Cautionary Tale: Psycho Could Have Been This Bad

aka ecarle

Its too bad about the late author of mystery and horror named Robert Bloch.

He wrote the novel of Psycho in 1959. The entire story -- the motel, the old house, the shower murder, the twist ending -- it was all right there in his book.

But Hollywood studios did not want to make a movie out of Psycho. "Impossible for films," wrote one studio reader.

But Alfred Hitchcock read a review of Psycho the book, read the book and bought the book(anonymously) for a movie and broke a lot of censorship taboos making it. He got a blockbuster and a classic.

Robert Bloch only got about $9,000 for the rights to the book -- best sellers were selling for$250,000 and up -- but he got famous fast: he was forever "Robert Bloch, author of Psycho" and he got to put that on a lot of TV episodes(Hitchocck, Star Trek) a few more books and a few movies.

Still, Robert Bloch did NOT get to write the screenplay of Psycho for Hitchcock. HItchcock hired one writer and fired him, then hired another -- Joseph Stefano. Stefano wrote some GREAT dialogue which, by and large, was better than the dialogue that Bloch wrote for the book. Stefano also -- no doubt with Hitchocck's help -- restructured the Psycho story and made some positve changes. (Like, in the movie, nobody ever tells Norman about the stolen money. In the book, Arbogast does.)

Psycho was a blockbuster but had little money payout to Robert Bloch. To make up for it, Hitchcock hired Bloch to write some TV stuff and also tried to do a movie script with him(another psycho story.) But Hitchcock didn't get along with Robert Bloch as he had with Joe Stefano, so Bloch stopped working for Hitchcock.

MEANWHILE, another well known horror-mystery director -- William Castle -- WAS willing to hire Robert Bloch to write a screenplay, and together the men hatched "an original" about yet another psycho killer.

The butcher knife weapon of Psycho became an axe for beheadings in Strait-Jacket. The son who dressed up like his mother to kill became the daughter who dressed up like HER mother to kill. Strait-Jacket also replicated the "isolated rural" terror atmosphere of Psycho -- the motel and house of Psycho here became an isolated ranch house in the middle of nowhere. Near the real Southern Califiornia city of San Bernardino versus the mythical Fairvale in Psycho.

Joan Crawford was grabbed to star -- a pretty big star for a William Castle movie , if an aged and fading one.

And the movie was shot and released and...though it has a few shock thrills(including some beheadings of dummies)...it just wasn't a qualitiy movie at all.

And much of the problem was with Robert Bloch's script.

Given that Robert Bloch wrote the novel of Psycho, when one watches Strait-Jacket today one can see EXACTLY how Psycho could have been "thrown away" as great movie material if Hitchcock had allowed such a bad script to have been filmed by him(he wouldn't have, but still.)

Bad to banal dialogue; poorly plotted narrative, overly silly scare tactics, poorly motivated murder scenes(one victim just wanders around aimlessly until he gets killed --he's not exploring or investigating anything.)

And a final "explanation scene" which only proves how relevant and well written the one in Psycho really was.

Yep, if Alfred Hitchcock had not been the producer/director and "writing supervisor" of a movie from Robert Bloch's novel Psycho, it might well have turned out like Strait-Jacket: bad.

That said, Strait-Jacket IS a guilty pleasure , Joan Crawford IS a star even under these reduced circumstances, and its a hoot to watch.