were absorbent") and...I can't remember.
I always figured that for Hitchcock not only was a sequence about the disposal of Arbogast's body unnecessary...it would have been more awkard and difficult to portray. After all, Marion's body once on the floor of Cabin One was about 15 FEET from the car outside. Arbogast's heavier body would have to be dragged down the steps to his car...or perhaps his car could be driven by Norman "up and around the house" to an area we never see. In any event, Hitchcock doesn't show us any of this -- allows us to IMAGINE it(as I have)...and makes his statement: Norman is standing by the swamp. Arbogast and his car have joined Marion. Told to us in 30 seconds.
CONT
PLOT
From Norman's standpoint, hearing a stranger yelling "Arbogast!" tells him what he tells Mother later: "He came after the girl, and now someone will come after him." Thus is the suspense forecast for the next day(Sunday) when Sam and Lila arrive and Norman is...very cold and uncommunicative.
But indeed, Norman here is thinking "Can't they leave me alone?" And there is some comedy there. Mother killed the wrong victim to kill -- a thief who brought an ace private eye on her trail and now...who? As one critic noted: "The entire story keeps re-starting, as Sam and Lila come to investigate the disappearance of a detective who came to investigate the disappearance of..."
And given that at this point both WE AND NORMAN think that Mother is the killer...its also the comedy of : "Dammit, Mother keeps getting me in trouble!"
PROFOUND DRAMA
If there is narrative, plot and light comedy in this shot of Norman by the swamp...there is also profound drama -- because of the SHOT itself. This is what I mean about how things that are "accidental" can create a classic. Simply put, this is a GREAT shot...haunting, somber, atmospheric, with Anthony Perkins in his black sweater and slacks taking on a vampiric quality(or like the killer in Dr. Caligari) ...and there's nothing funny about the expression on his face: mean, brooding -- it is at this moment, I think, that Norman Bates stops being the shy and bumbling charmer who relaxed Marion and becomes clearly a "villain" -- if only as Mother's accomplice. He is now clearly a dangerous man.
ADDITIONALLY:
I like how Hitchcock stages the shot so as to CLEARLY tell us that Norman is at ANOTHER PART of the swamp than where he sank Marion's car. The camera angle and positioning of Norman screen left suggests that he is "to the left" of where he sank Marion's car.
BONUS:
On some prints of Psycho that were on VHS in the 80s, in this shot of Norman "swampside" you can look out past him, at a distance of 100 yards or so...and see a pick up truck rattling along a road on the far side of the swamp.
This may have been a "gaffe" -- some Universal Studios truck stumbling into the day-for-night daytime shot --- but for purposes of the movie, it FITS. The message: some rural person in a truck , driving a road at night past the swamp...has no idea that he or she is driving near the burial of a murder victim and the killer's accomplice(or, actually as we learn later -- the killer himself.)
The truck can't be seen in current DVD framings of the film. Maybe the scene can be "re-framed" for later printings to let the truck back in...