September 8, 2022 • 13 mins
On this day in 1960, Alfred Hitchcock’s classic suspense thriller Psycho opened in theaters across the United States.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Stay in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio, Hello, and Welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that unmasks history one day at a time.
I'm Gabe Bluesier, and in this episode we're talking about Psycho,
(00:23):
the moody psychological thriller that's widely regarded as the first
modern horror film and one of the best too. The
day was September eighth, sixty Alfred Hitchcock's classics suspense thriller
(00:45):
Psycho opened in theaters across the United States. The director
took a secretive approach to the film's release, insisting that
no one be admitted to a screening after the movie
had begun. This was done not only to the public's curiosity,
but to help preserve the film's many twists and turns,
(01:05):
which fair warning we will be getting into a little later.
Hitchcock didn't want viewers to wander into a screening midway
through and be confused about the very different direction the
film takes in its final stretch. This unusual level of
secrecy also prevented critics from screening the film in advance,
a decision that probably played a role in the movies
(01:27):
decidedly mixed reviews. However, the box office success of Psycho
eventually led to its critical re evaluation, and today it's
now considered one of Hitchcock's finest works and a high
point of the thriller genre as a whole. In case
you've never seen Psycho, or if it's been a while
since your last viewing, the story goes something like this.
(01:51):
A young secretary named Mary and Crane played by Janet Lee,
decides on a whim to steal forty thou dollars from
her employer, money that she was supposed to deposit in
a bank. She flees the city with the cash and
drives all night, eventually stopping to rent a room at
the eerie, isolated Bates Motel. There, she encounters the motel manager,
(02:16):
a shy, awkward young man named Norman Bates, played to
unnerving effect by Anthony Perkins. He invites her to have
dinner with him in the motel office that evening, and
over the course of the meal, Norman explains that he
feels trapped by his controlling, elderly mother, who lives in
the manor house just behind the motel. Their conversation helps
(02:37):
Marian realize that she too, is trapped and that the
only way she can free herself is to return the
money she stole before departing. She decides to take a shower,
a way to symbolically cleanse herself with guilt, but as
she bathes, Norman's jealous mother enters the room and fatally
stabs her. A while later, a distraught no merman Bates
(03:00):
cleans up the murder scene and disposes of the evidence
by sinking Marion's body and her car in a nearby swamp.
A week later, Marion's boyfriend Sam and her sister Lila
come looking for her at Bates Motel. They grow suspicious
that Norman and his mother may be hiding something in
their house on the hill, and when the pair sneaks
(03:22):
inside to check, they find the mummified corpse of Norman's mother,
who has evidently been dead for some ten years. Suddenly,
they're attacked by the same shadowy figure who killed Marion.
The killer identifies themselves as Norma Bates, but it's soon
revealed to be her son, Norman. Dressed up in a
wig and gown. Sam is able to subdue him, and
(03:45):
it's soon revealed that a jealous Norman actually killed his
mother and her lover a decade earlier. He then preserved
her corpse and recreated her as an alternate personality. It's
explained that Marian was actually the third woman Norman had
killed while impersonating his possessive mother, and at the end
of the film, it suggested that the mother personality has
(04:08):
now taken full control of his mind and that Norman
is gone forever. This maccab tail was a drastic departure
from Hitchcock's previous film, the nineteen fifty nine commercial hit
North By Northwest. That movie's critical and financial success gave
the director the freedom to tackle any subject he wanted
(04:30):
for his next project, but no one in Hollywood imagined
he would choose to make a horror movie. The genre
commanded very little respect at the time and was mostly
known for campy storylines and cheap special effects. That lack
of prestige is exactly what attracted Hitchcock to the genre.
He was curious to see what could happen when a
(04:50):
horror movie was made by a filmmaker who quote knew
what he was doing. With that in mind, Hitchcock told
his production company to go out and find a suitable
story for him to adapt to the screen. Within a month,
they returned with a copy of Psycho, a well received
horror novel by author Robert Block. The book was loosely
(05:11):
based on the real life crimes of Wisconsin serial killer
Ed Gene, and the story turned out to be just
what Hitchcock was looking for. He particularly liked the idea
of the main character, Ms. Crane, being killed off so
early in the story. In fact, that was one of
the twists that Hitchcock was so adamant about protecting. He
(05:32):
knew it would shock audiences to see the lead character
die unexpectedly, but if someone entered the theater after the
shower scene, they might have just been confused. Robert Block
was paid nine thousand dollars for the film rights to
his novel, and not long after Hitchcock pitched the story
to his partners at Paramount Pictures. Studio executives weren't fans
(05:54):
of the unusual choice of subject matter. In fact, they
were so against the idea that Hitchcock wound up paying
for most of the movie himself, and he even gave
up his usual salary in exchange for sixty ownership of
the finished film. That arrangement was virtually unheard of in Hollywood,
but he wound up working in Hitchcock's favor. Psycho went
(06:16):
on to become the most financially successful film of his
entire career, pulling in thirty two million dollars during its
original theatrical run off of a budget of less than
one million. To help keep production costs low, Hitchcock shot
the film in black and white and borrowed the crew
from his anthology TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Even with
(06:38):
all of those concessions, Paramounts still tried to discourage the
director by refusing to let him shoot the film at
their studio. However, that plan backfired again when Hitchcock simply
rented space over at Universal. There he built the elaborate
set of Bates Motel and the gothic house that looms
over it. Those now iconic structures are still standing today
(07:03):
and are among the highlights guests can see on the
Universal Studios tour in Hollywood. So way to go, Paramount.
Of course, no discussion of Psycho would be complete without
talking about the infamous shower scene. It's one of the
most studied sequences in film history, and for good reason too.
Most of the shots were storyboarded by renowned title and
(07:26):
poster artists Saul Bass, who also created the opening credit
sequence for Psycho. One of the most impressive things about
the scene is what the viewer doesn't see. Thanks to
a series of quick cuts, the violence of Marion's murder
is mostly suggested rather than shown. In fact, we only
see the knife touch your skin for about two seconds
(07:48):
of the roughly five minute scene. For the rest of
the time, we're looking at the knife, the tile, the showerhead,
the blood trickling down the drain. We see the implication
of violence and its aftermath, but very little of the
act itself. Despite being rather tame for a murder scene,
the sequence still feels intense and suspenseful. That's partly down
(08:11):
to the brilliant editing, but a great deal of credit
also goes to Bernard Hermann's inspired score, in which violins, cellos,
and viola's screech along with every stab of Norman's blade.
Take a listen. Speaking of the sound of the scene,
(08:45):
Hitchcock held a bizarre kind of audition to find the
right sound to represent a knife stabbing flesh. He reportedly
had his prop master, Robert Bone stabbed dozens of different
kinds of melons, every variety of cantaloupe, watermelon, cassaba, and
honeydew that he could find. Meanwhile, the director sat in
(09:05):
the sound studio with his eyes closed, listening intently as
each melon was wounded. When the grizzly audition was finished
and every melon had been thoroughly slashed, Hitchcock opened his
eyes and uttered a single word, cassaba. He supposedly settled
on that one because the melon's thick rind provided a deeper,
(09:26):
fuller sound. In addition to the cassaba, Hitchcock also layered
in recordings of a sirloin steak being stabbed repeatedly. According
to author Stephen Rebelow, the sound man took the steak
home that night and had it for dinner. No word
on what happened to the cassaba. At any rate, the
sound and the scene itself proved incredibly effective. Audiences were
(09:50):
said to gasp and scream during the scene, and even
actress Janet Lee was disturbed after screening the finished film,
She later claimed that she never took a shower her again,
opting to take baths for the rest of her life.
Although the shower scene is arguably the film's most famous sequence.
Neither of the movie stars are in it all that much.
(10:11):
Anthony Perkins was away in New York rehearsing for a
Broadway show during the week when the film was seen.
In the footage of his character stabbing Marian, the person
in the wig is actually a stunt woman whose face
was blacked out to achieve a silhouette effect. As for
Janet Lee, she appears in about a third of the
scenes run time, but the rest of the time it's
(10:33):
actually Marley Renfro, a pin up model who served as
Lee's body double in the scene. If you ask me, though,
the real star of the famous scene is the unassuming
toilet that appears in a handful of shots. Believe it
or not, that was the first toilet to ever appear
in an American film, and the first to be flushed
(10:53):
on screen as well. Before Psycho broke the taboo, toilets
were considered too crude to be shown own in movies.
So for all you fans of big screen toilets, now
you know who to thank. Psycho premiered in downtown Manhattan
on June sixteenth, sixty and then rolled out to theaters
nationwide on September eight. It went on to earn four
(11:16):
Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best
Supporting Actress, and Best Director. It didn't win any of
those awards, marking the fifth and final time that Hitchcock
would be nominated for and ultimately denied the Oscar for
Best Director. That's right. As hard as it is to believe,
(11:38):
Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar for his directing. But
despite being snubbed by the Academy, Psycho was a massive
success at the box office, and due to his unprecedented
deal with Paramount, the Lion's share of that money went
right into Hitchcock's pocket. More importantly, though, the film proved
that horror movies could be every bit as art full, thoughtful,
(12:00):
and engaging as their non genre counterparts. Psycho demonstrated that
you don't need monster costumes or graphic violence to elicit
fear from an audience. Sometimes it's much scarier to skip
the haunted house and take them on a tour of
the human mind instead, because, after all, as Norman Bates says,
(12:21):
we all go a little match sometimes, haven't you. I'm
Gabe lousier and hopefully you now know a little more
about history today than you did yesterday. If you have
a second and you're so inclined, consider following us on Twitter, Facebook,
(12:45):
and Instagram at t d I HC Show. You can
also rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, or
you can drop me a line directly by writing to
this Day at I heeart media dot com. Thanks to
Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thanks to you
for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow for
another Day in History class. H
The Stay in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio, Hello, and Welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that unmasks history one day at a time.
I'm Gabe Bluesier, and in this episode we're talking about Psycho,
(00:23):
the moody psychological thriller that's widely regarded as the first
modern horror film and one of the best too. The
day was September eighth, sixty Alfred Hitchcock's classics suspense thriller
(00:45):
Psycho opened in theaters across the United States. The director
took a secretive approach to the film's release, insisting that
no one be admitted to a screening after the movie
had begun. This was done not only to the public's curiosity,
but to help preserve the film's many twists and turns,
(01:05):
which fair warning we will be getting into a little later.
Hitchcock didn't want viewers to wander into a screening midway
through and be confused about the very different direction the
film takes in its final stretch. This unusual level of
secrecy also prevented critics from screening the film in advance,
a decision that probably played a role in the movies
(01:27):
decidedly mixed reviews. However, the box office success of Psycho
eventually led to its critical re evaluation, and today it's
now considered one of Hitchcock's finest works and a high
point of the thriller genre as a whole. In case
you've never seen Psycho, or if it's been a while
since your last viewing, the story goes something like this.
(01:51):
A young secretary named Mary and Crane played by Janet Lee,
decides on a whim to steal forty thou dollars from
her employer, money that she was supposed to deposit in
a bank. She flees the city with the cash and
drives all night, eventually stopping to rent a room at
the eerie, isolated Bates Motel. There, she encounters the motel manager,
(02:16):
a shy, awkward young man named Norman Bates, played to
unnerving effect by Anthony Perkins. He invites her to have
dinner with him in the motel office that evening, and
over the course of the meal, Norman explains that he
feels trapped by his controlling, elderly mother, who lives in
the manor house just behind the motel. Their conversation helps
(02:37):
Marian realize that she too, is trapped and that the
only way she can free herself is to return the
money she stole before departing. She decides to take a shower,
a way to symbolically cleanse herself with guilt, but as
she bathes, Norman's jealous mother enters the room and fatally
stabs her. A while later, a distraught no merman Bates
(03:00):
cleans up the murder scene and disposes of the evidence
by sinking Marion's body and her car in a nearby swamp.
A week later, Marion's boyfriend Sam and her sister Lila
come looking for her at Bates Motel. They grow suspicious
that Norman and his mother may be hiding something in
their house on the hill, and when the pair sneaks
(03:22):
inside to check, they find the mummified corpse of Norman's mother,
who has evidently been dead for some ten years. Suddenly,
they're attacked by the same shadowy figure who killed Marion.
The killer identifies themselves as Norma Bates, but it's soon
revealed to be her son, Norman. Dressed up in a
wig and gown. Sam is able to subdue him, and
(03:45):
it's soon revealed that a jealous Norman actually killed his
mother and her lover a decade earlier. He then preserved
her corpse and recreated her as an alternate personality. It's
explained that Marian was actually the third woman Norman had
killed while impersonating his possessive mother, and at the end
of the film, it suggested that the mother personality has
(04:08):
now taken full control of his mind and that Norman
is gone forever. This maccab tail was a drastic departure
from Hitchcock's previous film, the nineteen fifty nine commercial hit
North By Northwest. That movie's critical and financial success gave
the director the freedom to tackle any subject he wanted
(04:30):
for his next project, but no one in Hollywood imagined
he would choose to make a horror movie. The genre
commanded very little respect at the time and was mostly
known for campy storylines and cheap special effects. That lack
of prestige is exactly what attracted Hitchcock to the genre.
He was curious to see what could happen when a
(04:50):
horror movie was made by a filmmaker who quote knew
what he was doing. With that in mind, Hitchcock told
his production company to go out and find a suitable
story for him to adapt to the screen. Within a month,
they returned with a copy of Psycho, a well received
horror novel by author Robert Block. The book was loosely
(05:11):
based on the real life crimes of Wisconsin serial killer
Ed Gene, and the story turned out to be just
what Hitchcock was looking for. He particularly liked the idea
of the main character, Ms. Crane, being killed off so
early in the story. In fact, that was one of
the twists that Hitchcock was so adamant about protecting. He
(05:32):
knew it would shock audiences to see the lead character
die unexpectedly, but if someone entered the theater after the
shower scene, they might have just been confused. Robert Block
was paid nine thousand dollars for the film rights to
his novel, and not long after Hitchcock pitched the story
to his partners at Paramount Pictures. Studio executives weren't fans
(05:54):
of the unusual choice of subject matter. In fact, they
were so against the idea that Hitchcock wound up paying
for most of the movie himself, and he even gave
up his usual salary in exchange for sixty ownership of
the finished film. That arrangement was virtually unheard of in Hollywood,
but he wound up working in Hitchcock's favor. Psycho went
(06:16):
on to become the most financially successful film of his
entire career, pulling in thirty two million dollars during its
original theatrical run off of a budget of less than
one million. To help keep production costs low, Hitchcock shot
the film in black and white and borrowed the crew
from his anthology TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Even with
(06:38):
all of those concessions, Paramounts still tried to discourage the
director by refusing to let him shoot the film at
their studio. However, that plan backfired again when Hitchcock simply
rented space over at Universal. There he built the elaborate
set of Bates Motel and the gothic house that looms
over it. Those now iconic structures are still standing today
(07:03):
and are among the highlights guests can see on the
Universal Studios tour in Hollywood. So way to go, Paramount.
Of course, no discussion of Psycho would be complete without
talking about the infamous shower scene. It's one of the
most studied sequences in film history, and for good reason too.
Most of the shots were storyboarded by renowned title and
(07:26):
poster artists Saul Bass, who also created the opening credit
sequence for Psycho. One of the most impressive things about
the scene is what the viewer doesn't see. Thanks to
a series of quick cuts, the violence of Marion's murder
is mostly suggested rather than shown. In fact, we only
see the knife touch your skin for about two seconds
(07:48):
of the roughly five minute scene. For the rest of
the time, we're looking at the knife, the tile, the showerhead,
the blood trickling down the drain. We see the implication
of violence and its aftermath, but very little of the
act itself. Despite being rather tame for a murder scene,
the sequence still feels intense and suspenseful. That's partly down
(08:11):
to the brilliant editing, but a great deal of credit
also goes to Bernard Hermann's inspired score, in which violins, cellos,
and viola's screech along with every stab of Norman's blade.
Take a listen. Speaking of the sound of the scene,
(08:45):
Hitchcock held a bizarre kind of audition to find the
right sound to represent a knife stabbing flesh. He reportedly
had his prop master, Robert Bone stabbed dozens of different
kinds of melons, every variety of cantaloupe, watermelon, cassaba, and
honeydew that he could find. Meanwhile, the director sat in
(09:05):
the sound studio with his eyes closed, listening intently as
each melon was wounded. When the grizzly audition was finished
and every melon had been thoroughly slashed, Hitchcock opened his
eyes and uttered a single word, cassaba. He supposedly settled
on that one because the melon's thick rind provided a deeper,
(09:26):
fuller sound. In addition to the cassaba, Hitchcock also layered
in recordings of a sirloin steak being stabbed repeatedly. According
to author Stephen Rebelow, the sound man took the steak
home that night and had it for dinner. No word
on what happened to the cassaba. At any rate, the
sound and the scene itself proved incredibly effective. Audiences were
(09:50):
said to gasp and scream during the scene, and even
actress Janet Lee was disturbed after screening the finished film,
She later claimed that she never took a shower her again,
opting to take baths for the rest of her life.
Although the shower scene is arguably the film's most famous sequence.
Neither of the movie stars are in it all that much.
(10:11):
Anthony Perkins was away in New York rehearsing for a
Broadway show during the week when the film was seen.
In the footage of his character stabbing Marian, the person
in the wig is actually a stunt woman whose face
was blacked out to achieve a silhouette effect. As for
Janet Lee, she appears in about a third of the
scenes run time, but the rest of the time it's
(10:33):
actually Marley Renfro, a pin up model who served as
Lee's body double in the scene. If you ask me, though,
the real star of the famous scene is the unassuming
toilet that appears in a handful of shots. Believe it
or not, that was the first toilet to ever appear
in an American film, and the first to be flushed
(10:53):
on screen as well. Before Psycho broke the taboo, toilets
were considered too crude to be shown own in movies.
So for all you fans of big screen toilets, now
you know who to thank. Psycho premiered in downtown Manhattan
on June sixteenth, sixty and then rolled out to theaters
nationwide on September eight. It went on to earn four
(11:16):
Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best
Supporting Actress, and Best Director. It didn't win any of
those awards, marking the fifth and final time that Hitchcock
would be nominated for and ultimately denied the Oscar for
Best Director. That's right. As hard as it is to believe,
(11:38):
Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar for his directing. But
despite being snubbed by the Academy, Psycho was a massive
success at the box office, and due to his unprecedented
deal with Paramount, the Lion's share of that money went
right into Hitchcock's pocket. More importantly, though, the film proved
that horror movies could be every bit as art full, thoughtful,
(12:00):
and engaging as their non genre counterparts. Psycho demonstrated that
you don't need monster costumes or graphic violence to elicit
fear from an audience. Sometimes it's much scarier to skip
the haunted house and take them on a tour of
the human mind instead, because, after all, as Norman Bates says,
(12:21):
we all go a little match sometimes, haven't you. I'm
Gabe lousier and hopefully you now know a little more
about history today than you did yesterday. If you have
a second and you're so inclined, consider following us on Twitter, Facebook,
(12:45):
and Instagram at t d I HC Show. You can
also rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, or
you can drop me a line directly by writing to
this Day at I heeart media dot com. Thanks to
Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thanks to you
for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow for
another Day in History class. H
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