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North by Northwest (1959)
Psycho (1960) - Selected Alfred Hitchcock
130    Dibyendu Banerjee    26/01/2025

Hailed as a major work of cinematic art for its slick direction, tense atmosphere, impressive camerawork, stunning performances, added with memorable score, specially during the iconic shower scene, Psycho (1960), an American psychological thriller film, produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and based on the novel of the same name by Robert Bloch, is often listed among the greatest films of all time. It was filmed on a small budget in black-and-white, and unlike his expensive previous film North by Northwest, Hitchcock shot it using the crew from his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

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Even, the Bates Motel and the mansion were built on the back lot at Universal, from a number of Universal’s stock units of the studio, to save money. But despite everything, it set a new level for accepting violence, deviant behaviour and sexuality in American films, and was subsequently selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States Film Registry in 1992. Often called the granddaddy of today’s horror films, Psycho is an insinuating thriller, a remarkable blend of edge-of-your-seat entertainment, and a box office sensation.

psycho 1960
Janet Leigh and John Gavin as Marion and Sam

The theme of Psycho (1960) is the guilt of an ordinary person trapped in a criminal situation, which the director used in his several films. It opens in a hotel room in Phoenix, Arizona, where a real estate secretary Marion Crane was presumably having a sexual affair with her lover, Sam Loomis, during a Friday lunch hour. They discuss how they can barely afford to get married as Sam has to give most of his money away in alimony.

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After that, when Marion returns to her office, her boss gave her forty thousand dollars in cash to be promptly deposited in the Bank, which gives her the opportunity to grab the money to start a new life. Back at her room, Marion contemplates taking the money, ultimately decides to steal it, packed her bag and left Phoenix, heading towards Sam's house in Fairvale, California. However, on her way she was spotted by her boss as he was crossing the street at a stopped traffic light, which made her panicky, and then a highway patrolman awakened her from a roadside nap and questions her, which made her more nervous. Later, upon arriving in Bakersfield, when she pulled into a used car dealership to hastily exchange her car, she was startled to see the same suspicious patrolling police officer parked across the street, leaning against his squad car, and staring at her intently.

psycho 1960
Marion and the Policeman, played by Mort Mills
psycho 1960

Frightened and tired, Marion reached closer to Fairvale but due to heavy rain and poor night visibility, she took a wrong turn to drive off the main highway and ended up at the Bates Motel, a remote lodge, where she decides to spend the night.

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The youthful proprietor of the motel, Norman Bates, who lives in the ominous looking house on the hill above the motel with his mother, invited her to a light dinner and went back to his house to bring the food. However, while alone in her cabin, Marion overhears a heated argument between Norman and his mother about inviting Marion to the house, but he finally ended up persuading his mother to have his dinner with Marion in the motel parlour.

psycho 1960

After his return, Norman talked to Marion on his own about his daily life, his hobby in taxidermy, and also disclosed that his mother, Norma Bates, is mentally ill. However, when Marion suggested that she should be institutionalised, Norman became visually offended and agitated, insisting that his mother is harmless. Nevertheless, during the discussion in the parlour, where savage stuffed birds seemed poised to swoop down and capture them as prey, Marion decided to return to Phoenix and return the stolen money. As she returned to her cabin, Norman watched Marion through a hole he had made in the parlour wall long ago, saw her undress, and returned to his house behind the motel, while Marion took a piece of paper, subtracts the amount of money she spent from the stolen money, tears up the paper and flushes it down the toilet, seemingly lifting the burden from her conscience, and ready for a relaxing shower.

psycho 1960

While Marion was taking a shower, a shadowy figure quietly entered the shower cabin, shoved back the semi-opaque shower curtain, and started to stab her repeatedly to death with a large kitchen knife. After finishing the job, the shadowy figure of the killer left the shower cabin with the shower still running and Marion lying on the floor dead, while blood and water spin down the drain, and the camera panned down to a close-up of Marion’s unmoving eyeball. Shortly afterward, Norman comes to check on Marion, only to find her dead body. Convinced that his mother had committed the crime, he wrapped the body in the shower curtain, meticulously mopped-up of the death scene, and then moved Marion's wrapped body in the trunk of her car, along with her possessions. After that, he pushed Marion’s car, containing her body and the hidden cash, into a nearby swamp. The car slowly sinks, then pauses, and finally disappears under the surface, while Norman kept on watching the scene intently.

psycho 1960
The sinking car

A week later, Marion's sister Lila arrives Fairvale to meet Sam Loomis, informed him about the theft of money from real estate office where Marion worked, Marion's subsequent disappearance and demanded to know her present whereabouts. While Sam expressed his total unawareness in the matter, a private detective named Arbogast approached them to inform that he has been hired by Marion’s company to retrieve the stolen money and Marion is suspected of the crime. Consequently, he also informed them that he has already visited the Bates Motel and questioned Norman Bates, whose nervous stammering and evasiveness aroused his suspicion, and from their discussion, Arbogast deducted that Marion had met his mother. However, his request to meet the mother was bluntly turned down by Norman. Nevertheless, Arbogast informed them that he is desperate to enter the motel again to talk to the lady, and would call them in an hour to inform them about the outcome. But in reality, after entering the Bates’ home, when Arbogast was looking for Norman’s mother, a shadowy figure assaulted him on the top of the stairs and stabbed him to death.

psycho 1960
Vera Miles, John Gavin, and Anthony Perkins in Psycho (1960)

On the other side of the story, when even after three hours Sam and Lila did not get the promised call from Arbogast, they went to talk to the local sheriff, fearing some foul play. However, the sheriff was puzzled to know that Arbogast intended to meet Norman’s mother, who died ten years ago, along with her lover, in a murder-suicide by poisoning. The information made Lila and Sam convinced that something odd has happened to Arbogast, and they immediately drove to the motel, and rented a room, posing husband and wife on a business trip. As planned, Sam started to talk to Norman in the office to keep him engaged, while Lila sneaked into his house to look for Norma Bates. However, the conversation between the two men soon turns sour as Sam accuses Norman of stealing of the forty thousand dollars and a fight began, when Norman knocks Sam unconscious, and then runs into his house to find Lila. By that time, Lila was in the cellar, where she found Norma Bates sitting in a rocking chair with her back to Lila. As Lila tapped her shoulder, the chair rotated to reveal the desiccated corpse of Norma. Bates. The unexpected horrible sight forced Lila to scream sharply, and at the same time, unknown to her, Norman entered the cellar, wearing women's clothes and a wig, with a big knife in his hand, to stab her, revealing clearly Norman to be the murderer of Marion and Arbogast. However, Lila was saved, as Sam entered the cellar, from behind Norman, and just managed to overpower him.

psycho 1960

Norman was arrested, and in the county court a psychiatrist explained that, since his childhood, Norman had been excessively dominated by his mother, and later, when the mother opted for a lover, Norman felt betrayed, became insanely jealous and killed his mother and her lover ten years earlier, simply out of jealousy. Later, to erase the crime from his memory, he immortalised his mother by preserving her corpse, treating it as if alive, and at the same time, also developed a split personality by creating his mother as an alternate personality. Whenever he became sexually attracted to a woman, the mother-side of his alternate personality completely took over him, and he killed two reportedly missing women in his mother-state, before he killed Marion, and also Arbogast.

psycho 1960
Anthony Perkins, as Norman Bates

Although today Psycho is considered one of Hitchcock's best films, initially it divided critics for its controversial subject matter. But subsequently, it prompted a major critical re-evaluation, due to its outstanding box-office returns. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, which include Best Director Award for Alfred Hitchcock and Best Supporting Actress Award for Janet Leigh. Surprisingly, although it was Hitchcock’s fifth and final Academy nomination for Best Director, he never won an Oscar. The stunningly uncanny performance of Anthony Perkins in establishing the complex character of Norman, which has become a landmark, also got unnoticed. However, Janet Leigh won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film.

North by Northwest (1959)
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Author Details
Dibyendu Banerjee
Ex student of Scottish Church College. Served a Nationalised Bank for nearly 35 years. Authored novels in Bengali. Translated into Bengali novels/short stories of Leo Tolstoy, Eric Maria Remarque, D.H.Lawrence, Harold Robbins, Guy de Maupassant, Somerset Maugham and others. Also compiled collections of short stories from Africa and Third World. Interested in literature, history, music, sports and international films.
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