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Psycho (1960) PRoduction: Hitchcock, MGM
Screenplay:Joseph Stefano from a novel by Robert Bloch
Camera: Saul Bass,
Costumes:
CAST: John Gavin, Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins,
Vera Miles, Martin Balsam, 
Janet Leigh and John Gavin at the beginning of the movie. PLOT: Marion Crane (Leigh)has a relation with Sam ( John Gavin) who lives in another town and has not enough money to get married . She absconds with $ 40,000 of her employer money.On the run, she stays at Norman Bates' (Perkins) motel, where she is stabbed in the shower by an unknown'woman'. Norman is terrified on discovering the body and puts it in Marion's car which he sinks in a nearby swamp. An investigator from the insurance company (Martin Balsam) tracks Marion's movements to the motel where his suspicions are aroused by Norman. Shadowing him to the Bates mansion, the detective is also murdered by the old woman. Meanwhile, also on the trail, Marion's sister lila (Vera Miles) and Sam have learned that Norman's mother died years before. Investigating the old house, Lila is attacked in the cellar by "Mrs. Bates", who turns out to be Norman in drag.
The film ends with Norman twitching in a lunatic asylum, staring unblinking at the camera while his voice insists that he would't even harm a fly. 
Grant gets himself arrested to escape the spies at the auction 
The knife hitting Janet Leigh body in the shocking murder scene 
"Psycho" was made for a paltry $800,000, with a small crew, and shot in already unfashionable black and white. Hitchcock worked on the film quickly and in the strictest secrecy to mantain the shock effect of Leigh, a big star in the 1960s, premature murder.
In later years "Psycho" was reapprised and proclamed a classic. Commercially, however, Psycho was an immediate success and remains Hitchcock most successful film. In 1960 it was second only to "Ben Hur" at the box office, taking nearly $ 9 million in its first year. 
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Norman Bates has entered the iconography of cinema.
And " Psycho" is, ironically considering the critical pounding it received on released (the kindest critic called it a minor work) the one film which the majority of people associate with Alfred Hitchcock and that is largely due to one 45-second scene,the shower scene, which has become one of the best known in cinema history. It is a scene remarkable for its ability to shock and disturb, even after repeated viewings. 
Janet Leigh and John Gavin after making love in the initial sequences of Psycho Alfred Hitchcock received an Oscar nomination for Best Director, for Psycho. Janet Leigh was nominated as Best supporting actress.
Anthony Perkins received no nomination but he became inseparable from the role and has never really escaped from Norman's shadow. He played the same role in two sequels,22 years later. 
After the success of Psycho, Hitchcock did not find any project interesting enough to start filming and Psycho was a pretty hard act to follow. So 1961 saw no film from the Master and neither did 1962. They became the first years without a Hitchcock film since 1925. Looking for inspiration, Hitchcock turned again to Daphne du Maurier, whose Jamaica Inn and Rebecca he had already filmed.
Hitchcock had purchased the film rights of the writer short story "The Birds" when it was first published in 1952, immediately realizing the cinematic possibilities. It had laid dormant for a decade before his interest was reawakened by reports of birds attacking houses and animals on the West Coast. And in 1963 a new film hit the screens. |