Some people have no clue this film was drawn from a novel.
There are some people who have no idea, this film was based on a novel with the same title.
There are others who do not know the book was based on a real person,
Ed Gein.
True. It has taken on a life of its own as a movie. The book is "the same but different."
Some thoughts:
ONE: The novel came out in April of 1959. Hitchcock read it within a week or two of publication(a one paragraph book review in the New York Times caught his attention.) He read the book on a flight from LA to London -- its a short book, I doubt it took the entire flight. By the time he got to London , he called his office and said: "I"ve got our next project. Psycho. Buy it."
TWO: Hitchcock asked for studio coverage on the book -- staffers were on duty to review books and write up one paragraph summaries and recommend them or not. Wrote the studio reader on Psycho: "(Not bad) but...impossible for films." The book had all the creepy stuff in the movie AND Marion's head was cut off in the shower scene. Hitch didn't care...he made the movie and changed things but...still made a historic movie for violence and shocks and sickness of plot.
THREE: The book came out in April 1959. Hitchcock hired one writer (James Cavenaugh) and fired him, and then hired another writer(Joseph Stefano) and kept him. I think this happened in the summer of 1959. By November of 1959, Hitchcock had cast the film and by late November 1959 he was filming the movie. Filming ended in February of 1960(the shower murder was filmed in December of 1959 and the staircase murder in January of 1960.) The movie was out by June of 1960. So -- 15 months from book publication to theaters!
FOUR: The famous slashed "PSYCHO" logo -- which, I contend is the greatest movie logo of all time -- was first on the hard cover copy of Robert Bloch's novel. Hitchcock was so struck by it, that he paid almost as much for the rights to that logo as he did for the BOOK! By choosing that logo for movie posters, Hitchcock elected not to use a logo by the famous Saul Bass...who did the credits for the movie.
CONT
FIVE: Even though the story is almost exactly the same in book and movie(less a first chapter about Norman and Mother that was cut)...the book is a rather different experience than the movie. The book can't generate screams like the movie can, but it CAN be creepier in certain ways. More violent. More sexual. Marion's head is chopped off. Arbogast gets slashed in the throat with a strait razor(in the house foyer, not on the stairs -- and there are CUSTOMERS in the motel below -- that's why his throat is slashed, so he can't scream.)
Norman is fat, bespectacled, and age forty. Arbogast is a tall, tan Texan in a Stetson hat. Marion is called Mary and is a brunette. Mother wears a scarf on her head and rouge on her cheeks when she kills. And so forth and so on. Same plot. Same story. DIFFERENT feeling to the book.
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As for Ed Gein: he was exposed and captured in 1957, he lived not far in Wisconsin from Psycho author Robert Bloch and he DID inspire the story of Psycho. But personally, I don't think Psycho really feels like the story of Ed Gein at all. Certainly not once a movie was made:
Ed Gein was middle aged and ugly. Norman Bates in the person of Anthony Perkins was young and handsome.
Ed Gein didn't run a motel.
Ed Gein didn't murder a young beautiful woman in a shower.
Ed Gein didn't kill someone who stole money and brought a a private detective on her trail.
Ed Gein didn't kill a private detective.
I just don't get much REAL connection between the life and crimes of Ed Gein and Psycho -- book or movie, but ESPECIALLY movie.
The 2012 movie "Hitchcock" gave us a scene of Alfred Hitchcock holding a press conference and passing out photos of Ed Gein's murder scenes. I don't think that ever happened. I don't think Hitchcock though much of Ed Gein at all.
Of course, Gein's skin-stripping ways inspired The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Silence of the Lambs, too -- THOSE movies were closer to Gein's murders than Psycho, book or movie.
Ed Gein' s infamy was loosely extrapolated from, and was drawn on, all be it not, blow by blow and fact by fact to write the story.
shareI will agree with that.
Gein DID keep his mother's body in his home, and rather than dress up in her dresses, he dressed up in his victims'..skin.
Not filmable in 1960 Hays Code Hollywood!