All language subtitles for 1 Mof (1997).en

Good evening.
I have some news
that will delight you.

Murder is not dead.

I do not refer to
the ones splashed all
over the front pages.

Those are in such bad taste.

I refer to those exquisite
murders that have
a touch of the bizarre.

And which take fiendish
ingenuity to solve.

Those are alive and well.

One will be presented
for your shivering
delight immediately.

Is anything wrong?

MARION: Am I acting
as if there's something wrong?

MAN: Hey!

Your girlfriend
stole $40,000.

NORMAN: Where are you going?

I'm looking for
a private island.

You mean an institution?
A madhouse?

OFFICER: There are plenty
of motels in this area.

She spent last
Saturday night
at the Bates Motel.

We just keep on
lighting the lights and
following the formalities.

This is the first place
that looks like it's
hiding from the world.

I'm sure there's something
wrong out there and
I have to know what.

My mother...

She isn't quite
herself today.

Norman Bates' mother has
been dead and buried

in Green Lawn Cemetery
for the past 10 years.

I declare!

MRS. BATES: Don't you
touch me! Don't!

Put me down!

SAM: I don't like you going
into that house alone.

I can handle
a sick old woman.

It's not as if she were

a maniac.

She just goes a little
mad sometimes.

We all go a little
mad sometimes.

ROBERTSON: We were on
North by Northwest,

and we weren't looking for
the next one particularly.

And it wasn't until
we finished shooting

and we were preparing
for post-production,

and Hitch would read
the New York Times
book section.

He would read it over
the weekend or bring it
into the office on Monday.

And we saw this very
good review by Boucher

on this book Psycho.

So Hitch said,
"Call Paramount and
get coverage on it."

But Paramount hadn't
covered it.

And Hitch went
over to England,

and as he was
at the airport,

he saw the shelves
of this book, Psycho.

So he called me and said,
"Haven't you got coverage
from Paramount yet?"

And I said,
"No, Paramount
didn't cover it."

So he said, "All right."
He got the book,

and he read it going over,
and he called back
from London to say,

"I got our next
subject, Psycho."

It is a much more
violent book
than it is a movie.

You know, the girl gets
beheaded in the shower,

as opposed to simply
stabbed to death.

But the book is mild
by comparison with
the fact of Ed Gein.

This is one of those
series of murders that
so shocked the nation,

that it became part
of American mythology.

And we weren't
around in 1960,

so it's hard to
know how the facts
impacted the fiction.

But one's got to assume
that one of the reasons why

both the book and the
movie are so successful

is because people knew that,
albeit remotely, they
were based on truth.

The contemporary can't
speak of the police,

who I think were
a tough bunch of people

still being totally appalled
at what they found inside.

Here's a guy out
in Wisconsin, the wilds
of Wisconsin,

who does in a whole
bunch of his neighbors
and his mother.

And these were
innocent women

who had committed no crime
against this man whatsoever,

they just happened
to be his neighbors.

I mean, this was obviously
a crazy, sad man,

and who became
a piece of American
mythology, I think.

And he is the underpinning
of Bloch's book,

but he obviously
is there, dare it
we say this, in spirit,

in The Texas Chain
Saw Massacre pictures

and arguably in
Silence of the Lambs.

What I think the movie
does spectacularly well,
and perversely,

is bring a curious
glamour to the character
of Norman Baltes.

In the book, he's this
pudgy, rather non-descript,
short, balding man.

And, of course, in the movie,
it's one of the great
performances of cinema,

and one of the defining,

actually the defining
performance of
Anthony Perkins' career,

and one of
those performances
everybody knows

even if you've never
seen the movie.

Everybody knows
Norman Bates.

It's not as if she were

a maniac, a raving thing.

She just goes a little
mad sometimes.

We all go a little
mad sometimes.

We were looking for a writer,
and someone suggested
James Cavanagh,

who wrote some of
the Alfred Hitchcock
Presents television shows.

I don't remember the
meetings that they had,

but when we got the
treatment, we read it,

and it was very dull.

If you can imagine
a dull script written
from the book of Psycho.

It just didn't
have anything.

Then it was decided,
"Well, we need another writer.
Who are we going to get?"

And then, names
were suggested.

And Hitch thought a lot
of Ned Brown,

and Ned suggested
Joseph Stefano.

My involvement with Psycho
began through my
agent Ned Brown,

who was determined
that I should work
with Hitchcock.

And Hitchcock had seen
the two things that I
had done prior to that,

and wasn't terribly
impressed with them,

and also didn't care too
much to work with young,
new writers.

So, Ned persisted
and Mr. Hitchcock gave in.

When I met Mr. Hitchcock
at my first meeting,

I had to convince him that
I could write this movie.

And I felt that the best
way to do it would be

to simultaneously interest him
in how I saw it being done,

and solve the main
problem of the material,

which was a boy
with a dead mother,

and we weren't supposed
to know she was dead.

So, I conceived of the story
being about Marion,

lovely young lady who's having
a disastrous affair with
a man who can't marry her.

She's a rather moral girl.

She wants to get married.

And she says, "We can't meet
in hotel rooms anymore.
We're not going to do this."

And he kind of laughs
it off, almost, doesn't
really believe her.

And this only heightens
her frustration, once
she gets back to the office.

She suddenly has a
large sum of money in
cash in her hand.

And in a moment of madness,
decides to steal it.

So, she steals it,

and is going to
go to her boyfriend
and give it to him,

which in itself is
a preposterous notion,
that he would accept it.

And she drives and gets
lost in a rainstorm, and
then finds the motel,

and goes into the motel,
and talks to the young
man who runs the motel,

and begins to realize
that he is in a trap

and she has just put
herself in a trap.

And that she's got
to get out of it,

and she decides
to return the money,

and she feels good
about this, and she takes
a very cleansing shower,

and someone comes
in and murders her.

And at that moment,

Hitch said,
"We could get a star
to play that part."

And I knew
I had the job,

because he liked that whole
introduction to the movie.

He liked the fact
that it was going
to be about her.

And then we were
suddenly going to do
this awful thing to you,

and say, "No, no, it's not
about her, it's about him."

My first meeting with
Hitchcock took place at his
offices at Paramount Studios.

Psycho was a
Paramount picture.

And he was, as always,
as I would soon
be learning,

immaculately dressed,
dark suit, white shirt,
beautiful tie,

sat behind his desk,
rarely moved away
from his desk,

and very warm,

I found coming from him
a kind of warmth that was
not that common

amongst directors
in those days,
nor is it today.

But it was a wonderful,
wonderful kind of rapport.

And his interests
were charming.

He asked me things about
myself, and I told him
that I was in analysis.

And that as a matter of fact,
I had just come from a
session with my analyst.

And he was very, very
curious about that, but
always in a very polite way,

but he truly wanted to
know what was going on.

And I thought that he
probably felt that there was
more to writing a movie

than simply talking about
the movie, and I was right.

The next day,
after the first meeting,

we began talking about
this movie that we were
going to make, called Psycho.

We never mentioned
the book again and we never
referred to the book again.

And there was never any talk
about dialogue or motivation.

The thing that was
a little bit scary at
that point in my life

about the way Hitchcock worked
was that he would not discuss

motivations and characters
and why people are doing it.

He felt that was my job.

If I asked him any kind
of question like that,

he would say,
"Well, that's up
to you, Joseph."

And I realized early on that
he had faith in the writer

or he did not have faith.

And if he didn't,
I don't think you'd
be working with him.

And he did
an interesting
thing though,

which kind of amused me
and touched me.

After we had been
talking daily for about
a week and a half,

he said that he and his wife
were taking a cruise.

And he said, "While I'm gone,
why don't you write that first
scene in the hotel room?"

And I said,
"Fine, I'll do that."

And I wrote it, and
when he came back,

we resumed our meetings
and I gave him the scene.

And the next morning,
he said to me,
"Alma loved it."

And I was very touched
'cause obviously
he liked it, too,

but it was lovely of
him to tell me how his
wife felt about it.

Because that was
a little easier
for him to do,

he was not
a sentimental man.

Or he was, but would
not show it, let's
put it that way.

My mother was the one who
really was in on everything
from the very, very beginning.

When he would find a story
that he was anxious to do,
he would have her read it.

If she didn't think it
would make a picture,
he didn't touch it.

And then she would be
the first one to read
the treatment

and the screenplay,
and she was even in on
a lot of the casting, too.

And it was wonderful
when she died,

Charles Champlin of the
Los Angeles Times said,

"The Hitchcock touch had
four hands and two
of them were Alma's."

She used to come to the
office quite often while
we were working on it.

And one day was a very, very
terrifying experience

when we were
working on Psycho.

We were talking about
Norman wrapping the body
in the shower curtain,

and ways to do it without
showing the dead body.

And Hitch got up and came
around his desk, and I was
sitting there on the sofa,

and he began to act out,
and he said, "The camera
line is here.

"And Norman is doing this,
and he drags her out,

"now he very neatly folds
the curtain over her."

And as he was doing this,
the door opened,

and Alma came in,
but it was such a shock,

because nobody but Alma
would ever open that door
and come in

without a phone call
or something.

And at the moment,
we were so involved
in this scene,

and to have the door
burst open and somebody
come in was quite shocking.

In my very first meeting
with Hitchcock, he said,

"This is going to be
a black and white movie,

"and it's going to cost
under a million dollars."

And I was flabbergasted
because I had never

conceived of Hitchcock,
at that point in his life,

making a movie for less
than a million dollars.

That's exactly what he
wanted to do, he said,

"First of all, I cannot
make this picture in color,
because it will be too gory."

And he said, "Secondly, I want
to make it, as simply, for as
little money as possible,

"and I'm going to
use the TV crew."
And that's what he did.

He used the crew that
was working on his show
Alfred Hitchcock Presents,

and he used them
for Psycho.

And he mentioned another
company that was making
very low budget movies,

which were not terribly
good, and were doing very
well at the box office.

And his feeling was,
"How would it be

"if somebody good
did one of these
low budget movies?"

I think Mr. Hitchcock
was at the end of his
contract with Paramount

and he had already
moved to Universal.

And I don't think
they were pleased
with that idea.

I don't think they had
a great deal of interest
in a low budget film.

Especially when he had
gone to MGM and done
North by Northwest

and now he was
at Universal.

And this was, I think,
the last of his contractual
obligation to Paramount.

So Psycho was a unique
motion picture in the fact

that it was
a Paramount release,

a Shamley Production
made at Universal Studios.

Shamley Productions
was owned outright
by Mr. Hitchcock.

In the book, Norman Bates is
actually a middle-aged man,

a reprobate, drinks,
overweight,

wears big thick glasses,
peeps through holes.

I thought he was incredibly
unsympathetic.

I didn't like him.

So, when Marion gets killed,

I'm then expected to switch
my empathy toward this man

and I couldn't do it with the
character as he was written.

So, I perceived a young man,
vulnerable, good looking,

kind of sad, makes you
feel sorry for him.

And Hitchcock said,
"What would you think
of Tony Perkins?"

And of course,
that was practically
what I had described.

Once I had written the first
draft, which incidentally,
is the one that he shot,

he told me that Anthony
Perkins was available
to play Norman Bates.

I had told him
that was sensational,

and that was
what was going to happen.

He mentioned Janet Leigh
for the star part,

because he felt, among
other things, that no one
would be able to accept

that we had killed her
this early in the movie.

The first thing that happened
was that I received the
novel by Robert Bloch

from Mr. Hitchcock.

He sent me this small novel
with a note that said,

"Please consider
the role of Mary."

It was Mary in the novel.

"And of course, there will be
changes, and so you know,

"Anthony Perkins
Is going to play
Norman Bates."

And he said, "The script
has not been written,

"but so you know
what the essence
of the story is."

Well, when I received
this, I didn't even have
to read it, but I did,

only because the opportunity
of working with Mr. Hitchcock
was enough for me.

But I dutifully read it,
as I was supposed to,

and I finished it.
I was very intrigued.

I mean, it was so different.
It was such a departure,

and such an unusual
approach to a movie.

And, so, of course,
I just said, "Yes."

(SCREAMING)

I had been
asked subsequently,

"Didn't that ever bother
you that the role of Mary,

"Marion in the script,
was ended so abruptly?"

And it never did.

It never occurred to me
that that would be a problem.

That didn't even
enter my head.

The whole thing that
I concentrated on was,

one, working
with Mr. Hitchcock,

and two, the anticipation
of what was he going
to do with this.

I couldn't wait to see
how he would solve this

and weave his magic spell,
and get this project
to the public.

As it was getting closer,
Mr. Hitchcock called and asked
if we could have a meeting,

"Of course."

For several reasons,
one, he wanted to sort of
have a discussion

about his modus operandi.

I mean, how he worked
on the set and how
he used his camera,

explained to me how
his camera was absolute,

and that, as a director,
he had confidence that

I would bring to Marion
what it needed.

If I had any problems,
by all means he would
be there to help me

if I should need it.

He said, "The only
sort of control

"is that my camera has
to be the focal point."

In other words,
"When my camera moves,
you have to move."

And he said, "If you have
a problem with that, I can
help you with the motivation

"to move on that point."

And I know that many of
the performers who have
worked with Mr. Hitchcock

feel that they were
perhaps hindered or
cramped in style, say,

because they were asked
to move at a certain
definite point.

I took it more
as a challenge.

In other words, I thought,
"Well, that's my job.

"So, I can find my own
motivation, thank you
very much."

I mean, it was really
a challenge to me as
an actress to rethink

and find my own motivation
to move at the time he
wanted me to move.

That's how I took it.

And I must say, I think
that's how he offered it.

I don't think he offered
it as a way to stumble
or block you.

I think he offered it as
a challenge, "You do
your job, I do mine."

And he would expect
someone to adapt to it

and to find their own
reason to move,

and if not, he was there
as the director to help you.

So, I never understood
that antithesis

that happened
with some people,

but I can understand it,
but it just doesn't seem
warranted to me.

The other reason
for the meeting was

he had hoped to fit me
with contact lenses
for the last shot,

when the camera is
on the eye and pulls
back into the wide shot,

thinking that the contact
lenses would give the look
of nothing, deadness,

as opposed to
what I could do.

And we went,
and unfortunately
at that time,

that long ago,
the contact lenses weren't

as sophisticated
as they are today,

and it would've taken
six weeks for me to be
able to get used

to wearing the contact
lenses, and so we
couldn't use them.

And so he said,

"Well, you're going to have
to go it alone, old girl."

Yes, miss?

I'm Marion's sister.

Oh, sure. Lila.

Is Marion here?

GREEN: Vera Miles was groomed
for the part in Vertigo,

and she became
pregnant prior to that.

And Mr. Hitchcock got
rather upset with Vera.

But she came back on Psycho
to play the sister.

(GASPS)

STEFANO: Vera Miles had been
under contract to Hitchcock

and she owed him
one more picture.

And this seemed like
a small part, the sister.

But actually, it wasn't and
it was very necessary to get
an actress of that stature

to play the part in order
to continue to keep the
audience with her.

Because at an early point
in the movie,

we asked you to forget
everybody you loved

and like these people.

And that's a very
hard thing to do.

You need incredibly subtle
performances to get that.

And I think Vera gave it.

Sam, we have to go into
that cabin and search it,

no matter what we're
afraid of finding or
how much it may hurt.

I know.

STEFANO: Gavin was under
contract with Universal,

where the movie was
going to be shot.

We saw some film on him,

a movie he had done at
Universal, and liked him
very much

and decided
to go with him.

Is anyone at home?
No.

Oh? There's somebody
sitting up in the window.

No, no, there isn't.
Sure, go ahead.
Take a look.

GREEN: Martin Balsam came
out of New York

and Mr. Hitchcock, he always
leaned to New York actors

on a great many of
his character roles.

In a lot of his pictures,
if you'll remember,

these people were
New York either stage,
or in those days,

there was Playhouse 90
and Climax! which
was made in New York,

and a lot of fine actors
were based in New York.

But Martin Balsam,
he cast out of New York,
wonderful actor.

Have you got
some aspirin?

I've got something,
not aspirin.

My mother's doctor
gave them to me the
day of my wedding.

Teddy was furious when
he found out I'd taken
tranquilizers.

I'd always wanted
to be an actress.

I think the first time I really
knew I wanted to be was
when I was seven years old

and I was in England
in boarding school.

And I played two parts
there, and then I came
over here with my parents

when my father came
over to make Rebecca.

There were a lot of parts
I thought I could've
played in his pictures.

But he would only cast
me if I was exactly
right for the part.

At the time of Psycho,
I was married.

I had been married in 1952,
so I wasn't living at home.

So, wasn't in on all
the early pre-production.

But he said to me, "There's
a part in the new picture
that I would love you to do."

So I did, but he had
picked me for that part.

He was flirting with you.

I guess he must've
noticed my wedding ring.

STEFANO: Hitch's feeling
about the movie was that
it had to be kept secret.

That the fun of it,
the magic of it would exist

in your not knowing
the truth about the story.

Up until the last moment,
you had to believe that
the mother was alive.

Therefore, he didn't
want me to discuss
the script with anybody.

Didn't want anybody
talking about it.

I don't think many people knew
what we were doing, really.

I mean, my friends knew
I was working on a
movie with Hitchcock,

but they didn't know
what it was.

Had no visitors on the set.

It was a very closed
shop and that was
the way he wanted it.

And he decided that
if he spread some rumors
about casting the mother

in the movie,

this would simply solidify it,
certainly amongst the
Hollywood people.

And they were the ones
he was most worried about.

Because if they knew what
the story was about, then
the public would find out.

So he did get word around

that he was looking
for someone to play
Anthony Perkins' mother.

And the agents piled on
with their suggestions.

So, it was a hoax that
worked to the benefit
of the picture, I think.

And to the benefit of
the audience who would
ultimately be seeing it.

GREEN: Psycho was shot
mainly on the back
lot of Universal.

Originally, he wanted
the opening shot to be
a helicopter shot.

Hitchcock was always ahead
of his time in the type
of shots he wanted to get.

And at that time,
he wanted a helicopter
to come in

with the city of Phoenix
in the far background

and just titles over
the slow-moving

move-in shot, move-in shot,
move-in shot to a hotel,

I think, it was on Adams
Street in Phoenix.

And go through
the window

and discover John Gavin
and Janet Leigh

in a hotel room,
to open his movie.

And we tried, and we tried,
and we tried, and
just for title shots,

it was just too jerky
and bumpy and moving,

and it was before the camera
mounts that you have today,

and all of that,
we didn't have that.

And we couldn't do it.

So Hitchcock came
up with the idea
of a wide pan.

Wide pan, wide pan,
going in like that,
in through the window.

LEIGH: The opening scene
obviously was a key scene,

to set the stage
for Mr. Hitchcock's
manipulation.

Because if you're seeing
Psycho for the first time,

and you see the opening
scene, this is going to
be a story of this romance.

And then when Marion leaves
and meets Tony Perkins,

then obviously,
it's going to be two guys
and this girl, or woman,

and which one is
she going to go with?

That's the obvious plot.

So, it was very important
that this scene had
the proper passion.

Why don't you call
your boss and tell him

you're taking the rest
of the afternoon off?

Friday anyway, and hot.

LEIGH: So, John Gavin
is a gentleman.

John Gavin is
a true gentleman.

A wonderful man,
and very decent,
and sort of honorable.

So, to do the opening scene...

And I hadn't known
John Gavin well.
I had met him,

but to start off with this
kind of a scene the first
day of shooting

was, I think, awkward.

And so we did the scene,
and Mr. Hitchcock
was not pleased.

And so he took me aside,
and he said,

"Janet,

"I'm not quite getting
the passion

"that I think should come
across for this scene.

"Do you think you
could do something?"

And I said,
"Well, I'll do my best."

And, so, I did.

(LAUGHS)

STEFANO: Hitchcock's
only reference to his
cameo in Psycho

came early on in
our work on the movie.

Actually what he said
to me was,

"You may know, Joseph,
that I always appear in
one scene in my movies."

And I said, "Yes,
I think I noticed that."

And he said,
"I'm going to have to
do it early in this one."

And he was
absolutely right,

because once you got
to that murder scene,

any interruption by seeing
Hitchcock on the screen
would've been disastrous.

It got to be a very,
very hard thing.

It started through
a thing of necessity
in silent movies,

when you needed people
in it, and so everybody
on the set would go in it.

And then because he
was so different looking
and rather rotund,

people started
recognizing him.

And then, it started
becoming very,
very difficult,

and especially after
the TV show, when he
got to be so well known.

Good evening.

And then people would see
him and say, "There he is,"
or they would wait and look.

So he had to do it,
usually, at the very
beginning of a movie,

before he was
creating any mood or
anything like that.

And it did get to
be rather hard
for him to do it.

So, he decided to do it
outside the place
where Marion works,

which was fine, because
it was at a break early
enough in the movie.

Is Mr. Lowery
back from lunch?

He's lunching with the
man who's buying the
Harris Street property.

You know, the oil lease man.
That's why he's late.

That scene didn't really
mean anything.

We hadn't established
any direct plot or
anything like that.

I never carry more
than I can afford to lose.

Count them!

I declare!

I don't. That's how
I get to keep it.

LEIGH: I think he wanted
to bring a bit of lightness
into the beginning.

So that it would then
contrast with the blackness

that you were going
into right after that.

I figured that Marion's
around 30, something
like that.

And she sees her
life flitting away.

So, when this
opportunity presents
itself with the money,

it was important that the
audience know this woman,

know that she's
a good person,

but know her frailties,
know her weaknesses,

and in a moment of weakness,
she took the money.

And then started
to pay for it.

HITCHCOCK: My father was
petrified of policemen

because apparently
his father, when
he was a child,

knew the local
police person,

and my father had
done something wrong,

I doubt anything
very much.

And, so, they said,
"Well, we're going
to take you over

"and you're going
to have to go to
the police station."

Now, the story is that
they put him in a jail cell.

I highly doubt that.
I would say he was
probably put in a room

and left by himself for
a while, and that's it.

Because he was always
petrified of policemen.

So that part, that scene
where Janet is driving
with the policeman,

that was the menace.

To him, you couldn't
have anything more
menacing than that.

LEIGH: Most of my stuff
was done in the studio.

The only actual location
was at the used car lot,

which was shot
very near the studio.

But it's funny.

I love working in a studio
because it's controlled.

You can control
the camera,

you can control the lights,
you can control the sound.

That's where you make
pictures, is in a studio.

When you're working
on location, everything
has to be adapted,

and it's more difficult
for all concerned,
especially technically.

HITCHCOCK:
Now, he hated location.
He loathed location.

He didn't want to
go on any location
unless he had to.

Because he said, "It
costs you a lot of money.

"It costs you twice
what it's gonna cost
you on the set.

"You then have to come
back and re-dub everything

"because of all the noise
that goes on, you know."

So, he really
didn't like it,
really didn't like it.

MAN: Hey!

LEIGH: She is not a thief.
She's a very bad thief.

I mean, she is clumsy.

She obviously can't disguise
what she's feeling.

She's so obvious,
because she's not
practiced,

so this is
not her nature.

But it's a grasp. It's a
desperate grasp at life.

The only satisfaction almost
was that on the ride,

she just imagined what
they were saying back home.

LOWERY: Oh, for heaven's sake.

A girl works for you for
10 years, you trust her.

All of that dialogue
that she imagines,

Mr. Hitchcock knew
exactly the timing.

I mean, he knew what lines
he was going to use voiceover.

So, he did them.

He said to me the lines
that I was imagining hearing.

And, so, as he was saying it,
I could imagine just what
was being said,

which was kind of fun,
thinking,

"Oh, well, that creepy guy
who had the money anyway

"deserves not to have it."

CASSIDY: Hot creepers!
She sat there while
I dumped it out!

Hardly even looked at it.
Planning. And even
flirting with me!

That's the really only
sort of pleasurable
moment she had, really,

until she meets someone
who is more mixed up and
more confused than she.

And she was able to
realize she can't go
that route, either.

GREEN: The design of the motel
and the famous Psycho house,

it was supposed to
be located somewhere
in central California.

There was never a town
specifically named.

We always felt that it
was up around Tulare,
somewhere up in that area.

The basic thing that
we had to have with
the house and the motel,

the house had to
stand above the motel,

there had to be
the steps down
to the motel.

There had to be an angle
from the motel

that you could see from
the window up to the house.

These were all designed
prior, and then laid out

after the script,
of course.

I remember one night,
we were on the back lot,

and it was early
in the production,

and I had as an
assistant director
really done my homework

because this was
my first feature
with Mr. Hitchcock.

I didn't want it
to be my last.

And I thought I was
really prepared,

and it was the shot
where Janet Leigh drives
up to the motel at night,

and it's pouring rain,
and Norman comes
down the stairs,

and everything was
ready to go, the rain.

We had rehearsed
the rain and everything.

We were all set to roll
the cameras, and we
turned on the rain,

and Mr. Hitchcock
said, "Cut,"

and he said, "Hilton,
you didn't prepare
this very well."

And I was shocked.
"What's wrong?"

And he pointed up there,
and sure enough, what
was coming up over

behind on the back
lot at Universal,
but a full moon.

Here we are in a big
rainstorm and the moon
in the background.

I had done everything
but looked at the charts

and found out when
the full moon was.

So, what we did hurriedly,

and to this day,
I'll never forget the
wonderful grip crew we had.

We had two grips
with a Century stand

and a long pole
and some blacks,

and they followed that
moon all night and blocked
it out from the camera.

Dirty night.

You have a vacancy?

Oh, we have 12 vacancies.
Twelve cabins, 12 vacancies.

Tony Perkins, well,
he was just a master.

It was a joy
to come to work,

and there was always
an excitement for me,

because it was like
you knew what you wanted
to bring to the scene,

but the excitement was
you didn't know what
he was going to bring.

And obviously, what
he brought then sparked
more from you in response.

And so, it was just
a wonderful experience

to the anticipation of
what was gonna happen,

what more were we going
to get today than we
thought was there.

He had a wonderful
sense of humor,
wonderful sense of humor.

Very dry, you know.

He was a good friend,
he was a wonderful husband,

dear and loving father.
I mean, he was
not Norman Bates.

But he was
just so brilliant

that the people said,
"Yes, you are. You are,
too, Norman Bates."

We had a lot of
laughs together.

We also had a lot of
serious conversations.

I told him early on
about having seen him in
Look Homeward, Angel,

and how he impressed
me in that,

and that I had used
the image of him on
stage for Norman Bates,

and he was pleased with that.

He knew exactly what scene
I was talking about in
Look Homeward, Angel.

Then I told him that I
felt that Norman Bates,

if he were a painting,
would be painted by Hopper,

and he agreed.

And so, we had kind
of that discussion,

writer and actor
about the character.

He had an incredible
grasp on Norman Bates,

and the situation
that he was in.

I think Tony Perkins
must have known what it
was like to be trapped.

I think that

we're all in our
private traps,

clamped in them,
and none of us
can ever get out.

We scratch and claw,

but only at the air,
only at each other.

And for all of it,
we never budge an inch.

In some ways, somehow,
he knew what trapped
meant, just as I did.

And while we didn't talk
about that aspect of it,

it was clear to me early on

that he was becoming
Norman Bates.

As a matter of fact, I think
he had a hard time shedding
Norman Bates after Psycho.

MRS. BATES: I won't have you
bringing strange young
girls in for supper!

By candlelight, I suppose,
in the cheap, erotic fashion

of young men with
cheap, erotic minds!

NORMAN: Mother, please.

I felt that
the mother theme

was not only vital
to the movie,
it was vital to me,

because I was in analysis
because of that.

So, I felt that everyone
would have some kind
of strong connection

with the mother,
whoever that happened to be.

And as a matter of fact, the
line about turning Mother's
picture to the wall

had to do with
that very thing.

We can even have dinner.

But respectably.

In my house, with my mother's
picture on the mantel

and my sister helping me broil
a big steak for three.

And after the steak,

do we send sister to
the movies, turn Mama's
picture to the wall?

Sam!

STEFANO: Also with the part
that Pat Hitchcock played,
and her line.

Any calls?

Teddy called me.
My mother called to
see if Teddy called.

So, this intertwining
of people

and their attachment to the
mother was very important.

I had even tried that in
a line in my own first draft,

not the one I gave
to Hitchcock.

I had even tried to work that
into the man with the money,

the man with the $40,000.

And it sounded like
then I was hitting
one note too heavily.

So, ljustletit go
with that, but the whole
point of it was to say,

Mother somehow is always
there, and it made her alive.

Mother... My mother...

What is the phrase?

She isn't quite herself today.

So, a lot of the lines
in the early scenes

were designed to keep you
from thinking, "Why aren't
we seeing her?"

I think the wonderful
thing about Mr. Hitchcock's
approach to movies,

and his movies obviously
exemplify that,

is the bait
that he gives us,

and certain themes that he
carries through in his movies.

There was always a connection
between food and death

and food and sex,
and it was always
put out there.

You never did eat
your lunch, did you?

You... You eat like a bird.

And you'd know, of course.

Food in Mr. Hitchcock's
pictures was always
very important.

And going back to
many of his movies,

you'll find that there was
a correlation with food in
some part of the plot.

Well, the corpse was
deep in rigor mortis.

He had to break the fingers
of the right hand to
retrieve what they held.

You know, it would be
so nice to get back to
plain bread in this house.

A few years ago,
Mother met this man.

GREEN: He interwove eating
scenes or discussing it

with what was going on,
on the screen.

And the way he died...

I guess it's nothing to talk
about while you're eating.

GREEN: There was also
Tony Perkins, and it was
his idea, I believe,

of the Halloween candy
that he was always eating
throughout the movie.

RIGGS: I really remember
in the prep of Psycho,

I think it was one of the
most important questions
for Mr. Hitchcock,

"Will we do white lingerie
or black lingerie?"

And I think he is
a humorous moralist.

So, he started out
with the white bra

which was very daring
in those days, you know.

LEIGH: Mr. Hitchcock was
so absolute and thorough,
including wardrobe,

as white to show
before she stole the money,

the black when she
had become a thief.

RIGGS: Censorship at that
time was quite stringent,

and we were concerned
about showing a
workable kind of bra.

Usually in the '50s,

you never showed
the workings of engineering.

You always had a lovely
full slip over it,

probably with lots of
little lace and whatnot.

So, this was quite daring.

And then, of course,
when we saw her again,
it was a black bra.

So, he got the best
of both worlds.

LEIGH: I don't know how many
people are aware of
the fact that Psycho

was actually the
first time that a toilet
was seen in a movie,

and actually flushed
in a movie.

Before that, bathrooms
never showed a toilet.

I guess nobody ever
went to the bathroom
in those movies,

but it was
just not allowed.

I said to Hitch that
I would like to see the
toilet in the bathroom.

I said, "Every movie I have
ever seen of a bathroom,
there's no toilet in it.

"And I would like to
see that toilet.

"I think the audience
will be unsettled by
the sight of it."

An audience that had
never seen a toilet on
screen was going to have

some kind of perhaps
subconscious reaction to it.

And Hitch laughed,
because he thought I was
into my Freudian kick,

and talking about what
toilets mean and potties
and stuff like that.

And we talked about it,
and he said,

"Well, put it in the script.
Say that we see the toilet."

And instead of saying just
in the body of the directions,

"We see the toilet..."

I thought that will be struck
down so fast that we won't
know what's happening.

I had her make up the
little note of the money
that she had spent,

then tear it up,
and throw it in the
toilet and flush it.

And I said to Hitch,
"Do you think they'll
let us do that?"

And he said,
"Well, it's your script.
You talk to them."

There wasn't too much
comment about the toilet.

I expected more
objections on that.

And, otherwise,
we didn't really have
any trouble with them.

But I thought it was great
of Hitchcock to let me go
and fight the battle,

because, after all,
he hadn't told me to
put the toilet in it.

So, what he was teaching
me as a new young writer

was that, "You say it.
You fight for it."

LEIGH: At that time, 1959,
when we shot it,

we weren't allowed
to show nudity.

He never asked me, and I
never assumed, or even
thought that he would,

because we couldn't
show it anyway.

The problem was what
to wear, so that it
looked like I was nude.

I mean, that was the biggest
problem of all.

Rita Riggs, the wardrobe
girl, and I pored over

these stripteaser
magazines that showed
all the different costumes,

but none of them
worked, because

they all had whirligigs
on them or something.

But we were just
looking for something
that was very simple.

That's when Miss Janet
Leigh and I probably
became very acquainted,

because as a set girl
at the time, it was my
job to piece together,

and do a setup with
the camera, and see
what would show.

And she came up with the
idea of this plain moleskin

which is used for blisters.

Dancers use it to put over
a sore spot because it's
adhesive on one side,

and then it's soft,
almost flannel-like on
the outside and it's nude.

You know,
the nude color.

And you cut and you glue,
and suddenly, you know,

I was very adept
with scissors and paste.

You put that over parts
of your body, then
everything is copacetic.

STEFANO: The shower scene,
as I wrote it, was not broken
down into the shots

that we would
ultimately use.

There was no storyboard
on it when I wrote it.

I just described the fact
that she gets into the shower,

and then someone comes in
with a knife and kills her.

In the book, it says
that her head was cut off.

And I wrote enough in
my description of the
murder scene

to make sure that no one
thought we were going to
cut Janet Leigh's head off.

And I don't think that
Hitchcock ever really
imagined that.

But Hitch had very
strong ideas about that scene.

So, at that point,
Saul Bass came in and
did a storyboard on it.

Over the years,
this rumor sprung up

that Saul Bass had directed
the shower scene.

I have heard that
Saul Bass said he directed
the shower scene,

that he was the one
that physically directed it.

I want to put that
to rest right now.

I was on the set every
second of every foot of film
that we shot on Psycho,

and Mr. Bass never
directed a scene
in that motion picture.

Mr. Hitchcock directed
every scene in that picture.

Mr. Bass got full credit
for what he did, and what
he did was brilliant.

I mean, his storyboard,
his drawings,

of how he thought
the shower should...
You know, the angle...

What Mr. Hitchcock...

They conferred, and he said,
"Show me what it's gonna look
like from this angle.

"And from this, and from that,
because what I want to
do is make a montage.

"Show me what it's gonna
look like, so I can get in
my mind the flash cuts."

And he drew them very
beautifully and graphically.

Also, his titles
were wonderful.

But to say
that he directed it,

I tell you that no one
directed that scene
except Mr. Hitchcock.

The famous shower sequence
of Psycho was shot on
a set that was no more

than 12 feet by 12 feet.

It was a very small,
confined set.

The shower sequence
took up one-third of my
shooting time, actually.

I think I worked three
weeks on the movie,

and the shower sequence
took seven days,

seven shooting days.

So, that was a good
hunk of my work.

For the assistant director,
who is kind of

in charge of the schedule

and the time and the hours,
etcetera, etcetera.

The number of shots
we had to do in there,

and they weren't difficult
for Mr. Hitchcock to
direct and to take time.

Once we rolled
the cameras,

it was a matter of seconds
of getting the shot.

It was up to Jack Russell,
the cinematographer,
to light each setup,

and to move
the camera around,

from shooting straight
down, to straight up,

to cross angles,
to into the water.

I mean, it was tedious
for him in the time
that it took to light.

And then, of course,
we had to have
the warm water,

because we kept
running out of that.

We had tanks, and
had to heat them and
keep them heated.

There were many things
we had to do that were
behind the scenes.

The actual shooting was easy.

The water coming out
of the shower head
was a special rig.

It was made up
in the special
effects department.

It was shot straight
at the lens, and the camera
was tilted at such an angle

that the water never
touched the lens.

Today, they've got
ways of wiping the
water and cleaning

that you don't know.
But this was a
special shower head.

We were one of the first
to ever work with
a nude photo double.

And that was all a secret
and a hush-hush thing,

and there were
signs on the door,

and we never allowed
a visitor or anything in.

Hitchcock wanted
a nude model

because he felt that a person
who was naked professionally

would be easier to deal
with than an actress

who had no experience
being naked in front
of hundreds of people.

And he broughtin a
nude model, very nice
young lady.

It was quite charming
to see the two of them
standing there talking.

Hitchcock here and
the naked girl there.

There was a nude model,
absolutely,
for several reasons,

one, he had to see
what density of water

and the shower curtain,

so that you couldn't
see whether someone
was nude or not.

And you can't tell that
unless you see someone nude

to know when to cut it off,

where you don't see it.

You think that you see,
but you don't see it.

GREEN: Mr. Hitchcock felt that
through the shower curtain,

the effect of a nude,

if they had a stocking
or whatever on, that it
wouldn't be the same.

Also, there was a scene
where he drags the body,

wraps the body in the curtain,
and then takes it to the car.

And I did not do that.

But the scene itself was
So brilliantly conceived

because Mr. Hitchcock
brought us to this point

where from then on,
it became what we thought
we saw, not what we saw.

And he did that with his
camera, with the editing,

so that the audience, finally,
just in this frenzy of...

Each cut was like a stab
of the knife, and eventually
the audience said,

in their mind, "This was
a knife. That was a knife,"
and it was a cut.

And the cut is even
indicative, the word "cut,"

because to them
each cut was a cut.

The sound that they
used for the stabbing,

he had the prop man
bring different melons,

and he would stab the
melons, and Mr. Hitchcock
wasn't looking,

but he knew what each one was,
and he said the casaba.

GREEN: The blood on Psycho,
that was an area where we did

a lot of tests ahead of time.

Jack Barron and Bob Dawn,
the makeup people,

to get the precise,

well, I guess,
density of the blood.

Of course, we were
in black and white,

so the color didn't make
that big a deal, but the
density was a problem.

He tested several things.

There was movie blood,
what they used for movie
blood in black and white,

then there was...
I think he tested ketchup,

and then he tested
chocolate syrup,

and he felt that the chocolate
syrup read the best.

GREEN: The swirling of
the blood into the drain

took some time to get,
because they look
easy on the screen,

but to get them the way
Mr. Hitchcock wanted
them took some time.

I must tell you there
is a shot in the shower
scene that was never used,

that is one of the most
heartbreaking shots
I have ever seen,

where the camera
pulls all the way up,

and we look down on the girl
lying across the tub,

and her bottom is bare,

and there was objections
to using that.

And perhaps Hitch felt
that it wasn't really
necessary anyway.

There was something
very tragic about seeing

this beautiful figure
with the life gone from it.

Probably the most
difficult shot for me,

and I think technically
the most difficult,

was the last shot
with the eye,

and then when they pull back
into this long shot.

Because at that time,
they didn't have
automatic focus,

so when the camera moved,
they had to keep focusing,

hand focusing, as they
went back, which was
extremely difficult.

And for me to get that
glazed non-look and
hold it was quite difficult.

And also because
the water was on there,

and, you know, how when
a drip of water... It tickles.

And so it was maddening.

It was like having an itch and
not being able to scratch it.

There was one point
when the camera was far
enough away from me

where they could not see
if I blinked or something.

And he snapped his fingers,
so that I could
relax a little bit.

We did that, I don't
know how many times.

Hilton Green and I tried

to remember the exact number,
what take it was,

but we know
it was in the 20s.

Contrary to what some
of the dialogue is
on the Universal tour,

sometimes they say
that Mr. Hitchcock
turned cold water

on me in the shower,
so that I would scream.

Well, that's exactly
the opposite.

He was so considerate of the
temperature of the water that
I would be comfortable

to the point
where it almost
caused a problem,

because in this scene,

I'm draped down with
the head in position,

and it's very uncomfortable.

The eye... And the
difficulties technically...

Anyway, finally, we are
getting something going,
it seems to be going right,

I didn't blow it,
and the focus was
going right,

and the steam
from the water

had gotten to the moleskin.

Now, I could feel the moleskin
pulling away from my top part,

and, so I could feel this.
It was just kind of going...

(SQUEAKING)

And I thought,
"You know what?

"I don't want to do
this damn thing again.
I really don't want to."

And there are all the guys
on the scaffolding,

I think they had double duty
up there, quite frankly,

but anyway, so be it.

But there were a lot of
guys, the electricians up
on the scaffolding,

and I knew the camera
couldn't see it, 'cause
I was over the tub.

I knew the camera
couldn't see it from
the angle that I was,

but I knew that they
would get an eyeful.

And I said, "I am not
going to be modest.

"Let them look,
'cause I am not going
to stop this shot.

"I am not going to stop
this shot." And I didn't
and they did.

GREEN: Tony Perkins,
at that time, was in New York

and was not present
at all during that
entire week that we shot

the shower scene.

There was no need
for him to be there,

because Tony Perkins wasn't
there, Mother was there.

And Mr. Hitchcock had
several people be Mother.

He had his stand-in
play Mother at one point.

He had a woman play
Mother at one point.

MRS. BATES: No! I will not
hide in the fruit cellar.

You think I'm fruity, huh?

GREEN: The voice of Mother,

they auditioned quite
a few people, men and women,

for the voice,
and some famous names.

I can't remember all
the names that they did,

but they arrived at
Virginia Gregg who ended
up as the voice of Mother,

and interestingly
enough, Virginia did
the voice of Mother

straight through in the
sequels of Psycho also.

The car in the swamp
where Norman puts
Janet's body in the trunk,

what Mr. Hitchcock
wanted was Tony to push
the car into the swamp,

have it start sinking,
and go to a certain
level and stop.

He wanted the audience
to gasp, Tony to sit there.

Is it going to be exposed?
How's he going to get it down?

What's going to happen?

Then just at the precise
moment, it starts going
down and then disappears.

So, we had a back lot
set called Falls Lake
at Universal.

First, we drained
the lake, and put in the
same type of hydraulic lift

that are in gas stations
where you take your car,

and put it up and down,
where you change
tires or lube it.

And we sank that into
the bottom of Falls Lake,

with the ramp of the tires
coming right up to the shore.

And we had the car rigged
in such a way where it was
pulled in on a cable,

and it hit the wires,
went on to the ramp,

and once it was on the ramp,
then the ramp took over,

and started sinking,
and then at the
precise moment,

we could stop it,
and then bring
it down again.

It was a one-take shot.

We were worried that,
"How do you do take two?"

It would take quite
a while to get the car out,
clean it up, to do it.

It was a one-shot deal
and no problem at all.

Tell me all about her.

Well,

she arrived rather late
one night, and she...

STEFANO:
Norman's stuttering
in the movie was,

I thought,
a powerful additive

to the character
I had written.

Which morning was that?

The...

(STAMMERING)
The next morning.

I think it's interesting
that one of the characters
in Rope also stuttered,

and he was
also a murderer.

Very good champagne, too.
What's the occasion?

Why, I told you
on the phone.

(STAMMERING) It began
as a little party for
Mr. Kentley,

so we could look over
those first editions.

Then it turned out,
Phillip and I were
going up to the...

Yes, you told me
that, too, Brandon.

Did 1?
Yeah.

I don't know whether
Hitchcock recommended it
to Tony that he stutter,

or whether this was
Tony's idea, but
it certainly worked,

because you thought
he was being pressured

about maybe revealing the fact
that his mother was a crazy
lady who killed people.

And, of course, what he was
being pressured about was

that he was
the crazy lady.

(STAMMERING)
Oh, that must be my mother.

She's an invalid.

GREEN: The murder of Martin
Balsam, the day that he was
to come into the house,

and look around,
and go up the staircase,

it was a day's work up
to the point where
Mother would come out.

We were waiting for
Mr. Hitchcock to arrive,
and I got a phone call

that he had the flu,

and couldn't come in,
and I said, "Well, fine,
we'll just close down.

"It'll be an insurance
claim, and we'll go
on tomorrow, or whenever."

And he said, "No, no."

That what we were shooting
that day was storyboarded.

We knew exactly what to get,
and he told me to do it.

He told us to shoot
from Saul Bass's sketches

of the detective,
Martin Balsam,
going up the stairs.

And he was going
upstairs to what we now
know was his doom.

So, we followed
this out, and there was
a close-up of the hand

on the rail and the feet
on the ground, going up,
moved up with him.

And we were rather
pleased with ourselves,
we followed the sketches.

When Hitch came back,

he looked at our dailies,
and he said, "Well, you've
done a good job, fellows,

"but I can't use it."
"Oh, my God. Why not?"

Well, he said,
"You've shot a murderer
going upstairs.

"Close-up of the hands on
the banisters, close-up of the
feet, and this is a victim.

"This is the man
who's going to get
murdered.

"So, you have to shoot it
all in a loose shot just of
him going up the stairs."

Mr. Hitchcock wanted
a special shot following
Marty Balsam down the steps

after Mother has stabbed
him at the top, and he
wanted to follow him

all the way down
to the bottom.

So, what Mr. Hitchcock
said to do was do the
same thing he had done

on Saboteur,
a movie that he had
done early in his career

with Norman Lloyd falling off
the Statue of Liberty.

(SCREAMING)

And what we did was,
we made a rig where
Martin Balsam sat back on,

and we were able to turn it,
and he just sat there
looking straight up,

and he twisted and turned.

Then shot a process
plate down the staircase
off of this other rig,

put the two pieces of
film together, and that was
him going down the stairs.

George Tomasini
was Mr. Hitchcock's
feature editor.

But George was the only
part of his feature crew

that I believe came over
and worked on Psycho.

And George was just a happy,
wonderful, wonderful man.

And he had worked
with Mr. H for so long.

He really knew
how to put it together.

Mr. Hitchcock would
shoot his movies

where if we were in
a over-the-shoulder
shot or something,

many times, not always,
but many times,

he would cut in the middle
of the scene, and the actor
would turn around, and say,

"Well, what's wrong?
Is something wrong?"
"No, no. I've got it.

"I'm gonna be over here
for that. We don't
need to go on any further.

"Let's go the other way."

So, George would
always tease

that all I had to do
was take off the slates
and glue it together.

But there was, of course,
more timing than that.

And Mr. Hitchcock
was a frame cutter.

I mean, he would
get down to frames

where he wanted precisely
where that scene to be cut.

George would come down
and just check
in with him daily.

And Mr. H would wanna know
how things were going,

and he'd say,
"Fine. I have some film
for you to see at noon."

Mr. Hitchcock would
never stay at night.

He never wanted to work
past 6:00, ever.

Sometimes, we had
to go till 6:30,
quarter to seven.

But no, I mean, he just
didn't believe in that.

He believed in getting his
day's work and going home.

So, George would run
film with him at lunch time.

We didn't run dailies
with Mr. Hitchcock.

The crew ran dailies
at the end of the day.

So, he would see them
at noon, and we would
see them that night.

If there was something wrong,
we knew about it immediately,

right after lunch.

Hitchcock told me,
shortly after they
started shooting,

that the movie was
gonna be too long.

And that he said,
"We could go two ways,
remove one whole scene,

"or chop down other scenes."

So, I said,
"lI hate to lose any
scene in the movie."

So, I made little marks
around parts of scenes

where I thought we could
lose quarter of a page,

third of a page,
and that it would all add up.

And unfortunately, it didn't.
They still wanted more cut.

So, he felt that the
only scene in the movie

that wasn't absolutely
necessary to the story,

was a scene between
Lila and Sam,

where they both realize
that they've lost someone
that they love.

And it was
an emotional scene

and, I felt,
very important to
those characters.

But it was also,
story wise, the only
one that we could lose.

And as Hitch said,
"I think that you feel

"that they know they've lost
somebody they love.

"The scene is nice,
but that's the
one that can go."

And that got cut.
I don't think it
ever got shot.

GREEN: When Vera Miles
comes down and
approaches Mother,

who is seated in a chair...

Mrs. Bates?

...that scene to get
was really difficult

because we had to have
a camera head with the
wheels underneath Mother

and the prop man had
to lie on his back,

and operate
the wheels backwards

to turn Mother
at the precise moment.

And that took a lot
of rehearsing, in
the evenings, to do.

We never did it during
picture time, but it
took time and time.

And Bob Bone who
was the prop man,

he was glad when
they finally got
that shot.

It was just
horrendous for him.

You know, Mr. Hitchcock
had this impish,
wonderful sense of humor.

He loved jokes of all kinds.
Practical jokes,
you know, dirty jokes.

And I think he sort of
used me as a guinea
pig a couple of times.

Because I would come back
from lunch, and I'd go into
my dressing room on the set,

and in the makeup chair,
you know, I'd go to get ready,

made up after lunch,
touched up.
And I'd turn around,

and there would be
this hideous monstrosity
called "Mother."

And I joke all the time.

I said, "I think he chose
Mother by the loudness
of my scream."

Because it was a different
one all the time,

and the one that elicited
the most horrifying scream,

was the one he used.

Mr. Hitchcock wanted Vera
to reach up, move her
arm and hit this light bulb,

which he wanted to
swing back and forth,

and wanted the flare
into the lens of the camera.

Well, I mean, you get
flares in the lens all
the time by accident

when you don't want them,
but when you want a flare,
you can't get it.

Well, the cameraman,
the first time we shot it,

said he got the flare
in the camera, and that
it was good.

And that was a print.
Well, Mr. Hitchcock
would always say,

"If you got it, fine.
What's the next shot?"

He went to dailies,
and there was no
flare in the camera.

And he came back,
and he came to me.

And said,
"Hilton, you did not get
a flare in the camera.

"Now, you told me
that there was
a flare in the camera,

"and there wasn't a flare
on the screen. Now, let's
do it again, and do it right."

He talked to me as if I was
the cameraman with the
cameraman sitting right there.

That was his mode,
and he got his point
through to Jack Russell.

(SCREAMING)

The day that Tony Perkins
puts on Mother's wardrobe,

and becomes Mother was...

It was kind of special.
I know we all had kind
of a good time with it,

with Tony dressed up
in drag, so to speak.

Mr. Hitchcock wanted a
very mysterious either
grandmother, mother.

In other words, you were
not quite sure of the age
bracket of this individual.

And he wanted a small,
printed kind of fabric.

He wanted, I think,
the feeling of an
older person.

So that, possibly,
in your mind, you would
work that this person

had lived a long time.

And I remember buying
the old lady shoes

in Tony Perkins' size,
which, you know...

GREEN: It was precisely
choreographed,

so John Gavin would
reach over the shoulder,

and rip the dress open,

and at the same time,
the wig would come off.

But it took a little while
rehearsing to get that

precisely the way
he wanted it.

The psychiatrist's speech
at the end was something

that Hitch had some
qualms about.

He was afraid that
the audience wouldn't
be interested.

He called it
a hat grabber.

And I said, "lI don't think
anybody's gonna grab their
hats, and leave the theater

"after what we have
just told them."

We've just said, this boy
has been pretending
he's his own mother,

and we need a really good,
scientific explanation.

Matricide is probably the
most unbearable crime of all,

most unbearable to
the son who commits it.

STEFANO: It wasn't difficult
to write, because I knew
most of this stuff.

I was in Freudian analysis
at the time and simply
drew on the things

that I was experiencing
in my own life.

And then put them in the
mouth of a psychiatrist.

And as a matter of fact,
originally, I had wanted
a female psychiatrist

because mine was
a female.

But Hitchcock felt that
it would be better if we
cast an actor in the part.

So he began to think
and speak for her,

give her half his life,
so to speak.

At times he could be
both personalities,
carry on conversations.

STEFANO: I had a meeting
with some people from
the Production Code.

You won't believe
what upset them more
than anything else.

The word "transvestite."

Why was he
dressed like that?

He's a transvestite.

They said,
"You cannot use that word."

And I said, "Why?
It's a scientific word."

And they apparently had
some preconceived notion

that this was very dirty,

and that I was trying
to put one over on them.

And so, we got
out a dictionary,

and it said, "A man who likes
to wear women's clothes."

And I think they were
a little embarrassed.

Well, I was shocked that
they were ready to put
their foot down on that.

The last sequence
with Norman is to show you
that he has been arrested.

I had somebody
bring him a blanket...

MRS. BATES: Thank you.

...which was my way
of saying, "They're not
gonna beat him up for this.

"They're gonna treat him
kindly. He's a very sick man."

And to show you that
he perhaps was now
his mother for good.

MRS. BATES:
He was always bad,

and in the end he intended
to tell them I killed those
girls and that man,

as if I could do anything
except just sit and stare,

like one of his stuffed birds.

STEFANO: The dialogue, and his
facial reactions to the
dialogue are a way of saying

he will never
be Norman again.

MRS. BATES: I'm not even
gonna swat that fly.

I hope they are watching.
They'll see.

They'll see and they'll know,

and they'll say,
"Why, she wouldn't
even harm a fly."

STEFANO: I then didn't
see anything until
I saw the rough cut.

I thought it was terrible.

When I saw the rough cut,
I thought it was truly
a terrible movie.

And I couldn't
say this to Hitch.
He was sitting beside me.

And he looked at me

and he patted my knee
and said, "It's just a
rough cut, Joseph."

And I thought, "Well, okay.
He's the master,
and it's in his hands."

The next time I saw it,
it was a totally
different movie.

It was all tight and paced,
and beautifully put together.

And then I knew it
was a good movie.

Then I saw it
with the music,

and nearly, you know,
fell out of my seat.

The music really wowed me.
I had never heard
anything like that.

I met Bernard Herrmann one day
toward the end of the shoot.

And I said,
"What size orchestra
are you gonna use?"

And he told me, and he said,
"It's gonna be all strings."

And I was just flabbergasted,

'cause I had never heard
of anybody doing a movie
score with all strings.

And when I heard it,
of course, I realized
what he had done.

He had just taken everybody's
guts, and used them for music.

I worked with Bernard Herrmann
on two films directed
by Brian De Palma.

One was called Sisters,
and the other was Obsession.

He had very interesting
ideas about how to
approach the music

based on the content
of the material.

For instance, he's described
his score for Psycho as
a black and white score.

Only strings, no percussion,
no brass, no wind,

because he wanted to
reflect the black and white,
Stark quality of the picture.

When I worked on Star Wars,
we put in temp music
for the entire film.

And for the most part,
we used classical music
and not film music.

We used
The Rite of Spring
by Stravinsky.

The New World symphony
by Dvorak. We used
The Planets by Holst.

We used a variety
of classical pieces.

But there was one moment
in the film we couldn't really
find the right music for,

and I thought of a
cue from Psycho.

And what it was,
was when the Millennium Falcon

had landed
on the Death Star.

The storm troopers come
aboard, and search the ship,

and they can't find anybody.
As they're going out,

the camera tilts down
and a hatch in the
floor opens up,

and Han Solo, and
Luke Skywalker, and the
rest of them pop up

from under the floor.

And the music that I
played at that point was
a cue from Psycho.

A very famous three-note
motif, which I happen
to have cued up here.

This is the three-note motif.

(INSTRUMENTAL PIECE PLAYING)

And then the music continues
from that point.

But that opening three-note
signature was very famous
as the theme from Psycho.

And I put it in there, and
John Williams, who wrote
the score to Star Wars,

had been a friend
and colleague of Herrmann's.

And when he wrote
the score to the film,

he wrote a cue
to go at that point

that used those exact
three notes to begin.

It was an homage to Herrmann.

ROBERTSON: Benny Herrmann's
score for Psycho
was brilliant.

And in fact so much so
that Hitch and I were
sitting in the theater

when we were
scoring the picture.

And we came to the end

where Tony Perkins comes down
the steps into the basement,

and sees his skeleton
mother right at the
end of the picture.

And that was silent.

I'm Norma Bates!

After we finished that
reel, Benny came up
to Hitch, and said,

"How did you like it?
What do you think of it?"

And Hitch said,
"Well, it's fine, Benny,

"except, surely as Tony
comes down the steps
into the basement,

"you should repeat
that wonderful theme

"that you had in the
shower sequence of all the
fiddles going down like that.

"What do you think?"
And Benny said,
"Wonderful idea, Hitch."

He was thrilled with the idea
and said Hitch was
absolutely right.

And so, we did that
reel with the score.

(STRINGS PLAYING)

My script ended where he says,
"Why, I wouldn't harm a fly."

Where the mother through him
says, "l wouldn't harm a fly."

And that was it.
That was the end
of the movie for me.

Hitchcock and George Tomasini,
his editor, did this marvelous
thing with the skull

of his mother almost
subliminal. Some people
didn't even see it, really.

And the car
being pulled out.

I think that was kind
of a way to give you

a return to the person
that you lost,

who is buried in that.

And also to open up the
thought that maybe, there
are some other cars in there.

ROBERTSON: We knew it was time
for the film to go

to the censors,
the Hays Office,
I think it was.

So Hitch said, "Let's
get Luigi Luraschi..."

who was the intermediary
for the studio and
the censorship,

a very nice man,

" ..to look at the film
and see if there are
any problems with it."

So, immediately after we
got the first cut, we had
the screening for Hitch,

Luigi, George Tomasini
the editor, his
assistant, and me

in the theater at Universal.

So, we start running it,
and Luigi laughs at Hitch's
appearance in the film,

which took place in
the beginning of the film.

And then we're watching
everything.

Then comes
the shower sequence.

We're all sort of looking
on placidly.

Luigi said, "Stop, stop,
my God!"

So, Hitch said,
"Yes, Luigi, what is it?"

Luigi said,
"I saw her breast."

"No, you didn't, Luigi, it's
just in your dirty mind. You
didn't see a breast at all."

"Yes, we'll run it again."
So, we ran it again.

"Well, Luigi, did you
see a breast?"

"No, but we're going
to be in a lot of trouble,
I think, with it."

We talked him out...

We made him realize
that he was wrong.

That he hadn't
seen a breast.

Said it was a perfectly
charming little Sunday
afternoon treat,

the shower sequence.

And we sent it off with
Luigi to the censor.

We did have a few problems
with the censor. They sort
of said they didn't like

Janet in her slip,
in the beginning.

And a few odd things
like that, but we
tidied them all up.

HITCHCOCK: My mother was
the one who, when they
saw the first print,

the answer print
that they were
gonna send out,

she's the one that at
the end of the picture,

when they were all raving,
"It's great." She says
you can't send it out.

And they said, "Well, why?
What's the matter?"

She says, "Janet Leigh
takes a breath when she's
supposed to be dead."

She's the only one
that had caught it.

With all the people that
had seen that over and over,
she's the only one.

She had an unerring eye
because she was an editor
in England in the early days.

And so, she got used
to looking at things
frame by frame.

Because you know, that's
when they had it on reels,
and they just turned it.

It wasn't automatic,
you Know.

And so, they had
to fix it up.

They had a showing for the
cast and some other people.

And we saw it then,
and I thought it was great.
I really did.

NORMAN: Mother! Blood! Blood!

HITCHCOCK: I think my
reaction when I saw it was
like everybody else's,

'cause you get so,
you know, just engrossed
in the whole story,

'cause I never
look at anything
technically, anyway.

When I saw it, and I
saw it cut together,

and I saw the "boom, boom"
and the music and everything,

I absolutely went crazy.

I mean, I really screamed.
I never take a shower.

I cannot take a shower,
'cause it never dawned
on me until that moment

how vulnerable,
and defenseless one is.

It never entered my head,
until I saw that.

The most fascinating
part which my father loved
from the very beginning,

was having Janet
play that part,

and then she's out,
you know, first quarter
of the movie.

One day, we had finished
shooting, and Hitch said,

"You know, people who come
in late to see Psycho will
wonder, 'Where's Janet Leigh?"

"And they'll keep on
waiting for her. And she'll be
dead, and they won't know it.

"Well, what can be
done about it?"

So, he thought, while we
were talking, and he said,

"You shouldn't allow
people in to the theater
after the film has started.

"They'll see Janet,
it'll be orderly, and
everyone will realize it."

So, I laughed.

I didn't think it would
be possible to tell
theater managers

when to show the picture,
or when not to.

And he convinced Paramount
and publicity that this
was the way to start it.

And the whole ball
started rolling then.

And it was successful
because the theater
managers cooperated.

MAN: No one, but no one
will be admitted to the
theater after the start

of each performance of Psycho.

It was a great gimmick
if you want to
call it a gimmick

because the people
had to get in, and get down
before the picture started.

And that brought them in,
and then when they left,
they left screaming,

and some people
went running out especially
during the shower scene,

which just added to the
enthusiasm of the public
wanting to see this picture.

MAN: Do not expect to be
admitted into the theater

after the start of each
performance of the picture.

We say, no one.
And we mean no one,

not even the manager's
brother, the President
of the United States,

or The Queen of England.

God bless her.

In New York, some
journalists thought,
"We'll catch them out.

"We'll show this is
just a publicity stunt."

So, they got hold of a woman
who was pregnant,

and coached her what to say
to the manager with
her so-called husband.

He went in, and he said,
"Look, my wife is
pregnant, you can see.

"But she wants
to see Psycho.

"Let us in, now that
the picture's started.
Please, sir."

So, the manager said,
"Well, I'm very happy for
you that she's pregnant, sir,

"but we can't allow
her in the theater.

"She's perfectly welcome to
sit in my office until
the next program starts.

"But can't come in
in the middle of the program."

And that was true,
they carried it out.

And of course you had
long lines photographed
by people.

People waiting to get in
who weren't allowed in,
which was very good.

Good afternoon.

Here we have a
quiet little motel.

GREEN: The trailer for
Psycho was done when
we finished shooting.

All the sets were saveaq,
and held on the stage.

And we were all called back,

I don't know,
I think it was about
a week later.

And we spent one day,
and it was a fun day

because the strain
of the movie was over.

The schedule was done,
and it was all in the can.

Looking back on that
day was like a party
day with Mr. H.

Of course in a flash
there was the knife,
and in no time,

the victim tumbled
and fell with a
horrible crash.

I think the back broke
immediately it hit the floor.

It is difficult to describe
the twisting of the...

(STUTTERING)

I won't dwell upon it.

Talking of coming up with
the idea for this trailer,

doing a tour of the house,
and all that stuff, that
was Hitch's own idea.

And also to treat it in
a very droll fashion.

"Oh, look, I can't tell you
what went on in this place.
It's too terrible.

"This is where she...
No, no, no, no, no."

This picture...

ROBERTSON: Totally funny.

...has great significance.

Because...

Let's go along to
cabin Number One.

When Hitchcock walks
in, and pulls the
shower curtain away,

he reveals Vera Miles
behind there instead
of Janet Leigh.

It was part of the fun
that went on that day.

GREEN: Well, the release
of Psycho was not
critically acclaimed.

In fact,
the critics didn't...

They poo-hooed it.
They didn't think this was

up to the standard of
North by Northwest, or
To Catch a Thief, or Vertigo,

or all the famous
Hitchcock pictures.

I think the critics
didn't like being made
to see it in a theater.

That pissed them off.

They wanted to see it in the
screening room like they
always did, all by themselves

or with their secretaries.

And Mr. Hitchcock said,
"No previews."

And as a matter of fact
the critics had to see it
on the day that it opened

with the ordinary folk.

And I'm convinced that
we got a lot of bad
reviews because of that.

I think they were
kind of irritated reviews.

You could almost
feel the irritation.

He was disappointed
when a movie didn't get
good reviews, you know.

Because he knew how much
time he had spent on it.

I think he had been a
little spoilt very early
on when he came here.

When he had such great
reviews, you know, for Rebecca
and some of the others,

Suspicion, you know.

And I think it bothered him.

Bosley Crowther
of the New York Times
said it was awful.

And then later in the year
picked it as one of the
10 best pictures of the year.

And it was curious,
just the audience
seemed to like it.

The audience, for Hitch,
were the most important
part of the moviemaking.

On Psycho, he'd send me out
to the different theaters to
check with the manager.

"How did the audience
go for this, or that?

"What were the reactions
as the audience came
out of the theater?"

And I know that on
Psycho, / said to him that
the reactions were the same.

The audience would come
out laughing in horror,
like on a roller coaster.

And they came out,
and in all theaters,
they did that.

They came out with
a sense of tremendous
enjoyment.

This was a lovely
evening they'd had
watching these murders.

And that's what mattered
to him, to get the
audience involved.

While I was writing it,
it never occurred to me
that an audience would

yell at the screen, "Don't
go down there," or give
any kind of aid, or comfort

to the victims.

And it was remarkable
when I saw it the first
time in a theater.

My wife and I took several
friends to see it.

Because we couldn't take
them to a screening
as most people do.

So, we took them to the
theater, and I saw it

completely with titles,
and everything,

at the same time that
the audience was seeing it.

And I was shocked.
Absolutely shocked.

I could not believe
that the audience would
react like this.

It felt like when I was a kid,
and I watched serials
on Saturday afternoon,

and we yelled at the
screen, but these were
grownups doing it.

I feel very strongly
that the reason that
Psycho has endured

is because of the restrictions
that were put on us.

And because Mr. Hitchcock
had to come up
with a suspense story

without showing what
today is normal,

he allowed the
audience to create

what they thought they saw.

And when the audience
becomes a part
of the creative process,

they're not gonna
forget that.

And I think that's
why his pictures are
lasting today,

because they weren't
made for critics.

You know, I'm sure he
would love to have critical
acclaim, and all that.

But he makes them
for the audience.