The Secrets of Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO

Introduction

In many ways, Psycho (1960) is the perfect film school movie. In addition to containing what is perhaps the most studied sequence in all of cinema history, the film is replete with hidden clues, layered meaning, and an elaborately orchestrated structure. Simply put, delving into some of these “Secrets of Psycho” helps illustrate why the study of film can be so fascinating and rewarding. Plus, it’s just plain fun.

Synopsis

Just on the off chance you’ve never seen it, Psycho tells the tale of a young woman named Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) who impulsively steals $40,000 from her employer after being given the money to deposit in a bank. She drives overnight and takes a room at a second-rate motel run by a very nice young man named Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). During casual conversation, Marion learns that Norman is controlled by a domineering mother who lives in the house behind the motel.

That evening, Marion has a change of heart and decides to return the money she has stolen. In a cleansing act, she decides to take a shower. Bad timing. While in the shower, what appears to be an elderly woman enters the bathroom and brutally stabs Marion to death. A detective (Martin Balsam) is sent to investigate. He too is killed by the presumed old woman.

Finally, Marion’s sister and boyfriend check into the motel to find out what’s really going on. It turns out that Norman murdered his mother and her lover years ago, and now assumes her persona whenever he’s placed in stressful situations. He keeps a mummified version of “mother” in the house and dresses up in her clothes and wig whenever he feels the need to “protect” himself. He’s finally caught and turned over to the authorities.

Even if you’ve already seen Psycho and know the film’s main secret, we thought it might be interesting to provide you with a description of what else lies hidden within Hitchcock’s masterpiece. “Film Appreciation” in this case might be a more apt description. Psycho offers ample evidence not only of true genius but also of what the cinema is capable of as an art form.

Background

Psycho, of course, was directed by the great Alfred Hitchcock. Back in 1959, the auteur was just coming off his greatest commercial hit, North By Northwest. The film had made gobs of money for Paramount Pictures and was praised to the high heavens by film critics and audiences alike. In the process, it solidified Hitchcock’s reputation as one of the most famous and admired directors in the world.

For his next project, Hitchcock knew he had carte blanche to tackle any subject matter. However, his production company was totally shocked when he informed them he wanted to make a low-budget horror film. Hitchcock told his staff that he wanted to explore what a filmmaker “who knew what he was doing” could do within the genre. Subsequently, he asked them to begin searching for a suitable property.

Robert Bloch

A month later, they brought him a copy of Psycho, written by Robert Bloch. The novel had received a favorable review in the New York Times and Hitchcock was enthralled by the idea of the main character getting killed off so early in the story. He asked his production company to secure the rights. At the time, Robert Bloch was a struggling writer living near Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Most of Bloch’s meager earnings were spent on heating oil and winter clothing. One day his agent informed him that a “blind bidder” had offered $5,000 for the movie rights to the book. Bloch didn’t know who the bidder was. Although the amount represented a paltry sum of money, he was almost desperate enough to take it with no questions asked. However, something told him that movie offers didn’t come along every day.

Bloch told his agent to hold out for more. When the next offer came back at $9,500, he grabbed it. Only then did he find out that Hitchcock was the buyer. It still wasn’t a lot of money, but the sale and subsequent film made Bloch’s career. He went on to become a major contributor to Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the original Star Trek series, many feature films, and Playboy magazine.

Pre-production

Hitchcock, however, had his own set of problems with the property. The suits at Paramount had balked at the unusual subject matter. Also, although Hitchcock was contractually obligated to make one more film for the studio, they were looking more for another prestige picture like North By Northwest. Not a twisted tale of murder and madness in a rundown motel.

As a result, Paramount refused to put up the money for the film’s budget. “Fine,” said Hitchcock. He’d finance Psycho out of his own pocket, and Paramount could distribute the film for a percentage of the gross. To keep costs down, Hitchcock planned on using the technicians from his TV show. Not a veteran film crew.

To make sure it wouldn’t be too closely associated with the project, and to try and dissuade Hitchcock, Paramount refused to let the film be shot at their studio. Again, the director was undaunted. He rented facilities over at Universal where construction began on the Bates Motel and the Gothic house which looks over it. They still stand today as major attractions on the Universal Studio Tour.

Production

Psycho only cost $800,000 to make. Even in 1959, this was a small budget for a film. Psycho‘s final cost actually turned out to be $2.8 million. The extra $2 million ended up being Hitchcock’s percentage fee after all the theatrical receipts rolled in. The film only took a little over two months to film. That’s a short span of time for a Hollywood film. This makes its depth and influence all the more remarkable.

Speaking of which, let’s start with the shower scene. It took exactly seven days to shoot, and as mentioned previously, it’s probably the most studied sequence in all of film history. Entire papers have been written about it. Yet, it’s only 45 seconds long. The documentary 78/52, is comprised of 78 different camera setups and 52 shots. While this type of “montage” had been around since the Russian silent cinema of Sergei Eisenstein, never before had this editing style been used to such shocking effect.

Subsequently, the viewer is left with the impression that they have seen something they haven’t. For almost the next sixty years, people have claimed the television prints had been “censored” because they remembered seeing much more violence. However, it was all in their imagination. Even Janet Leigh claimed that she never took a shower again for the rest of her life after screening the finished film.

For the sound of the knife entering flesh, a melon was used. It was Hitchcock’s intent to run the entire scene without music, leaving the sound effects to manipulate the viewer’s emotions. However, composer Bernard Hermann convinced him to hear the sequence with the now easily identifiable “slashing” strings. Hitchcock loved it and relented.

Analysis

Psycho is a film full of “firsts.” The first film to show a toilet (with a close-up of it being flushed to boot). It was the first film to show a major star (Janet Leigh) wearing a brassiere. It was the first film to show two people half-clothed lying on the same bed. Also, it was the first film to have an orchestral score done entirely in strings. Finally, it was the first film that made you identify with the killer, and not their victims. Something reflected today in the films of Jason, Freddy, Michael Myers, and Chucky.

This last element is the key to understanding the structure of Psycho. Norman is depicted as a likable young man, desperately trying to escape the fate inflicted upon him by his domineering mother. When Detective Arbogast (Martin Balsam) catches Norman in a lie, you squirm in discomfort. Likewise, when Norman tries to dispose of Marion’s body by driving her car into the swamp, it stops sinking for what seems like an eternity.

Audiences in 1960 would gasp and scream out loud during this scene. Then let out sighs of relief when the car ended up completely submerged. This led Hitchcock to later remark that this was the sequence when he knew “he had them.” Without us even realizing it, the movie makes us emotionally complicit in Norman’s evil deeds.

Understanding Hitchcock

To further understand Hitchcock’s perverted sensibilities, also consider the scene where Arbogast is murdered on the stairs. When that sequence was originally shot, the assistant director had closeups of the detective’s hand grasping the rail as he climbed the stairwell. There was also an additional close-up shot of his feet going up the steps.

When Hitchcock saw these two shots, he stated that he couldn’t use them. “Why in the world not?” asked the director’s crew. Hitchcock explained that those two shots put the audience in the frame of mind of the victim. However, what he really wanted was for them to think like the murderer.

The Secrets of Psycho

Hitchcock was always mentally placing himself in the seat of a theater. One shot in the movie nearly rivals the shower sequence in terms of technical virtuosity. However, the scene is not nearly as famous. This is when Norman goes upstairs to pick up “Mother” and move her down into the fruit cellar.

First, watch Norman’s hips as he climbs the stairs. They have a very pronounced feminine swing to them. This was completely intentional. It’s one of several tip-offs as to Norman’s dual sexuality. Then, before Norman disappears into his mother’s room at the top of the landing, the camera follows behind him, hovering in the air. At the top, it fixates on the top of a door and then swings completely around to look back down the stairs as Norman carries a complaining Mrs. Bates down to the cellar.

In order to get this amazing shot, the entire roof of the set needed to come apart and lift off. This was to fit the camera and operator into the compacted space so they could turn around and reverse the angle. The coordination needed was stunning. The question is why? Why go to this much trouble on a low-budget film for just a few seconds of screen time?

More Secrets…

The answer is that Hitchcock had already used up his bag of tricks to hide the fact that Mrs. Bates was already dead. The silhouette in the shower, the shadow at the window, the closeup of her feet when she attacks the detective. He knew that a similar “ruse” would ultimately tip the audience off to the reveal.

As a result, Hitchcock devised this elaborate camera move, just to disguise that fact. The viewer is so busy wondering where the camera is headed, you don’t stop and ask yourself the obvious question which is why don’t we ever see Norman’s mother?

When we finally see Mother’s corpse, there was much discussion as to what they were going to show. Hitchcock loved practical jokes. So, he had his crew put together several versions of the “mother” dummy. Then, over the course of a week, they would hide them in Janet Leigh’s dressing room. The one that got the biggest scream was the one they used in the picture.

Hidden References

Here are some other (hidden) things to look for in Psycho:

• The movie is loaded with bird references. There are stuffed birds all over the motel, pictures of birds on the walls as decorations. Norman tells Marion she “eats like a bird.” Her last name is Crane. She comes from the city of Phoenix, and Norman is constantly seen eating candy corn in a bird-like fashion. Hitchcock was already laying the groundwork for his follow-up feature, The Birds (1963).

• Psycho is full of mirrors, to highlight the duality of human nature the film explores. There’s a mirror in the hotel room at the beginning. Marion and her co-worker both use hand mirrors. There’s a mirror in Marion’s home when she wraps the stolen money. A mirror is in the used car lot’s restroom. There’s the rear-view mirror in Marion’s car, a mirror in the Bates Motel office. Mirrors in the motel bedrooms, in mother’s room. There’s hardly a single set in the film which doesn’t have a reflection of some sort.
• Speaking of dual personalities, in Psycho, Janet Leigh is seen in the opening scenes wearing a white brassiere. Later, and after she decides to steal the money, it’s the exact same style, only it is now black. Even Hitchcock’s wardrobe choices were starkly illustrating good and evil.

Norman Bates

• At the end of Psycho, look at Norman’s face while he smiles for the camera. Just for a few frames, you see a skull superimposed over the top of it. The effect is subtle and easy to miss. It ties into something Mother’s voice says just a few seconds prior. That she wasn’t to blame for the death of those “girls.” Notice how “girls” is plural. The inference is that the business of murder at the Bates Motel has been going on for a long time.
• Speaking of which, also compare Norman’s smile with that of the grin that Marion makes while she is driving the car and thinking about the money that she has stolen earlier in the film. They’re exactly the same, and even in the same location in the film frame.  This is yet another statement from Hitchcock showing how pervasive evil truly is.

Secrets and Clues

• Another hidden clue in the movie is Norman’s name. (This one is courtesy of author Robert Bloch). The killer is neither a woman Nor Man. The same goes for Norma the mother. She’s neither the son Nor Ma.

• The film is full of sexual references. As just one example, notice the desk fixture in the hotel’s office. It’s not there by accident. It’s comprised of two rounded ink wells that bear a certain resemblance to parts of the female anatomy. It’s given a prominent place in the frame right before Norman goes into the backroom to peer into Marion’s room through a hole in the wall.
• In the shot where Marion drives up to the motel and we see it for the first time through a driving rainstorm, keep your eyes on the left-hand side of the frame. There, clear as day, is a studio floodlight. It’s even turned on. The crew accidentally left it in the shot. When Hitchcock viewed the dailies, he decided that most people wouldn’t recognize it and opted to leave it in the finished film.

Release

When finally released, Psycho made film history for another reason. Prior to 1960, it was common for people to go to the movies for hours on end. Films usually include a double feature, a newsreel, a short subject or travelogue, and a cartoon. This lineup would run continuously, with people coming and going as they pleased. Movie theaters were also a readily available source of air conditioning, at a time when most people couldn’t afford a unit for their house or apartment.

However, for Psycho, Hitchcock knew the movie would make no sense if someone came in only for the second half. The shock of seeing Janet Leigh killed off so early would be completely lost on them. As a result of this, Hitchcock instituted a policy of no one being seated after the film had already started.

This had the added effect of creating lines as theater patrons patiently waited outside on the sidewalk for subsequent showings. This further heightened the “buzz” surrounding it at the time. Psycho wasn’t even screened for critics before it opened. They had to wait in line like everyone else. This no doubt contributed to some of the extremely negative reviews it initially received at the time of its release.

Legacy

Regardless, Psycho was a tremendous box office smash, and easily became the most profitable film Hitchcock ever made. In addition to being one of the pinnacles of his illustrious career, Psycho added a completely new dimension to horror films. It showed that not every scary movie needed to rely on monsters in rubber suits. Instead, the film demonstrated that the human mind offers a much darker tableau than any conventional haunted house.

Virtually every psychological thriller that’s been made in the past 60 years can trace its roots back to Psycho. Indeed, the movie has become an ingrained part of our popular culture.

If you strip away the film’s conventions and think cold and hard about the themes it lays bare, you’re left with some very unsavory subjects: voyeurism, murder, matricide, necrophilia, sexual confusion, split personalities, and the ultimate dysfunctional family. How Hitchcock took these taboo topics, turning them into a showcase representing popular entertainment – and having the audience enjoy it every step of the way – may just be Psycho‘s biggest secret of all.

Epilogue

As a result of the massive success and cultural phenomenon that was Psycho, and its infamous shower scene, Tony Perkins was forever typecast as the crazy killer Norman Bates. Just by this one sequence. Yet, he wasn’t even near the set when it was shot. He was in New York, rehearsing for a Broadway play.

In later years, Perkins lamented how the success of Psycho had derailed his career. He finally would come to terms with it, even directing one of the film’s sequels. Perkins died from AIDS in 1992. His widow was killed nine years later while a passenger on one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11.

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