Cinema Bestius: Psycho

At the time of its original release, one critic called Psycho, "a blot on an honorable career.” Most critics at the time were either unimpressed or openly hostile to the film. When it emerged as one of the biggest hits of the decade, many critics changed their tune… to something with strings.

#8 – Psycho

Psycho may be the film your Pope has seen the most times. During my tenure teaching high-school film classes, many other films on the syllabus came and went, but Psycho always remained. I used to joke with my students that it was Illinois State law: a teacher had to screen Psycho in any basic film survey course or risk fine and imprisonment. There were semesters where I would see Psycho four times a day. There’s a recipe for a happy, healthy life. I got to know the film… intimately.

The Plot In Brief: Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) meets for a secret tryst with her lover Sam Loomis (John Gavin) over a long lunch hour. Both are frustrated because financial circumstances will not allow them to marry. Back at the office, Marion brazenly steals $40,000 and sets off to share it with Sam. Tiring after a long night of driving, Marion decides to stop at a roadside motel to get a proper night’s sleep. The proprietor, Norman Bates (Tony Perkins) seems like a nice enough fellow, but he harbors many secrets.

Psycho is a film of many firsts: the first time Paramount vetoed a Hitchcock project (he wound up financing it himself with Paramount only distributing); the first time that Hitchcock worked with a low budget, using his television series crew; the first time a major star was dispatched halfway through a film; the first time a flushing toilet was shown on film; and the first time this level of violence was ever shown or suggested. It was also the first time audiences were required to watch the film from its very beginning—Hitchcock instituted a policy that no one was to be seated after the first ten minutes. Disappointed latecomers had to wait for the next screening, which led to big lines outside the theater and much interest from passersby.

At its core, Psycho is about loneliness. We witness the chance meeting of two impossibly lonely people and no good comes of it. Characters are vulnerable when alone: Marion in her small shower, Detective Arbogast sneaking back into the house alone. Loneliness leads to the grave. The film whispers that human connection is important; there is safety in numbers. The sheer number of characters in the police office at the film’s conclusion supports this. In the film’s famous last shot, Norman is still alone. Psycho is the story of a character so lonely, he allowed another person into his life in the most unconventional way imaginable. One of Hitchcock’s neatest tricks was marketing this serious meditation on loneliness and despair as a quickie exploitation horror movie.

Three years ago, I wrote an appreciation of Tony Perkins’ performance for this site in which I stated,

“I am impressed by all of Perkins’ line readings, but I think the pièce de résistance may be what he brings to one of the film’s simplest lines: ‘She needs me.’ Think about those three words—say them aloud. Most of us would emphasize the word ‘need,’ wouldn’t we? ‘She NEEDS me.’ Yet Perkins emphasizes the word ‘me’: ‘She needs ME.’ There is something so uncanny about that reading, so right for the material – it speaks volumes about the complicated relationship between Norman Bates and his mother. The character of Mother is not defined by her need; she is defined through Norman, and Perkins was astute enough to puzzle this out and manifest that through his line reading.”

This column is timely because an interesting new documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival just days ago. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “78/52 is an in-depth examination of the iconic shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, which required 78 setups and has 52 cuts. The shot-for-shot breakdown comes from writer-director Alexandre O. Philippe, who interviewed filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro, Bret Easton Ellis and Karyn Kusama about the lasting impact of the sequence that pushed the boundaries of chaste American filmmaking.”

We can all look forward to that! So take a shower, acolytes, I am taking all of you to the MOVIES.

For almost 30 years, I would spend an entire class period analyzing the famous shower scene, freezing the frame on a VHS tape and lecturing about camera angles, technique, and the film’s production history. After Hitchcock’s death, Saul Bass, who designed the film’s opening credits and is listed as “pictorial consultant,” claimed that HE (not Hitchcock) had directed the iconic shower scene. That was bunk. No less an authority than Janet Leigh—who, after all, was IN THE SHOWER the whole time, insisted that no one directed her and the scene but Hitchcock.

Legend has it that, when the scene was edited, Hitchcock showed it to the Production Code Office for approval; they rejected it. Two of the five members of the board saw unacceptable nudity. Hitchcock waited a few days, then showed the board the exact same sequence with no changes. Now, the three members who had not seen any nudity claimed they saw some, and the two members who originally did said that they no longer did. At loggerheads over what to do, the Production code office approved the scene as edited.

Oh, and it is Shasta brand chocolate syrup being used as blood in the shower scene, not Hershey’s or Bosco. Some accounts get that crazy detail wrong. Assistant director Hilton Green has said that the crew used Shasta because it had just come out in a convenient squeeze bottle.

Many, many years ago during the first flowering of the laserdisc era (era) I became interested in the commentary tracks that started accompanying classic films. Using a painfully makeshift and amateur setup, I made my own scene-specific commentary track for Psycho by recording a laserdisc onto VHS and substituting yours truly on a microphone for the film’s soundtrack. I used to lend the tape to students who missed any of my classroom lectures on the film. As it often happens when materials are loaned to students, eventually I loaned it out and never got it back. I was very sad because I had put so much work into it, and I would love to hear it again, if only to hear a slice of my past.

One of my goals in my upcoming retirement, when free time will be more than plentiful, is to recreate that commentary track and make it available on F This Movie (#PopePromise). Patrick has said he would love to post that as the podcast one week. Since I will be essaying that commentary track ALONE, two thirds of the way through, I will be violently murdered.

Psycho’s Three Miracles: Hitchcock’s directing prowess reaches a new peak as he guides the audience like a magician, misdirecting us over and over again, so the final reveal is devastating and delightful; Tony Perkin’s performance, so affecting that no one could shake it and he ended up typecast for life; and Bernard Herrmann’s beautiful, sad, shocking score, a funeral oratorio for strings.

In nomine Hitchcock, et Herrmann, y spiritu Perkins, Amen. “Mother… my mother… what’s the expression? She isn’t quite herself today.”

Without a Paddle: Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat

by Rob DiCristino

“Dying together’s even more personal than living together.”

Human beings are tribal animals: We love to put ourselves in boxes with labels and other identifiers that distinguish Us from Them. Groups provide comfort. Mobs provide anonymity. There’s pride in association, a kind of spiritual connection we feel with those who share our politics or genealogy. But while we may choose (or be forced) to identify with one particular group, the real test is the degree to which we’re willing to coexist with others. We might find it convenient to associate in peace, or we might find it necessary to obliterate our enemies with extreme prejudice. Alfred Hitchcock, ever the critic of social mores and institutional ambitions, brings these questions to light in his underrated wartime film, Lifeboat. Shot almost entirely on one set and featuring a limited cast of characters, it examines the reasons we associate and the divisions that those associations create between us. By forcing a diverse group to fight for a common interest, Hitchcock asks us an important question: is it better to survive together or to die alone?

Near the end of World War II, a German U-boat sinks an American cruiser in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The ship’s survivors — posh fashion reporter Connie (Tallulah Bankhead), millionaire businessman Rittenhouse (Henry Hull), Army nurse Alice (Mary Anderson), brave steward Joe (Canada Lee), young mother Higley (Heather Angel), and crewmen Kovac, Stanley, and Gus (John Hodiak, Hume Cronym, and William Bendix) — find themselves adrift with limited supplies and no plan for rescue. Being lost at sea is trouble enough, but their mix of ambitions, backgrounds, and destinations makes cooperation a sizable task. Matters are made even worse when they recover German sailor Willi (Walter Slezak), who claims to know the way to safety. Do they listen to this man? Can he be trusted? In fact, can the steward? Can the reporter? Why does she speak German, anyhow? What’s she hiding? Mass paranoia begins to set in, and the survivors realize that there’s a lot more dividing them than their German prisoner.

Like Hitchcock’s best work, Lifeboat’s major strengths are its complex characters and morally-ambiguous tone. It’s a world not unlike our own: a melting pot of cultures, classes, and genders all floating together along the same current. Predictably, racism and class warfare take center stage: the proletariat bruiser Kovac belittles Connie for her jewelry and clothing, while Rittenhouse offends him with his immense wealth and capitalist ideals. Kovac is the first to suggest quarantining the German sailor and the first to stir up xenophobia amongst the rest of the boat. His shipmate Gus is more genial, a lovable dope. His only concern is meeting his Rosie back on the dance floor. But even the delightful Gus sneers at the thought of Al Magaroulian, the flat-footed Armenian who has eyes for Rosie. His quiet sadness develops into an existential crisis and proves that, as in life, we often turn the pain and insecurity inside ourselves into hate and distrust for others.

Tallulah Bankhead plays Connie Porter as feisty and self-possessed, which caused Hitchcock some headaches with the executives at Fox. During this time of international strife, they felt, the female lead should exemplify wholesome American values. But Connie’s inclusivity and cosmopolitain outlook become powerful tools for connectivity as the plot develops: she speaks German, allowing her to mediate between the crew and their prisoner. She’s sympathetic to “that kind of girl,” giving sad and naive nurse Alice a shoulder to cry on when she laments her affair with a married doctor. She’s kind and respectful of Charcoal Joe, the film’s only character of color. In a powerful contrast with the film’s other female characters (the nurse is overwhelmed by the shame of her sins, and Mrs. Higley commits suicide shortly after the death of her baby), Connie cuts through much of the posturing that pushes so many young women into subservient roles. Love until you don’t, she’d say. Try until you can’t. Nothing is forever.

Hitchcock also received pushback for humanizing the Nazi sailor, Willi. He’s the subject of frequent discussions and tribunals aboard the ship: should they treat him with the dignity and respect commonly afforded prisoners of war, or, given their limited supplies and living space, toss him overboard? The ethical questions become even more complex as Willi reveals himself to be much more capable than originally thought: he’s actually a U-boat captain who speaks perfect English. How can they trust him? How can he trust them? It’s here that Lifeboat asks just how important our pride and prejudice become in survival situations. How long can we maintain decorum before we lose control? Willi is often the smart one: he privately rations food and water, keeps his abilities and knowledge as vague as possible, and manipulates the reckless disorder of the ship to his advantage. But does that make him evil? He certainly isn’t above petty revenge: his heartbreaking final scene with Gus proves that he’s still a man of his people. Would we have done any different?

At its heart, Lifeboat argues that we find our personal truths when we shed our labels. Under the hot mid-Atlantic sun, the millionaire happily gambles his fortune with the working stiff. The Yank, the Limey, and the Jerry all brag about the menus of their favorite hometown cafes. But again, dropping their masks goes both ways: they also brutally murder Willi when his treachery becomes apparent (“My only regret is, that in the end, I joined a mob,” says Rittenhouse). Hitchcock then bookends with the film’s opening to build his human beings back into the class-conscious archetypes they used to be: after spotting an Allied ship on the horizon, Rittenhouse climbs into his double-breasted suit. Connie panics about her makeup. Alice asks for Stanley’s surname (they are to be married). Most ironically, they react with disgust when a new German prisoner asks if they’re going to kill him. With their rescue in sight and their divisions reaffirmed, they pretend to be horrified. What are they, savages?

Cinema Bestius: North by Northwest

Call me crazy, but this Pope longs to be chased by a goddamned crop dusting plane.

#19 – North by Northwest

Talk about an iconic scene! I remember one April night in 1980, watching the evening news with the sound turned off. When the indelible image of Cary Grant being chased by that improbable plane appeared over the anchorman’s shoulder, I knew it was to announce Hitchcock’s death. That image—from this week’s featured film, North by Northwest—so well summarizes Hitchcock’s entire career: a sequence with its tongue firmly in cheek, it’s ridiculous, but it’s also the stuff of nightmares. It makes the dangerous fun. That is what Hitchcock did again and again during the 50 years he made movies.

The Plot in Brief: Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is an advertising executive whose life is stuck in a rut. One day, responding to a page in a restaurant, he is mistaken for government spy George Kaplan. Some other spies are chasing Kaplan and a strange sculpture full of microfilm. How will Thornhill convince everyone that he is not George Kaplan? Will Thornhill ever find the real George Kaplan? What does all of this have to do with Mount Rushmore?

This film is classic Hitchcock: an innocent man is accused of a crime he did not commit and spends the rest of the film trying to prove his innocence. If anyone ever asks what all Hitchcock films have in common, it is guilt. We are guilty. His characters are guilty. That is something Hitchcock knew about everyone: we all harbor tremendous guilt… and secrets.

Clearly, North by Northwest is a boy’s adventure film. It posits adulthood as a life of drudgery, boredom, and routine, and it knows we all secretly long to be tested by action and excitement. Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill is alive but has no “life.” He longs to break free of the shackles of business and live a life like he sees in the movies. Watching North by Northwest is like taking a crazy vacation where our lives are in danger at every turn.

BY THE WAY: The famous sequence in North by Northwest in which Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint are chased across the faces of Mount Rushmore inspired Mel Brooks, when preparing his Hitchcock send-up High Anxiety, to film a sequence where he emerged from George Washington’s nose wearing a green jumpsuit. That sequence, needless to say, did not make the final cut of the film.

North by Northwest represents the height of moviemaking in the 1950s: the plot is clever, the dialogue is witty and urbane, the performers are glamorous and believable, the direction is astute and never calls attention to itself, the set-pieces (including the crop duster scene and the Mount Rushmore face chase) are iconic, and the musical score is rousing and memorable—truly a full evening’s entertainment. This film is a glass of bubbly champagne, courtesy of Mr. Hitchcock. It never takes itself too seriously, but it provides its thrills and intrigues with class and energy.

Interestingly enough, it was the success of North By Northwest that inadvertently led to Hitchcock’s next project. Hitchcock chalked up the film’s popularity to its stars, or budget, or genre, or script, or vivid Technicolor; he wondered if audiences would ever flock to a movie just for HIM. He decided to make his next film bare bones and low-budget, using his television show crew and shooting quickly in black and white, in that most disreputable genre, horror—he wanted to see if he could make himself, as director, the main attraction. The film he made was Psycho.

North by Northwest’s three miracles: the perfect mix of all things Hitchcock: improbable story told with precise logic, big star performances, and a twinkling sense of humor, even about inappropriate things; James Mason plays a terrific “Bond villain”—suave, sophisticated, and menacing—five years before Bond was ever put on screen; and Cary Grant turns in one of his best, typically effortless, performances.

“In nomine Hitchcock, et Grant, y spiritu Ernest Lehman… amen.”

I would like to thank my second period College Composition class for their assistance in writing this column: Erin Allegetti, Ena Cizmic, Marc Clay, Nataly Duran, Abisay Hernandez, Dan Hudzik, Andrew Keyser, Dan Klingler, Martin Kunev, Luis Lopez, Aniyah McCullum, Raunak Patel, Joe Plewa, Rahat Ramzan, Harmony Richardson, Abigail Rogers, Jakub Sokol, Haylee Spence, Amber Stoffle, Cristian Terrazas, and Kamila Wiklanski. You guys are the bestius.