Filming Locations
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A great watch...though that young male host seems to have some trouble breathing and talking at the same time around the time he looks at "California Charlie's" today. Channeling Hitch?
I've always been intrigued by the fact that while, for the most part, Psycho was filmed either on Universal soundstages or the Universalbacklot(where the house and motel so famously first stood), Psycho STILL required a bit of location work. Not much...but enough so that dyed in the wool fans can seek out and find those locations (there are, roughly, only three of them) for themselves.
I have. I've managed on trips to Southern California driving north(or vice versa) to see where the cop stopped Janet Leigh about once a year. Sometimes I just look at the road from the distance(from Interstate 5); sometimes I drive onto the road itself and stop a moment where the cop stopped Marion.
A significant other of the time suggested that we scatter my ashes there where Marion's car was stopped. Ha. She might have been serious, except she added something "eccentric": "..but I think the ashes should be in a glass jar with googly eyes' stuck to them that seem to follow the viewer." Yeah, THAT would be long lasting. She was a funny gal.
The car lot is interesting in that so much of it is "exactly the same"(the houses behind it) and yet so much has changed (gone is the rather banal looking nightclub? bar? called "Sirocco" right behind the cop's car.) When last I visited the car lot, it wasn't selling BMWs, it was selling "Mini Coopers"(the cars from Michael Caine's "The Italian Job.")
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It took me the longest time to get to Phoenix...years after I visited the SoCal locations. I had a business trip there and added some time(with some maps) to check out exactly what the young host on this video found: Sam and Marion's tryst hotel; the Westward Ho Hotel with the radio antenna, and the corner of Adams and Central, where you can indeed stand there and "relive" Marion being seen by her boss at the intersection. One problem though: in November/December 1959(when the Xmas decorated streets of Phoenix were shot to Hitchcock's chagrin) for this scene...neither Janet Leigh nor Vaughn Taylor (Mr. Lowery) were actually IN Phoenix. They were on a soundstage at Universal, the Adams/Central footage was on process screens behind both actors! (Note: the young male host's camera lenses sure make that intersection look bigger than it felt when I was there -- I found the intersection to be very cramped and claustrophobic. And BTW, Lowery's real estate office is SUPPOSED to be there, and there is some Phoenix process for that shot, too.
(For that matter, though the "cop stop" opens "on location" near Gorman, as soon as the cop taps on Marion's car window and dialogue begins...we're back on the soundstage.)
Those three actual "outdoor" locations give some reality to Psycho that movies like Dial M, Rear Window and Rope(filmed entirely on a soundstage) did not have. Dial M had some process work of a London street outside the flat ...but I'm not even sure that was a REAL London street...maybe backlot footage?
The sweeping shot over Phoenix REALLY gives us a sense of reality, and the "world of Psycho" even as it opens about 1000 miles from the Bates Motel(near Redding, California.) Interesting: California Charlie's car lot is supposed to be in Bakersfield, CA...but it was filmed at that lot in North Hollywood...only a few blocks from Universal Studios. This was probably the shortest location trip Alfred Hitchcock ever took!
..and one pictures Hitchcock sitting in his limo being driven the 70 miles or so from LA up to Gorman on then-Highway 99, today Interstate 5.
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About those highways.
I'm always a little confused about those highways in 1960.
Here's how it goes today:
You drive up past Gorman and you are on Interstate 5. You descend off "the Grapevine Hills"("passin' cars like they were standin' still!") into the southernmost tip of the Central Valley and you drive north towards Bakersfield. About 20 miles north of Grapevine, you get a CHOICE: tilt RIGHT for "old highway 99" (the old freeway Marion drives from dusk til dark and rain), with some towns and cities along the way(Bakersfield, Fresno, and Merced -- the birthplace of Janet Leigh!).
Or you tilt LEFT and you are on the "superhighway" that is Interstate 5 -- except its about 300 miles of nuthin', almost desert-like (your car better not break down.)
Evidently, when Interstate 5 was under construction in 1960, the Grapevine area was served by "old 99". I have childhood memories of being driven up "old 99" and my dad pointing to an unfinished freeway up above us, then below us: "that will be interstate 5." And now it is.
Whereas 99 ends up around Sacramento, Interstate 5 goes on up through Oregon and Washington. But it also passes..Redding... in Shasta County where the Bates Motel is supposed to be. And indeed, there is an old highway that parallels Interstate 5 up there. "They moved the highway."
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While the young host(s) summons up some heady "location fantasy reality" in Phoenix and the SoCal locales, once he gives us the Bates Motel/House Universal tour footage....something goes haywire, IMHO.
The footage is from when the Van Sant had come out. They tore down Van Sant's(rather insulting) "new house" and kept the Hitchcock original house standing -- except, of course, I don't think one board of THAT house is from the 1960 original. First of all, in 1960, all Hitchcock built was the front and left side of the house...the rest was in our imagination. It took two sequels to get the house built "on all sides, front and back" and that's not really the 1960 version anymore.
The presence of the Van Sant motel(circa 1998 rather than 1960, "old" to the 60's rather than the 40s) feels wrong -- and a bunch of WhoVille sets from the worst version of The Grinch ever made -- right behind the motel -- just blows all the nostalgia to pieces.
Harrumph.
A "Norman Bates" putting "Marion's" body in the correct-aged car is kind of nifty theme park stuff -- but positing "Norman with a knife" coming at the tourists rather blows what made Psycho so scary IN 1960: a Monster Mother, a Creepy Grandma.
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At the end of the day, it is those three "real" locations that give Psycho its reality. Funny, the year before for the much more expensive North by Northwest, Hitchcock took cast and crew to NYC(and the Plaza and the UN); to Glen Cove Long Island; on the 20th Century Limited; to Chicago; to Mount Rushmore and...to Bakersfield(or near it) to play the Indiana prarie for the crop duster attack.
Helluva location budget on THAT one.
And yet Psycho milked its three locations for all the pre-horror creepiness, paranoia and suspense they were worth.
PS. Isn't it interesting that Janet Leigh,in Psycho, drives Highway 99 pretty much up to her real life hometown of Merced? She didn't REALLY drive that highway -- it was process shots behind her and POV shots cut ahead of her -- but as a "psychic" matter...Marion was going home again.
Slightly related: the latest trailer for the new Ghostbusters film ("Afterlife") prominently features a spooky Edward Hopper-style farmhouse:
https://youtu.be/HR-WxNVLZhQ?t=31
It's not a million miles removed from the Psycho House and I wonder whether the film will make anything out of that connection? From the trailer, the film doesn't look particularly funny (indeed it has more of a Stranger Things/Spielberg-meets-Stephen-King vibe), and, despite being heavily promised, Bill Murray is nowhere to be seen. Danger Will Robinson! Wait for the reviews.
Slightly related: the latest trailer for the new Ghostbusters film ("Afterlife") prominently features a spooky Edward Hopper-style farmhouse:
https://youtu.be/HR-WxNVLZhQ?t=31
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It's not a million miles removed from the Psycho House and I wonder whether the film will make anything out of that connection?
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Perhaps....its interesting to realize how the Psycho house has in various oblique ways, influenced any number of houses after it -- even if they don't particularly look like it (say, the Beetlejuice house), they give off a "vibe" which suggests that they all came from the same "mother."
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From the trailer, the film doesn't look particularly funny (indeed it has more of a Stranger Things/Spielberg-meets-Stephen-King vibe),
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The world has moved on, and I'm in no mood or place to fight it, BUT -- the original 1984 "classic" was, in addition to a kid's film, a "group of guys buddy comedy" -- with roots in Animal House, SNL and perhaps (in a new, mild way) MASH the movie. The main trio were white guys, the black guy(quite funny) seemed a bit" added on and added in", but -- it was still a movie about grown men GUYS.
Thus, we've already gotten a movie about "Lady Ghostbusters" and now we get this new one(Afterlife) that's pretty much about "kid ghostbusters" -- a movie which, had it been released in 1984, would have had no particular resonance for college age males, and probably wouldn't have been a blockbuster.
Which is OK with me -- I'll always have "Ghostbusters" and "Animal House" -- but it does seem that as the 21st Century rolls along, the big laughs of the late 20th Century are..history.
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and, despite being heavily promised, Bill Murray is nowhere to be seen.
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Funny thing. "Ghostbusters" was hilarious. "Ghostbusters 2" was not, and Bill Murray had the co-ownership right to forever block a "Ghostbusters 3" with Ackroyd and Ramis(now deceased) in it, let alone Bill Murray himself. Murray didn't want the original further damaged. (Imagine what Hitchcock would have done with Psychos II-IV).
Evidently, Ramis' death, and Murray's guilt over that death (given that Murray had treated Ramis poorly in later years) "unlocked" Murray's sequel key and we got "Lady Ghostbusters" -- with Murray in a so-so cameo. Ackroyd's was a bit funnier. The late Ramis appeared as a memorial bust.
And we all know how funny "Lady Ghostbusters" was. Not. Most amazing: SNL prodigy Kate MacKinnon was reduced to huffing and puffing and TRYING to be funny; she still had the "crazy eyes" and that bright smile, but...the character didn't get laughs. Leslie Jones was funny. Melissa McCarthy, oddly enough, seemed like she was rather playing it straight...and away from HER comedy strengths. One guy's opinion.
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Danger Will Robinson!
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Ha!
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Wait for the reviews.
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...and to see if Bill Murray shows up. But he didn't much matter to Lady Ghostbusters...
This looks to me rather like "The Goonies" or that (not bad) Spielberg homage of a few years back, Super 8. A kids movie with kids as leads. Hey, even as a KID I didn't much like watching kids as comedian action heroes. (Gimme Burt Lancaster and Lee Marvin in The Professionals!)
Oh, well.
A "bigger deal." With "Jungle Cruise" now out (after over a year) it hit me that Hollywood's attempt to bring back movies is still on crutches. The "summer movie season" used to start in early May with one first blockbuster, roar on with weekly releases in May, June, and July, and then peter out with one or two "August specials" en route to fall.
That pattern is still gone for 2021...we've had a FEW summer movies, but they've also been released to streaming, day and date. ScarJo is suing Disney for lost profits because not only did Black Widow open on Disney + at the same time as theaters(reducing ScarJo's theater-based profits), evidently it was pirated and copied and shared OFF streaming.
Disney also ran with Cruella(I saw it at the theater; trying to turn a puppy-skinning monster into a sympathetic being felt ...a bit sick.) I don't know if these movies are succeeding or tanking or underperforming or what.
A bunch of summer 2020 movies are moving to Thanksgiving and Xmas 2021 (like Ghostbusters Afterlife). I've lost track of where poor James Bond will end up (somebody pointed out that it FEELS like it was already released, come and gone. Hah.)
And will we get that Bizarro World Oscars again? (Right now it seems that vaccines and masks and the whole shebang have put us right back where we started from.)
Oh, well. The problems of a rich little movie industry don't add up to a hill of beans when human survival is at stake. Or is it?
I've lost track of where poor James Bond will end up (somebody pointed out that it FEELS like it was already released, come and gone. Hah.)There's an Edgar Wright movie, 'Last Night In Soho' (about sorta time-travel back to punk-era London?) that seems to have been 'coming soon' forever too. And, in fact, Cruella seems to have gazumped some of its visuals and ideas (I'm sure Edgar Wright's versions of this stuff will be better but still...).
Ditto for Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch and all the other Cannes-films. (This is old normal....we had to wait for six months after Cannes to see Pulp Fiction!).
Oh, well. The problems of a rich little movie industry don't add up to a hill of beans when human survival is at stake. Or is it?Still, whole, vast industries running at 20% capacity at best (not just movies, but all of tourism and travel, most of performance, much of higher education, and so on) must be causing huge pain. It's kind of amazing that the economic slump overall hasn't been felt as *more* painful and traumatizing for most of us than it actually has. But maybe that shoe hasn't dropped yet.
After all, the world and the US especially felt deeply unstable even before covid. It feels like the sort of Great Slump we're in now worldwide could easily supercharge destabilizing forces the way the Great Depression in 1929-1933 really did give a huge boost to the Nazis, Fascists in Italy, and so on. Maybe that *is* what's going on right now but we can't quite see it for sure yet? share