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Review by E.C.McMullen Jr. |
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PSYCHO- 1960USA (wide) Release: Sept. 8, 1960 Paramount Pictures / Universal Pictures Rating: : Argentina, Norway, Switzerland, West Germany: 16 / Australia: M / Chile: 18 / Finland: K-16 / France: -12 / France: -16 / Sweden, UK: 15 / USA: R |
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A Precursor to Italian Cinema's Giallo is Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO
This is the day that this (once) controversial movie finally opened wide across the nation. Picture after picture, Hitchcock had been working in glorious technicolor with big A-List actors, STARS, all of whom were clamoring to be in one of his movies, and he was contracted with Universal to direct the Technicolor process THE BIRDS.
But first he really wanted to direct PSYCHO. He was contracted with Paramount for one more picture and they didn't like it. But Alfred was too big a director to say "No" to and he was going to the competition to make his next, Technicolor Picture. Best make sure that Alfred will want to come back one day.
TRIVIA While in pre-production for making PSYCHO, Alfred Hitchcock (who, after over 50 successful films, had to mortgage his house to make this movie himself), was already set to make THE BIRDS (which was released in 1963). For THE BIRDS, he decided to reward PSYCHO screenwriter Joseph Stefano for sticking by him (Stefano later turned down THE BIRDS due to his own lack of interest). During post production work, Hitchcock chose PSYCHO music man Bernard Herrmann (although, ultimately, there was no music in THE BIRDS). For marketing purposes, Hitchcock included tons of bird references throughout PSYCHO including: Norman Bates middle name is Francis: patron saint of birds. Norman's hobby is taxidermy: specifically stuffing birds. The movie begins in Phoenix, Arizona. Janet Leigh's character of Marion, likewise that of Vera Miles who plays her sister, Lila, has the last name of Crane. The kind of animal that Norman would kill. Stuffed birds decorate the parlor of the Bates Motel and make Marion uncomfortable. Norman tells Marion that she "eats like a bird." Norman chides Marion darkly when he speaks of people who, "cluck their tongues and shake their heads." Pictures of birds in Marion's hotel room. Norman knocks a picture of a bird off the wall when he enters the shower, right after the Shower Scene. When actor Anthony Perkins understood what Hitchcock was going for, he tried to make Norman's behavior more "bird-like". In one instance Perkins bought candy corn to eat in a scene and used his hands to "peck" at the pieces as he ate them. Alfred loved it. RESOURCES |
It was 1959. Since 1935 Alfred Hitchcock had directed at least one movie every year and - except for the bloated over-budget VERTIGO - every single one was a hit: A Smash Hit!
Hitchcock turned his attention to television and his TV show was a hit: A Smash Hit!
There were times in the early years when no studio would fund Alfred's big budget movie so he raised the funding himself, made a startlingly great movie, and studios fought with each other over distribution rights.
Moreover, every movie Hitchcock made for Paramount was a box office bonanza: Every Single One.
Yet the Paramount suits were locked into the belief that sooner or later even the best directors go bust, they felt they were savvy enough to foresee it, and on paper PSYCHO looked to be it. So they gave Hitchcock a budget so small that he went out of pocket for what he needed.
The movie would have to be shot in black and white. Alfred wanted this because he'd grown weary of all of the complications of shooting iin color. French director, Henri-Georges Clouzot, found his French 1955 film, DIABOLIQUE, become a massive hit in the USAA and critics announced Henri "Out Hitchcocked Hitchcock!". It was a challenge Alfred felt he must meet.
Paramount was going to give it a limited run in only a few major cities. So as not to damage their relationship with him, when Hitchcock offered to forgo his $250K paycheck for 60% of the Box Office, they agreed and let Alfred him market it as he pleased.
But, they still wanted one big star. That would be Janet Leigh who, as we kknnow from the trailers, is the first victim (a stylistic choice that Wes Craven successfully repeated over 30 years later with SCREAM.)
He's made us a fortune in money and prestige, so let Al make his vainglorious baby, his artsy passion project, and get it out of his system.
PSYCHO got its tiny release. New York City for its June 16th premiere, and Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia on June 22 for its limited run.
Initially, big city Critics openly reviled it. Walt Disney himself called it "disgusting" and refused to ever allow Hitchcock to film anything on Disney sets, for having made PSYCHO. Paramount suits were all ready to say,
"You see, Al? You can't let success go to your head. Sometimes you gotta listen to us experts."
However, the television show Alfred Hitchcock Presents, running since 1955, remained top rated and Alfred was permitted to advertise PSYCHO there, in his own inimitable way. Which meant that all of the critical bad-mouthing had fans lining up around the block, waiting hours in line, in the sweltering summer, to see what the Hub Bub over PSYCHO was all about.
That made news. News is Free publicity.
Folks were sending letters to the studio, demanding the movie in THEIR town! Week after week after week, Hitchcock's low budget little black and white movie with small name talent beat all Star powered technicolor competition and stayed at #1.
Theaters across the nation were demanding it. Theater owners were making threats over having not got it. Paramount had to pony up the money for enough prints to go wide release!
That day was today - in 1960
and Alfred wound up making a fortune (over $150 million, adjusted for inflation). By the end of the year the critics who slammed it, were looking like idiots out of touch with their readers, and had a "change of heart". And Walt Disney? He apologetically ate crow and his studio provided special effects for Alfred's next movie, THE BIRDS.
Alfred remembered though, and didn't give Disney screen credit.
But why, in the brand new 1960 space age of free television, did audiences keep suffering in the hot summer months, standing outside to see PSYCHO over and over?
By this time in his life Alfred understood the public in general and his audience in particular. There was no one more expert than he in knowing what his audience wanted from him specifically, and he knew how to give it to them.
Because of Alfred's endearing droll yet morbid wit in introducing each episode on his hit TV show, he became a Star Celebrity Director. He was past the point of needing expensive A-List actors anymore. The audience was no longer going to see an Ingrid Bergman, Jimmy Stewart, or Carey Grant movie.
They were flocking to see an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
This was the canny dynamic that Alfred Hitchcock created to insure that his movies would remain hits and in theaters long after their initial theater run - even after his death - decades before the movie term "Easter Egg" was coined.
Read contributor James Futch's review of the first DVD disc release of Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO.
Copyright 2022 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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