MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > I don't get the negative comments made o...

I don't get the negative comments made on here about the Book.

posted 3 years ago by GreenGoblinsOck8 (7511)
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They're mostly in older topics and not on the first page. But I got the book from my local library last year and I see all kinds of comments about how the novel is garbage and that Alfred Hitchcock also thought it was garbage. The novel is actually very similar storywise to the movie. Main difference is that every other chapter is to Norman's point of view. But I don't see how it's so poorly written. Then again it could just be the same old thing of someone having seen the movie first and therefore not liking the book because of how different it is from the movie.

[–] thingmakersback (1268) 3 years ago

Agreed. I've read a lot of suspense/noir/mystery fiction as well as a lot of horror. I have read most of Bloch's short stories and several novels. I particularly liked The Scarf... Psycho is good by any reasonable standard. Bloch never seemed to be able to write a sequel that was anywhere near as good though. I suspect he was annoyed by the fact that anything he wrote subsequently would always have in big letters on the cover "BY THE AUTHOR OF PSYCHO"...

[–] swanstep (2656) 3 years ago

@Green. I've been a regular here (and at its IMDb predecessor) for over a decade, and I don't remember anyone saying that Bloch's novella is garbage, nor do I recall reading anywhere that Hitchcock thought it was garbage the way, say, Coppola thought Puzo's Godfather novel was garbage. Rather everyone just tends to appreciate the work of adaptation that Stefano and Hitch did (and then Bass and everyone else behind and in front of the camera making their choices and contributions to the final product). Bloch's novella *is* the sine qua non foundation, however, and a heck of a lot of it survives into the film, and, personally, I'd argue that no one's understanding of Psycho (1960) is complete without reading Bloch's novella at some point (with an eye to praise it not bury it).

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

This is an interesting topic.

As it turns out, swanstep, there IS evidence of Hitchcock thinking that the original novel was, well, if not garbage -- simply not a good book. But Hitchcock was rather bullied into that(on audio tape) by his interviewer, French critic/director Francois Truffaut, who in their taped interview on Psycho, DOES say things like "I think Psycho was an awful novel...it wasn't even really a novel...it was stupid. It never should have been written." Hitchcock, in turn , gets defensive, saying "I think the only reason I made that book into a movie was the murder in the shower, coming out of the blue as it were. That was about all." Hitchcock also said -- as he said about a number of his movies from novels, that he only read the book once and never again.

I think the problem in this circumstance is Truffaut, who was an "angry young man" type critic (I've read some of his pieces) to whom things were either...great or garbage. No in between. Truffaut could not have been more WRONG about Psycho, the Robert Bloch novel. It WAS good, and provided Alfred Hitchcock with the greatest story that Hitchcock was ever privileged to tell. It was the kind of story that makes you a multi-millionaire once you dare to tell it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

This interests me about Psycho, the novel. A decade later, novels like The Godfather, The Exorcist, and Jaws would get the full "best seller treatment" -- first as hard cover books, then as paperbacks(selling MORE as paperbacks) and audiences would be primed to see these blockbusters which were "soon to be a major motion picture."

But Bloch's Psycho seems to have kept a much lower profile. It was -- for 1959 -- a pretty horrific book, evidently somewhat "forbidden." The naked heroine has her head cut off with a butcher knife(AFTER other stabs.) The snooping private eye ends up with the "old woman" slashing his throat with a straight razor. And Mrs. Bates -- in book as in movie -- turns out to be a stuffed taxidermy exhibit.

I don't think Psycho ended up in many book store displays.

And yet word is that it sold quite well, and was talked about, and once Hitchcock set out to make a film of this "impossible to film"(said a Paramount reader) film -- there was desire to see it. Hitchcock famously paid as much for the famous "slashed PSYCHO logo" used on the book cover as for the story itself!

...understandably, Robert Bloch took some critical'hits" for the novel being "pulp fiction" with a fair amount of "phrase turning" in lieu of novelistic depth. Whatever. Bloch was very good at what HE was good at, and I've always treasured Robert Bloch's Psycho for giving us an entirely "alternate version" in which "Psycho world" is decidedly more creepy on the page than in the movie.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Take what happens to Arbogast in the book. He interrogates Norman as in the movie, but -- demands to see Mrs. Bates personally, right now. He is not thrown off the property by Norman; he does not drive to a phone booth to report in. (He calls Sam and Lila from the motel office as Norman goes up to "get Mother ready.") Crucially, Arbogast TELLS Norman about the 40 grand, so Norman tells Mother when he reaches her at the house. Mom's response is almost gangster like: "40 thousand. That's a lot of money. He probably thinks we're all in this together. I better talk to him."

Suspense mounts as Arbogast approaches the house. Norman is the powerless, hysterical "witness" to Mother coming DOWN the stairs to open the door to the detective -- 'Just a moment, I'm coming!" and as the detective enters and "raises his head slightly", Bloch goes flowery: "Something bright and glittering flashed back and forth, back and forth. Mother had found Norman's razor."

What I like is that Arbogast's murder in the book is an entirely DIFFERENT shock event than Arbogast's murder in the movie. We have them BOTH for the taking, both for the creeping out. (An extra element in the book: Arbogast is killed during the day and the Bates Motel has an old couple staying there at the time he is killed at the house.) We also have the element in the book that Mrs. Bates is presented not as an old woman with gray bunned hair -- but as a woman wearing a head scarf and too much make-up. Creepy! (Norman in the book can't be bothered with full old lady wig and drag.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Another person who really dumped on Psycho, the book was -- sadly -- Joe Stefano, the screenwriter of Psycho, who spoke of how much he hated the book for its grubbiness and how much he didn't want to write a movie about "fat forty year old reprobate Norman Bates." Hitchcock solved that problem with the casting of Anthony Perkins, but Stefano's overall "diss" of Bloch's novel led to bad blood between the two men for decades (Bloch had Stefano's credit removed from the 1974 "photo book" of Psycho.) Bloch was also angry to see Stefano get "from the writer of Psycho" billing on the movie "The Naked Edge."

Robert Bloch took justifiable pride in the fact that -- from Chapter Two of his book on(Chapter One opens with Norman and Mother at the Bates Motel as Mary/Marion drives up) -- book and movie are a scene by scene match, right up to the fly at the end. This is true. Psycho was a VERY easy book to adapt, and Joe Stefano should have acknowledged that.

But this: Hitchcock and Stefano together DID improve Bloch's Psycho in one big way: better dialogue, which made for more "in-depth" characters. And things were done to convert the movie into a "game with the audience" --- "let's hide the twist ending." It worked spectacularly. Arbogast's murder in the book is a thing of real horror -- but in the movie, it sails on into the stratosphere of screams. And of course, Hitchcock took Bloch's paragraph of gore and turned it into a shower murder for all time -- cinematic.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Interesting to me: in 1965 when I was a young boy, Psycho got a theatrical re-release: "PSYCHO is back, with its blonde and its shower bath!" There were newspaper ads and TV commercials but mostly -- on my block -- there was TALK. Talk of how horrific Psycho was, how it shouldn't be seen, how it was something maybe you could not watch without psyche damage.

But this I remember: when I asked for details of the story, older boys told me things that were hard to take, and THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT THE BOOK. They talked of the woman getting her head cut off, and of Norman stuffing the headless corpse and head in a hamper(that's in the book, not the movie.) It was all pretty horrible to hear in 1965, and it kept me fearing Psycho for some years. But I realized: these boys were probably not ALLOWED to see Psycho in 1960...so they read the book instead, and got THAT horror experience instead.

[–] swanstep (2656) 3 years ago

As it turns out, swanstep, there IS evidence of Hitchcock thinking that the original novel was, well, if not garbage -- simply not a good book. But Hitchcock was rather bullied into that(on audio tape) by his interviewer, French critic/director Francois Truffaut

Thank you for reminding us of this ecarle (and of Stefano's somewhat similar trash-talking of Bloch). I think you are probably right that Truffaut goads Hitch a bit here, but there *is* also a general syndrome at work: Hitch, particularly *after* Psycho (when, simultaneously, he's dealing with being King of the World financially, having to follow up a truly massive out-of-the-blue success, achieving God-hood among the French critics and the fast-expanding film school industrial complex, having literally hundreds of *directly* imitative films being made, and the '60s are hitting and threatening to make everything not completely new look and feel out of date and square, and much more) seems to have let his jealous and ungenerous streaks come out a bit much (and this would ultimately cost him various friendships and collaborators, including Herrmann most sadly). And there's also much wider phenomena at work - the film business was and is one of the ultimate, competitive Darwinian jungles. It's not a place for sissies; everybody's trying to take your job, to get their next movie funded and not yours, to get all their credit and take yours, and you're trying to do the same to them. Sharp elbows are required. (I sound like Alec Baldwin at the beginning of Glengarry Glen Ross don't I?) Hitch in the '60s was trying to keep working at an age and moment when lots of his peers were being pensioned off, being told to go home, count their money, and play with their kids and grandkids! There's a bit of ugly big-talking and sharp-elbowing going on with him at this time for sure.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Thank you for reminding us of this ecarle (and of Stefano's somewhat similar trash-talking of Bloch)

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It was not meant as a "gotcha," swanstep, of that I can assure you...and the truth of the matter is that I didn't hear Truffaut's angry screed until only a few years ago -- in the 1967 book of Hitchcock/Truffaut, none of Truffaut's insults are on the page and we only get Hitchcock saying that he made the movie only because of the shower scene.(Which proved to be exactly the right reason TO make Psycho...even as the story gave him so much more to offer movie history(the motel and house combination; the twist ending, the all-too-crucial and shocking detective's death...)

I suppose that Joe Stefano was "within his rights" to find the book Psycho to be "beneath him." He rather lucked into his job with Hitchcock(who was looking for somebody CHEAP and was pitched Stefano by a trusted agent) and was shocked to find he wasn't being hired to write North by Northwest. Still, there is no record of Joe Stefano EVER creating something with the staying power of Bloch's Psycho...and an aged Stefano rather screwed up "Psycho IV: The Beginning" with its bad flashbacks.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

but there *is* also a general syndrome at work: Hitch, particularly *after* Psycho (when, simultaneously, he's dealing with being King of the World financially, having to follow up a truly massive out-of-the-blue success, achieving God-hood among the French critics and the fast-expanding film school industrial complex, having literally hundreds of *directly* imitative films being made, and the '60s are hitting and threatening to make everything not completely new look and feel out of date and square, and much more)

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Hitchcock was rather flummoxed by the 60's. He had Vertigo revered as an art masterpiece and Psycho as a worldwide shock blockbuster -- came 1963 and The Birds, he was DEMONSTRABLY the hottest filmmaker working, and yet -- as he himself knew -- about to be sidelined by health and age and an inability to "do it again" classic-wise. Marnie seems a mortifying drop-down in quality to me -- the script, the Universal sets, nothing but process shots filling in for the location footage(Monaco, Morocco, Vermont) Hitchcock used to do in the fifties with ease. He got old -- and Universal started cutting his budgets...just AS he was being lionized.

Marnie, Torn Curtain and Topaz allowed enemies to flock and fight Hitch and indeed...his "push back" was to blame everybody but himself. He blamed Tippi Hedren. He blamed Paul Newman and Julie Andrews! He blamed Universal for "forcing" Topaz on him (What? A movie about FRENCH spies? That was right up his alley.)

Indeed he blamed Herrmann(for being too "old fashioned".) And before he fired Herrmann off of Torn Curtain, he let go his long time DP Robert Burks from the same film. Why? Because Hitchcock felt he had to SURVIVE...and that would be with new collaborators.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

seems to have let his jealous and ungenerous streaks come out a bit much (and this would ultimately cost him various friendships and collaborators, including Herrmann most sadly).

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A kindly old film composer named David Raksin(Laura, A Big Hand for the Little Lady) went on TCM and gave an interview in favor of his old friend Benny Herrmann -- and totally AGAINST Alfred Hitchcock in the 60's. Boy was it vitriolic: "Herrmann gave Hitchcock EVERYTHING...and Hitchcock rewarded him with the loyalty of an EEL. That's alright, we all knew that Hitchcock was in decline in those years, and he knew it too. He was a worthless party guest, just sitting there like a bump on a log..."

Well, good for you, David Raksin, but of course Hitchcock gave a lot of us a lot of pleasure too, so its too bad what happened but...that's Hollywood.

Irony: Herrmann lived just long enough so he could have scored all the Hitchcock movies after Marnie. I most miss a Herrmann score on Frenzy -- the "good one" of the late ones. I have read that Hitchcock actually offered Family Plot to Herrmann -- but he declined citing his work assignment on Taxi Driver.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

And there's also much wider phenomena at work - the film business was and is one of the ultimate, competitive Darwinian jungles. It's not a place for sissies; everybody's trying to take your job, to get their next movie funded and not yours, to get all their credit and take yours, and you're trying to do the same to them. Sharp elbows are required.

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Yep, from all that I've read -- I was just kinda/sorta a little bit "in the periphery"(trying to sell a couple of scripts) in the 70's and I saw that first hand even at the fringes. Mean people. Don't give you the time of day ...unless and until you do something to break through.

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(I sound like Alec Baldwin at the beginning of Glengarry Glen Ross don't I?)

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Well, the playwright screenwriter of that movie, David Mamet, knew Hollywood to be just like Mr. Baldwin's real estate. (Sudden flash: Baldwin comes to LOWERY real estate to give Lowery, Marion and Caroline the big scare speech. "ABC. Always be closing!" Ha.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Hitch in the '60s was trying to keep working at an age and moment when lots of his peers were being pensioned off, being told to go home, count their money, and play with their kids and grandkids! There's a bit of ugly big-talking and sharp-elbowing going on with him at this time for sure.

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Well, Hitchcock found himself -- along with Capra, Ford, Hawks and Wilder(eventually) -- in something that is practically unheard of today: filimmakers in their 70's were OUT. Modernly, Scorsese and Spielberg and Ridley Scott and others just keep going, just keep getting big stars, age is not an issue. But in the 60s...it was.

In the 60s and 70s, Capra, Ford, Hawks and Wilder were cut loose(Wilder from a Universal contract, though he managed to find other funding.) Hitchcock was allowed by Universal and Hitchcock's "friend" Lew Wasserman, to keep making "little movies with the Hitchcock name" -- which also set up Lew handsomely to handle the marketing of all those Hitchcock movies after the great man died. I think Warners has been handling Clint Eastwood the same way -- except he's 90 and still going strong!

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I was surfing the web the other day and I came on a 1972 Hitchcock interview -- British TV, I think. He was basking in the success of Frenzy but it was interesting to really LISTEN to him. The interviewer says "the murder scene in this film is worse than your usual," and Hitchcock flashes a "mischievous, evil grin" and says "Well, why NOT?" Then he elaborates: "This is under the heading of if you are going to do something, you should do it well." So...still a provocateur.

The interviewer asks if Straw Dogs influenced Frenzy and Hitchcock gets visibly angry. 'I don't copy other people's movies -- what I do is to avoid the cliché." And the SECOND he says that ''avoid the cliché" , he clicks on like an autotron and tells the same damn story about the wide open spaces of the crop duster scene in NXNW.... Hitch compares his famous scene to a "straw man" thriller scene with a dark street, a black cat, cobbletones washed with recent rains ..and he sounds like "1899 man 1972." Because he was.

But that's the weird thing. "Autoron Hitch" was telling the same old stories(and making sure he was honored as "special and unique" -- quite the ego) but the REAL Hitch was still making movies as disturbing and precise in the making as Frenzy. It was as if his great artistry functioned wholly away from his bad story telling in interviews.

Anyway, Hitch knew how to fight, his whole life. And he fought to make movies til the end. And he got to.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Psycho is good by any reasonable standard.

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Absolutely. When one reads the book as Bloch wrote it, one finds everything that was in the movie...and yet one finds its own "world" -- more adult than the Hays Code movie could ever be, more gory, too. But profound in its own way.

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Bloch never seemed to be able to write a sequel that was anywhere near as good though.

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It was a bit sad for him. Hitchcock died in 1980. Came 1981 some young filmmakers were pitching THEIR "Psycho II" in an article for the LA Times(with Lila running the Bates Motel, and Arbogast's brother -- a shrink named Dr. Axeleberg -- to be played by Martin Balsam), which Universal promptly shot down. Then Universal started ITS Psycho II (with Perkins himself, released to run the Bates Motel).

But Robert Bloch had book rights so HE wrote a Psycho II, too. His was fun, really -- Norman isn't released(preposterous), he escapes(in female nun's clothing)...and he haunts the murder-ridden soundstages of the movie being made of his life("Crazy Lady.") The problem for Bloch's Psycho II was that knife murders on the printed page were now not at all verboten; they were standard. There wasn't much he could do to stand out.

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I suspect he was annoyed by the fact that anything he wrote subsequently would always have in big letters on the cover "BY THE AUTHOR OF PSYCHO"...

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Yes. Bloch was paid only $9000 for the rights to Psycho (when a book like Advise and Consent was going to Hollywood for 200,000) and Hitchcock made $15 million. But Bloch got the gift "BY THE AUTHOR OF PSYCHO" til the end of his life -- in 1994.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

But this, though: Hitchcock used some Robert Bloch stories on his TV show, and put them in his short story collections for both adults and for KIDS ("Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" with visions of organs removed by knife went into "Spellbinders in Suspense" for KIDS -- Hitch knew the young audience wanted gore, too.)

And Hitchcock -- perhaps guilty over Psycho -- actually met Bloch for lunch and hired him (in 1964) to work up a new "psycho-type" project for the movies. But Hitch found Bloch not very fun as a writing companion, and Universal didn't WANT a new psycho movie and..that ended.

Meanwhile, horror gimmick schlockmeister William Castle actually hired Bloch to write a movie -- Strait Jacket(1964) --- that sadly shows us what a MOVIE Psycho with a Robert Bloch script would have been: fatally sub-par and expository in the dialogue.

So everything worked out just about right for Robert Bloch. Psycho, the novel, WAS a good book. Psycho, the movie had better dialogue and took Bloch's ideas public, and Hitchcock ended up with his greatest hit. Bloch got years of selling sub-par scripts and minor novellas as THE AUTHOR OF PSYCHO.