Psycho Semi-Centennial: The Movie That Changed Everything

Last week marked the actual 50th anniversary of the release of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho to theaters. Yes, I know I missed it. Having a feature entitled "Psycho Semi-Centennial" and missing the actual semi-centennial week, I should really be ashamed of myself. And so, to make up for such an egregious lapse, I'm bringing you the return of this year-long feature with a look at the many important ways that Hitchcock's landmark film changed the landscape of cinema forever. Better late than never, I always say...

Starting at the Beginning
As bizarre as it always seems to me, up until Psycho it was common practice for moviegoers to enter at any point during the movie, and stay into the next showing until they got up to the part they walked in on. This disjointed practice went out the window thanks to Hitchcock's vehement insistence that people come in at the start of the movie for the full effect. When they did so, resulting in lines around the block thanks to everyone arriving at the same time, they understood why.

First Flush
This may seem like a trivial matter to many post-modern viewers, but Psycho was the first American film in history to depict a toilet being flushed. Granted, it was only Marion disposing of her note, and not dropping a deuce, but this was a historic moment nonetheless, and encapsulated the frank, realistic tone Hitchcock and his screenwriter Joseph Stefano were going for. In fact, Stefano was adamant that a flushing toilet be shown for this very reason, and wrote the scene specifically so it would be integral to the plot.

Skin
Following, as it did, on the heels of the somewhat conservative (on the surface, at least) 1950s, Psycho's shower scene was shocking not just because of the violence, but because of the sheer amount of bare flesh on display. Both Janet Leigh and her body double show off quite a bit for the time, and it reportedly put censors--and more dour film-goers--into a tizzy. While still nothing beyond a PG-13 by today's standards, it was certainly pushing the envelope for a mainstream American film, and to this day viewers argue over how much was actually shown--a testament to the editing skills of George Tomasini.

No One Is Safe
Psycho sees its central protagonist, the character is which the audience has invested all its attention and interest, killed off roughly halfway into the movie. This was unheard of, and literally threw all traditional standards of cinematic storytelling out the window. If the main character could die so soon, all bets were off. Anything could happen. Viewers knew they were experiencing something truly new.

Let's Talk About Sex
To give you an idea of the level of censorship common at the time, the MPAA took issue with the word "transvestite" being used in the film's epilogue scene. Psycho deals with sexual subject matter in a manner that was very frank and open. Even from its opening scene, showing Marion and Sam enjoying a nooner in their little love nest, Psycho pushes the boundaries. Then you have an antaganist--Norman--whose entire character revolves around psycho-sexual issues. The whole speech given by Dr. Richmond at the end, though admittedly a bit forced and tacked-on, was a somewhat shocking explanation which took some of the more sheltered moviegoers of 1960 into territory they would have been far less familiar with than the average viewer of today.

Mother, Blood!
Hammer Films may have popularized blood in horror with their technicolor '50s spectacles, but Psycho was a mainstream Hollywood A-movie showing it, which was something entirely different. One of Hitchcock's reasons for filming in black and white was to make the gore of the shower scene more acceptable. But the sight of that Bosco syrup pouring down the shower drain helped prepare American audiences for the copious showers of red stuff to come in the future of the horror genre.

Musical Minimalism
The score of Psycho is one of the movies' most memorable thanks to the genius of Bernard Herrmann. Up to then, most Hollywood productions featured epic scores performed by vast studio orchestras, but Hermmann insisted on a pared-down, strings-only score performed by a small group of musicians. And although the John Williams-era of the late '70s brought back the epic score to a degree, the Psycho influence is still felt.

Big Screen/Little Screen
During the '50s, the movie biz did everything it could to compete with the introduction of TV. This usually involved going as big and bold as possible with things like widescreen and 3-D, showing all the things that TV didn't do. Hitch's genius was to go in the other direction. Thanks to his own TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the director gained an appreciation for the sparse, basic, low-budget style of TV film-making, and adapted that to the silver screen, bringing a bare-bones sensibility to Hollywood.

The Monster Next Door
Though not the first horror movie to feature a non-supernatural villain, Psycho certainly set the standard to come, and changed the course of the genre in the process with its depiction of a "real" human being as the threat. Monsters were the order of the day up to that point in time, but Psycho showed that reality-based horror could work--that the creepy guy next door could potentially be far scarier than vampires or werewolves. And although Psycho may not technically be a slasher film (debatable), it certainly set the stage.

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Psycho Semi-Centennial: An Ode to Marion Crane

By BJ-C*

The queen of the "penultimate girls," Marion Crane is a female character that we have idolized despite never really getting to know her. Although named "Mary" in the novel, Marion Crane will forever live in our hearts as the girl in the shower, taken too soon. Absolutely gorgeous and stylish, yet Marion Crane is mainly iconic thanks to her brutal, naked murder scene in Psycho.

Poor Marion was unhappy in her relationshit with her "boyfriend", Sam Loomis. (Yes, they got the name Loomis for Halloween from her boyfriend). He tells her to take the afternoon off and she basically says "kick rocks" and heads back to work. Her boss shows up soon after with a man named Tom Cassidy, a wealthy customer who gives her $40,000 to put in the bank for him. Already in a bad mood, Marion steals the money and goes on the run. While this lead-up is probably the ONLY part of the film people struggle with as far as remembering what happens, it is a major part of the film as far as the character Marion is concerned. We get to see her sexy, angry, conniving, and oh-so-convincing. If it wasn't for these scenes, the audience wouldn't know ANYTHING about the true nature of the character.

While on the run, she turns off the main road and winds up at the Bates Motel. Once she arrives, she checks into the hotel with the proprietor... Norman Bates. Cue the scary music, give the audience a really uncomfortable feeling, and the movie kicks it into high gear. Once she wraps up the remaining money in a newspaper, Marion overhears an extreme argument between Norman and his "mother" about his decision to let Marion in the house. Always with a touch of class, Marion manages to keep her cool and eavesdrop without having to break down a wall.

After sitting through Norman's tale of being "trapped" by his obligation to his mentally ill mother, the story starts to layer. Hitchcock tricks us by introducing Marion's conflict about returning the money, as she too is in her own personal trap. She very carefully suggests having his mother committed and Norman angrily refuses; then... shit hits the fan.

She bids him goodnight, and returns to her room. While trying to figure out how to fix things with her boss and calculating how much she has spent of his money, she undresses (sporting those insane torpedo boobs). Norman watches her from a peephole as she prepares for a shower. And then... the amazing music Busta Rhymes ripped off comes full force. A mysterious figure enters the bathroom, shadowed by the shower curtain, and stabs Marion to death.

Norman presumes his mother killed Marion, so he attempts to dispose of all traces of the crime to protect her. He puts Marion's body and all her possessions, including money hidden in newspaper, into the trunk of her car, and sinks it in a nearby swamp. The infamous twist ending reveals that the murderer is in fact Norman, who murdered his mother years before and has since developed a split personality in which he kills people under "Mother's" persona.

The thing that remains so insane about this film is that Hitchcock cast an absolutely humongous star as the lead, and then killed her off before the film even hit the halfway mark. It blew people's minds and made her death all the more memorable. She made it horrifying to take showers and I'll admit, I still do double-checks on my locked door if I'm showering in a hotel or home alone. There was a time when I attempted to buy the "Psycho Shower Curtain" and realized I'd be more paranoid than ever if I had the shadowy figure of "Mother" watching me take a shower.

The other brilliant thing people often forget is that you never see Marion stabbed. Through Hitch's expert filmmaking, the scene is edited in such a way that we never see the knife actually puncture her. We see a screaming woman, a knife blade, some body shots with a knife near it, and chocolate syrup at the bottom of the tub. That's it. What has been noted as one of the most HORRIFYING kills in horror movie history, never shows anything. It just goes to show that expert filmmaking trumps over-the-top gore any day.

* Cross-posted from Day of the Woman.

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Psycho Semi-Centennial: Before It Was a Classic - Excerpts from Original Reviews

Time heals all wounds, and it also apparently adds some perspective. For example, perhaps you're familiar with how The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, West Side Story and other films generally regarded as excellent today were soundly panned by critics upon their original release. Well, Psycho was another one of those which, while perhaps not roundly rejected, did get a decidedly mixed reaction from reviewers in 1960 (though certainly not from audiences, who made it the biggest money-maker of Hitchcock's career.)

Psycho is an interesting example, as the first round of reviews from publications like Time, Newsweek, Esquire and The New York Times were negative--and then, as audience opinion proved significantly contradictory, and Hitchcock himself amped up the buzz surrounding the flick with a brilliant marketing campaign, many critics and periodicals flip-flopped. By the end of 1960, it was already being hailed as a modern masterpiece, and was strongly represented at the Oscars. But it's fascinating to see the initial knee-jerk repugnance of critics who perhaps had some difficulty processing what they were seeing. Here are a few snippets:

With such game afoot, the experienced Hitchcock fan might reasonably expect the unreasonable—a great chase down Thomas Jefferson's forehead, as in North by Northwest, or across the rooftops of Monaco, as in To Catch a Thief. What is offered instead is merely gruesome. The trail leads to a sagging, swamp-view motel and to one of the messiest, most nauseating murders ever filmed. At close range, the camera watches every twitch, gurgle, convulsion and hemorrhage in the process by which a living human becomes a corpse.

...Little should be said of the plot—Hitchcock enjoins all viewers to be silent—except that Anthony Perkins, who plays an amateur taxidermist, is sickeningly involved, and that a blow is dealt to mother love from which that sentiment may not recover. Director Hitchcock bears down too heavily in this one, and the delicate illusion of reality necessary for a creak-and-shriek movie becomes, instead, a spectacle of stomach-churning horror.

Time Magazine, June 27, 1960

Mr. Hitchcock, an old hand at frightening people, comes at you with a club in this frankly intended bloodcurdler...

There is not an abundance of subtlety or the lately familiar Hitchcock bent toward significant and colorful scenery in this obviously low-budget job. With a minimum of complication, it gets off to a black-and-white start with the arrival of a fugitive girl with a stolen bankroll right at an eerie motel.

Well, perhaps it doesn't get her there too swiftly. That's another little thing about this film. It does seem slowly paced for Mr. Hitchcock and given over to a lot of small detail...

That's the way it is with Mr. Hitchcock's picture—slow buildups to sudden shocks that are old-fashioned melodramatics, however effective and sure, until a couple of people have been gruesomely punctured and the mystery of the haunted house has been revealed. Then it may be a matter of question whether Mr. Hitchcock's points of psychology, the sort highly favored by Krafft-Ebing, are as reliable as his melodramatic stunts.

Frankly, we feel his explanations are a bit of leg-pulling by a man who has been known to resort to such tactics in his former films.

The consequence in his denouement falls quite flat for us. But the acting is fair...

The New York Times, June 17, 1960

I'm against censorship on principle, but that killing in the shower makes me wonder. And not because of the nudity; I favor more nudity in film.

Esquire, June 1960

Plainly a gimmick movie...

Newsweek, June 20, 1960

Time Magazine would later issue a new review describing the film as "superlative" and "masterly". And the New York Times' critic, Bosley Crowther, would later name Psycho among his top 10 films of 1960.

See, kids? It's all about perspective--initial reviews aren't everything. Who knows, in future years, film students may be studying Birdemic, Halloween 2 and The Happening! OK, maybe not...

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Psycho Semi-Centennial: The Underrated Genius of Saul Bass

Now more than ever, it seems that opening title sequences for films are crucial elements of the whole picture. In recent years, the ante has certainly been upped with the introduction of CGI, and we've been seeing some of the most elaborate and attention-grabbing opening titles ever. But let me take you back to an earlier time.

Let me take you back to the days of the cut and paste board, and the color wheel; when miracles could not be accomplished with a keystroke. Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for artists and what they can accomplsih with the tools currently at their disposal. But I lose a bit of awe watching giant 3-D letters float above the NYC skyline when I know my nephew probably has a halfway clever friend who could do the same thing on his Macbook.

In that aforementioned earlier time, graphic design in film was an entirely different discipline. And men like Saul Bass were at the forefront of a legitimate form of pop art. Not too familiar with the name? You should be. Because along with that of composer Bernard Herrmann, it is his work that first hits the viewer of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. He was the guy who first pulled you into that movie and assured you weren't going anywhere for a couple of hours.

An accomplished visual designer, Bass was responsible for the unforgettable opening title sequence of Psycho. A longtime Hitchcock adviser, he had also done titles for Vertigo and North by Northwest previously. More than just a titles designer, his graphic abilities were put to use by Hitchcock in the design of storyboards and even shot composition. Only a few years into his career by Psycho, Bass would go on to design stunning opening sequences for decades to come. But Psycho would remain his best known work--an urgent, hypnotic, brilliant set-piece that instantly sets the tone for a cinematic classic.

In fact, Bass would become known for his ability to do exactly that, to let the viewer know just what he or she was in for. If you've never seen them before, his credits for Psycho grab you from literally the first second the film unspools, and positively demand that you give yourself over to the rich tapestry of intrigue Hitchcock is about to present to you. With Hermmann's unmistakable strings pulsing, screeching and lilting menacingly behind it, Bass' opener throws a series of spiraling linear shapes and interlocking words our way, and right off the bat we're sent into a state of tense confusion.

Prior to the '50s, most films had very basic title cards--almost an extension of the literal cards used in vaudeville and other stage presentations. But Bass was part of an a vanguard of artists who helped to change that, and made title sequences far more dynamic, kinetic affairs that engaged the audience in and of themselves. He got his start on the 1954 film version of the all-black modern operetta Carmen Jones. His work on Psycho was clearly prefigured by the work he did in the '50s for movies like The Man with the Golden Arm and Anatomy of a Murder, where he also played with angular shapes and contrasting colors in similar fashion.

Following Psycho, Bass was tapped for the title credits to such '60s favorites as the original Ocean's 11, Exodus and the beloved film adaptation of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story. His opening for Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World are especially memorable, showing he could employ the same kind of energy and movement to inspire hilarity as well as he could tension.

Saul continued to work his magic in later decades, including title credits for another horror classic, Ridley Scott's Alien. In the '90s, he fell in with Martin Scorsese, providing credits for Goodfellas, Cape Fear and The Age of Innocence. In fact, his last project was Scorsese's Casino, which he completed a year before his death in 1996.

Psycho, needless to say, provides many reasons to love it, and to take it with you always. The riveting performances of Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh. Herrmann's score. Hitch's pacing, sense of suspense and overall genius. But whether you realized it or not, another important reason why you love Psycho is the work of Saul Bass--a visionary in the truest sense of the word.

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Psycho Semi-Centennial: A Fella Named Arbogast

"I still don't feel whatever change you're supposed to feel when your name goes up above the title. I think that's because this star thing has never been the first consideration with me. Never. The work has always come first."

Marty Balsam was one of those actors who would get a little ticked off when fans would only remember him from one particular role, which might have been his most famous, but in reality was only one part among so many. Yet unlike the far crankier Sir Alec Guinness, who would famously make little children cry when they would ask for his autograph due to Star Wars, Balsam would still genially sign his name and be friendly to the countless fans who knew him first and foremost as the detective Norman Bates pushed down a flight of stairs in Psycho.

When one looks at the breadth of his prolific career, it becomes easier to understand why Balsam may have had mixed feelings about Psycho. The role of Det. Arbogast may have made him a household name, but there was far more to Martin Balsam than just that gruff, ill-fated private investigator.

Balsam was many things. Oscar winner. Method actor. Student of monkey kung fu. George Clooney's father-in-law...

He was born Martin Henry Balsam on November 4, 1919 in the Bronx, the eldest child of a women's sportswear manufacturer. Acting was an interest from very early on, with young Martin joining the drama club in high school, and going on in 1938 to enroll in Manhattan's progressive New School, where he studied dramatics. As with many who aspired to great things in those days, Balsam's aspirations were put on hold after graduation, when he served out a stint in the Army Air Corps during World War II.

After the war, Balsam got down to the business of making some headway in the New York acting world. While working as an usher at Radio City Music Hall, he managed in 1947 to land a spot in Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg's prestigious Actor's Studio, where he would be instructed in the Stanislavsky method. Balsam would eventually be one of a veritable legion of method actors to wash over Hollywood in the following decade.

But first he had to prove himself. He suffered through a string of Broadway flops in the late 1940s, before finally scoring a hit in 1951 with Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo, in which he appeared alongside Maureen Stapleton, Eli Wallach and Sal Mineo. This led to a number of TV appearances, until in 1954 Balsam made his big-screen debut in Kazan's On the Waterfront, co-starring with fellow method disciples Rod Steiger and Marlon Brando.

Throughout the 1950s, Balsam appeared in many television productions, a lot of those being the live, theatrical-style one-offs that were very popular at the time. But there were also other film roles following his On the Waterfront breakthrough. Many still remember Balsam as one of the jurors in Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men, in which he was part of a stellar cast that included the likes of Henry Fonda, Ed Begley Sr., Lee J. Cobb, E.G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, John Fiedler and Jack Warden. He was also reunited with Steiger for the 1959 biopic Al Capone.

But it was one of those TV roles in particular that may have made all the difference for Balsam's career. In 1958, he starred in an episode of the mystery series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, in which he plays a cuckolded husband who seeks a violent revenge. Balsam was officially on the radar of the series' famous creator, and when it came time to cast one of the crucial supporting roles in his next thriller, the director remembered his earlier TV star.

And so Martin Balsam took on the part of Det. Milton Arbogast in Hitchcock's most well-known film, Psycho (1960). In his largest screen role up to that point, Balsam plays the detective with a tough, working-man charm. It's not an easy performance, as the character of Arbogast must come off in part as a bit of a bully--remember, first-time audiences believed Norman to be nothing more than a sweet, innocent motel caretaker--and yet, we must also feel a sense of shock and tragedy when he's finally offed by Norman's "mother".

Balsam was pretty much the most established actor in the film, and his character is notably the only other victim of Norman Bates aside from Janet Leigh herself. And in the end, there is a powerful sense of loss created when we watch him meet his doom after so closely following him along every step of his meticulous investigation. In a way, it reminds me very much of this poor gentleman:


Psycho made "the Bronx Barrymore" a much more recognizable star, and during the 1960s, the movie roles came more frequently. He followed up Hitch's picture with an appearance alongside Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard in the beloved Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961). He appeared with Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck in the original Cape Fear (1961)--the trio would all turn up some 30 years later in Martin Scorsese's remake. The Carpetbaggers (1964) brought him major critical acclaim. Then, in 1965 his turn in the screen adaptation of A Thousand Clowns earned him not just acclaim, but also the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. It would be the critical highlight of his career.

Balsam certainly kept busy in the wake of Psycho and his new-found popularity during the '60s. The TV work continued, including two appearances on The Twilight Zone. In one of Hollywood's bizarre and largely unknown twists, he recorded the voice for the computer HAL in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), only to be later replaced by Douglas Rain, the actor whose voice was used in the finished film.

It would also be during this decade that Balsam began taking roles overseas in Italy. For whatever reason, he came to be in demand by Italian filmmakers, and would continue traveling there to take on film roles for the remainder of his film career. It engendered a true love for the country that would also continue for the remainder of his life.

In fact, a dozen Italian films followed in the 1970s. Balsam was also one of Hollywood's favorite supporting players by this point, and he turned up in numerous iconic '70s movies, like Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and All the President's Men (1976).

In his later years, Balsam continued to work prodigiously. By the 1980s, he was in his 60s, yet continued to be a frequent supporting player in many films, both American and Italian. His most high-profile of the era might have been the brat pack opus St. Elmo's Fire (1985). Not only that, but after more than three decades of TV work, he finally took a recurring role on an ongoing series, playing the bigoted Archie Bunker's Jewish business partner on four seasons of Archie Bunker's Place (the sequel series to All in the Family).

In 1990, Balsam returned to the horror genre with an appearance in the George Romero/Dario Argento collaboration Two Evil Eyes. The film was originally intended to be a TV series based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, but the production was canceled after only two episodes were made, and so it was re-edited into a feature film. Balsam starred in the second, the Argento-directed The Black Cat, in which he appeared with Harvey Keitel, John Amos and Kim Hunter.

On February 13, 1996, while vacationing in his beloved Italy, Marty Balsam suffered a fatal heart attack at the Residenza di Repetta in Rome, near the banks of the Tiber River. He died at the age of 76, survived by his third wife Irene Miller, two ex-wives Joyce Van Patten (sister of Dick) and Pearl Somner, and three children--son Adam, and daughters Zoe and Talia (Clooney's ex-wife).

Despite all the years since Psycho, and all the countless other parts, it would still be Det. Arbogast for which he was best known, right to the end. One of his final roles, in fact, had come in the abysmal 1994 spoof The Silence of the Hams, in which he played "Det. Martin Balsam", an obvious parody of the Arbogast character.

Balsam's contribution to Hitchcock's classic film is a large one. It may have been just one job in a sprawling career in theater, cinema and television--but what a job it was. If you're going to be remembered for a single role, you can do a lot worse than have it come from one of the most popular and important motion pictures ever made.

So in honor of the Psycho Semi-Centennial, The Vault of Horror salutes you, Martin Balsam--and for the record, we're very glad you fell down those stairs.


For more Hitchcock goodness, check out yesterday's post on Hitch cameos. Plus, go take a look at a damn fine blog whose very title was inspired by the good detective--Arbogast on Film!

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Psycho Semi-Centennial: The Man Behind the Madman

Were it not for H.P. Lovecraft, Psycho might never have come into existence. Yes, despite Lovecraft's brand of horror being the complete opposite of what Psycho represents, the godfather of the weird and supernatural can take some credit for it's existence. This is due to his mentoring of the man who wrote the novel on which the film was based: Robert Bloch.

In the early 1930s, the teenaged Robert Bloch was an avid reader of the venerable horror pulp Weird Tales, and Howard Phillips Lovecraft was his favorite contributor by far. The youngster began a letter correspondence with the legendary author, who would later encourage his own burgeoning writing efforts. HPL even featured his enthusiastic fan as a character ("Robert Blake") in his short story "The Haunter of the Dark" (he killed him off in it.) And when Bloch made his first fiction sales at the age of 17 ("The Feast in the Abbey" and "The Secret in the Tomb"), they were to Weird Tales, where his work could appear alongside that of his idol.

By the time Lovecraft passed away in 1937, his young protege was well on the way to succeeding him as America's most gifted horror storyteller. At first, his stuff was heavily Lovecraftian in tone. Yet much later, his most famous work would be nothing like anything Lovecraft would've ever put to paper.

Robert Albert Bloch was born April 5, 1917 in Chicago, Illinois, the son of bank cashier Ray Bloch and his wife Stella Loeb, a social worker. He took to reading tales of the bizarre and fantastic from a young age, and soon began writing some on his own. Genre fiction would always be his great love, and his immense body of work would eventually come to include sci-fi, horror, mystery and crime.

Following Lovecraft's death, Bloch continued writing for Weird Tales, and also started contributing to lots of other pulps, including Amazing Stories. He wrote several tales within Lovecraft's own Cthulhu Mythos. Yet by the 1940s, he had begun experimenting with a different kind of horror from that of his mentor, weaving in elements of crime fiction to create a series of stories based on the cases of Jack the Ripper, the Marquis de Sade, Lizzie Borden and others.

As his career blossomed in the 1950s, Bloch became a major force in the world of genre fandom as it then existed. He was a prolific writer, authoring 29 novels (beginning with 1946's The Scarf) and countless short stories that appeared in magazines and anthologies. He would eventually capture the Hugo award, the Bram Stoker award and the World Fantasy award for his writing, and serve as president of the Mystery Writers of America.

Bloch also branched out into the world of filmed entertainment, crafting screenplays and contributing stories that would be used on TV and in the movies. He wrote scripts for the Boris Karloff-hosted horror TV anthology Thriller, and penned the scripts for the classic Star Trek episodes "Catspaw", "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" and "Wolf in the Fold" (which dealt with Jack the Ripper). His stories also inspired movies like William Castle's The Night Walker (1964), Strait-Jacket (1964), The House That Dripped Blood (1970) and Asylum (1972).

Yet it would be Bloch's first adapted story that would become by far his most famous, and forever enshrine him in the pantheon of iconic horror wordsmiths. It began as a kernel of an idea in his 1957 short story "The Really Bad Friend", which appeared in the pages of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. Then, in 1959 he wrote the novel Psycho, based loosely on the real-life case of another famous murderer, Ed Gein.

Psycho was the ultimate development of the approach Bloch had been developing for over a decade. It was a different kind of horror story, taking place in modern urban and suburban settings, with contemporary characters, and dealing with situations based in reality, instead of the supernatural. Yet this was no crime or detective story, as previous tales of this type had been--Psycho was a horror novel, of a very different kind.

And just as it was a landmark in horror fiction, it would be adapted in 1960 by screenwriter Joseph Stefano into something that would have just as groundbreaking an effect on horror film, if not even more so. As directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Bloch's novel became one of the most well-known horror stories of all time, and his character Norman Bates--though very different from the character as presented by Bloch--would be immortalized as horror's first thoroughly modern movie "monster", and the prototype of the movie slasher.

Bloch enjoyed great notoriety from the success of Psycho, and his profile in the world of horror fandom was certainly raised to dizzying heights. He would take part in the founding of the Horror Writers Association (HWA) of America. He continued writing prolifically, evening penning two sequel novels to Psycho (unrelated to the movie sequels) in 1982 and 1990.

In 1994, the 35th anniversary edition of the novel Psycho was published--a run of merely 500 copies, all autographed by Bloch. Mere months later, on September 23, 1994 Robert Bloch passed away in Los Angeles, California at the age of 77.

Just as his mentor had done some 30 years earlier with his stories in Weird Tales, so did Bloch revolutionize the horror genre with Psycho. For all his vast body of work, Robert Bloch will forever be identified by far with his 1959 novel, and rightfully so. It stands with the likes of The Maltese Falcon, Lord of the Rings and 1984 as one of the 20th century's most important genre novels.

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Psycho Semi-Centennial: This Movie's for the Birds

Welcome to the first installment of a brand new feature here in the VoH that will be running through 2010, celebrating the 50th anniversary of one of the finest horror films ever made (possibly the finest), Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. And no, contrary to what you might think from reading the title of this initial post, I'm not about to bash this seminal classic. Rather, I mean what I wrote in a very literal sense.

Let me explain. I won't be the first one to break any new ground here, as anyone who's ever taken a rudimentary film course is likely to have come up against this interesting phenomenon. Nevertheless, I've always been fascinated by it, and figured this would be the perfect opportunity to expound upon it. What I'm talking about is Hitchcock's very apparent avian obsession. Because there is a bird motif about a mile wide running through his 1960 masterpiece.

Hitch was a master of symbolism, and he weaves it all in with great dexterity, but it's there--watch the flick closely a couple times and the bird imagery will start hitting you in the face like guano from the sky.

Let's break it down, shall we?

• The opening shot of the film appears to occur in mid-air, as we approach the window-ledge of an apartment building. Like a bird flying over the city.

• Our story begins in the city of Phoenix. Phoenix, get it? The legendary bird that rises from its own ashes? Myth and folklore majors, quit looking through the unemployment section and help me out here.

• Our main character (well, until she's bumped off halfway in) is named Crane.

• This same woman is later described as "eating like a bird" by Norman Bates.

• Speaking of Norman, and this is a bit more abstract, but Anthony Perkins actually is somewhat bird-like in his physical features. I'm willing to bet this was a conscious casting criterion. (Oooh--alliteration!)

• OK, where was I? Oh, Norman. Yes, our favorite momma's boy has a creepy little hobby, doesn't he? Taxidermy! Specifically, stuffing dead birds. Many of which are birds of prey.

• My favorite of all: During Norman and Marion's lunch conversation, Norman turns away from her and twists his neck in a very odd way to look up at something. The camera shoots him at such an angle that the silhouette of his neck, chin and nose actually resemble the head of a bird. Check it out if you don't believe me -------->

• During conversation, Norman mentions that his mother is "as harmless as one of these stuffed birds". Hence directly comparing her to the predators.

• Bernard Herrmann's famous score, with its instantly recognizable screeching violins, literally sounds like birds attacking. And when do we hear it most prominently? During the shower murder scene.

• And finally, what was Hitchcock's next movie? Yeah, I think you know.

And there's lots more too, including the picture of the bird that Norman knocks off the wall upon "discovering" Marion dead in the bathroom (oops, spoiler y'all! *rolls eyes*). It's all there right in front of you--birds, birds, birds. But what's it all mean?

Well, this is where the wonderful world of film criticism comes in. I'm firmly of the belief that as long as you can back it up with evidence, then any theory of interpretation is valid--whether the filmmakers intended it or not. So I can't speak for Hitchcock, or even Robert Bloch for that matter, when trying to analyze this movie. Who knows why he did it, but I do not I have my own theory.

More than anywhere else, the bird motif seems to hinge upon Norman himself. Marion may be the one with the bird name, but Norman is the one actually represented as a bird-like character. Yet, he's certainly not a mature bird--rather, he's more a child, a weak little chick, who needs to be protected by his momma, the mother bird. The mother who is not only compared to a bird, but literally stuffed like one by Norman.

This mother bird is, even after her death and living only in the mind of her offspring, out to shelter and protect him from the harsh outside world. The home, or nest, is high on a hill, elevated off the ground like an actual nest. And it's most imperative that Norman, the baby bird, be kept in that nest, that he not leave and go out into the world to become a mature adult. In this way, the bird motif serves the purpose of driving home the relationship between Norman and his mother, how it warps his development, and how it informs his sublimated murderous rage.

Just a theory, but I'm pretty convinced of it after repeated viewings. Let me know if the bird thing has ever occurred any of you as well. And if it has, what's your take on it?

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