John McIntire plays a great listening scene as
Sheriff Chambers. Again we get a whole essence of this man's life from two
brief bits, home and church, that he has in Psycho (McIntire comes back for final explain of
Mother/Norman, listening again but with no dialogue). There were few active in
the 50/60's with this character actor's authority, and he seemed to live at
Universal, where Psycho was filmed even though Paramount released it. I love McIntire's phoned
"We got worries here" to Norman, and his enunciation of
Ar-bo-gast, as if he never heard aname remotely like that in his life.
There's reference to Chambers/McIntire offscreen visit to the Bates Motel and thorough
questioning of Norman, who I'm sure cooperated fully with the sheriff (no knives here).
Chambers remembers what happened with Mrs. Bates ten years before, of which
Gavin's Sam Loomis seems not to have a clue. Had Loomis but recently moved to
Fairvale? You'd otherwise assume he'd lived there all along and took over
the hardware store from a father whose debts Sam has been trying to pay. Would
he have been too young to recall the "bad business" out
at the Bates place?
Tension reaches summit when Sam and Lila check
in the motel to do their own sleuthing. Norman
is suspicious and even those who didn't realize he was Mother knew this guy was
dangerous. Sam is aggressive with him and we're poised for something awful to
happen, especially in light of what's already been shown. Marion's trek up the hill and into the house
must have been almost unbearable for 1960 audiences. Sam
jabs Normanabout the $40,000, Norman not knowing what the hell
he's talking about. Sam and Lila had found the slip of paper with the figure
written by Marion,
so it's confirmed she was there. That fragment must have fluttered out of Marion's hand when she
tossed remnants into the toilet, although I'm surprised other scraps didn't
survive considering what a weak flush that commode had (wonder what cost was for Hitchcock
and Revue to plumb that corner of a soundstage to equip Psycho's
shower and loo).
Lila's tour of the Bates house is what we've waited the whole
of Psycho to share. Here is where the film's deluxe trailer with Hitchcock
makes a perfect companion, even if AH plays his tour largely for laughs. We
want to see every inch of this place. So much detail and character revealing stuff.
Mother's room is stately and solidly furnished, assuming you could live with statuary and replaced that mattress. But considering Mother'spresent state,
wouldn't her room stink to heaven? A realist treatment would have had Lila
throwing up the moment she stepped in. Of course, Hitchcock wouldn't go that
far, thank heaven (but what of 1998's not-seen-by-me remake?). And then there is Norman's
room. He apparently had dolls as a child. Most of decor reflects that
long-before, though Norman does still sleep in the room, his sickly and unmade
boy-bed not dissimilar from ones I used to see in homes of film collectors.
There is a classical record (Beethoven's Eroica) on the phonograph, not dusty
so we can assume Norman
played it recently.
The shrieking part comes when Norman clonks Sam
on the head and heads for the house. When I ran Psycho to a University crowd,
they cried out in unison as Lila went toward the fruit cellar, "Don't go
down there!!." We don't worry of mechanics that permit Mother's corpse to
turn all the way around in her otherwise stationary chair. The moment is just
too classic to split hairs over. A swinging light bulb and Norman/Mother's
entrancestill disorients for its suddenness and ferocity. And those sound
effects. Were they a combination of everyone's screams? For me, they are most
unearthly of everything heard in Psycho. This is where memory of the movie ends
for majority who've seen it, but in 1960, someone had to explain what had made Norman and Mother tick.
We're hep to the psycholgy today because Psycho has been imitated so much. I wonder how
many switch off at this point, or head back to DVD menu for
extras. Ever wonder who holds a record for times seeing Psycho? For myself, I'd
say fifteen at least. Does that seem excessive, even allowing for nut I am about
this stuff? And yet I'd suspect there are ones who make my 15 viewings look
punk. Anybody out there crossed the hundred mark?
Probably around 25 to 30 times for me. Every time I read a Hitchcock biography or a book on Psycho I go back to the film with fresh insights. The movie never gets old. I love Vertigo with a passion, I'm crazy about Strangers On A Train and Shadow of a Doubt but I think Psycho is for me the quintessential Hitchcock film and my favourite. I saw it on its first run in the UK, with all the ballyhoo about managers allowing no one to enter after it had started and stern admonitions not to reveal the ending. The tension among the audience as Vera Miles walked up to the house was palpable, and there were audible gasps and shrieks when the big reveal came and Tony Perkins rushed in. People did listen to the psychiatrist's explanation but there was also a lot of chatter during it as people discussed what they had just seen. It wasn't until then, with the release of tension, that I realized just how taut my muscles had been while watching. I've never had a cinema experience like it since. What a masterful director Hitchcock was. I don't think he ever excelled this.
Dan Mercer speculates on what "Vertigo" might have been with Vera Miles:
Hitchcock was grooming Vera Miles to be another Grace Kelly when she escaped to the arms of Gordon Scott. She was still under contract to him, though, and her reward was the severe Lila Crane of "Psycho." Was it a thankless role? Perhaps, but her character was the moral agent for the resolution of the story.
"Vertigo" would have been very different, had Miles essayed Madeline, but I shouldn't be too glad that she was unable to. Kim Novak is superb in it, but her performance is an example of Hitchcock obtaining what he wanted from what he was given. The yearning and vulnerability, which is so affecting, may be as much the expression of an actress thrust into a role beyond her comprehension as to her particular skills. She was, like Judy, play acting upon a stage set by someone else.
Novak was a statuesque blonde with a cool, patrician beauty, but also an almost coarse carnality. Hitchcock effectively played upon those contrasts in creating the Madeline and Judy characters. Vera Miles was very different, petite and delicate, very pretty but without the visual dominance of Novak. She was like a glass of Lalique crystal, exquisite in herself, but needing to be filled in order to have color and scent.
There are three roles Miles is remembered for today, the wife and mother in "The Wrong Man," descending into melancholy and madness, the hoydenish young woman in John Ford's "The Searchers," and this role in "Psycho." The first and the last of these were done for Hitchcock, but the great range encompassed by them suggests not only a genuine talent that he recognized, but also a vessel in which he could invest himself. It was her relative anonymity, as to herself, that allowed her to assume so effectively such diverse characters.
"Vertigo" is a superb achievement, in which Hitchcock effectively used the immutable qualities of Kim Novak to advantage. In Vera Miles, however, he might have obtained something even closer to his all too distant heart.
Oooo! Many of us would add one more signature role to Dan's Vera Miles tally: the traumatized wife in the 1955 episode of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS: 'REVENGE'.
I kinda think director Gus Van Sant performed something of a public service with his 1998 re-make. A shot for shot duplication with an A-list cast and the original score, yet the film is, by any metric, just plain terrible, proving once and for all you can not photocopy genius!
Craig Reardon weighs in with some terrific "Psycho" commentary, in several parts. Take it away, Craig! (Part One):
Your two-part observations on "Psycho" are marvelous. I can shoot away at some of your open questions or observations, NOT in the sense of "shooting them down", but firing away so to speak. In no particular order, YES, as incredible as it may seem, Phoenix CAN be hot in winter, but as logic dictates, it normally DOES cool down in December, so you're mostly RIGHT---score one for McElwee's peerless pragmatism. (In fact, it also often rains in Phoenix and other Arizona cities in winter.) You may be interested to know that some of the location stuff in "Psycho" was recognizably shot on the famous (?) southern California "grapevine", the Interstate 5, which wends its way through some tall country (Angeles Forest) and peaks out someplace, I don't really know where is the highest spot, before descending finally down into the actual San Fernando Valley. At one high point there is a city which never really has grown, and often gets socked in with snow (otherwise rare in Southern Cal!), called Gorman. When you watch "Psycho" AGAIN (and, you will!), look for a sign that indicates an offramp to Gorman. The unnamed city where Janet Leigh stops to sell her car, the paranoia setting in, was I believe only a few blocks east of Universal on Cahuenga Blvd. You are dead right in referring to the FACT that "Psycho" was shot at Universal, I think due to Hitch already having inked some kind of deal where he'd be moving his production facilities (i.e., from Paramount), in part because Paramount raised objections, as you know, to the content of "Psycho". I'm sure they didn't mind taking their cut from what proved to be a monster hit by terms of that day. However, boo-hoo to Paramount as Hitch owned controlling interest by contract and that was signed away (in blood!) to MCA, and so remains with Comcast Universal to this day. (Universal's been passed around more than a whore at a lowdown stag party, and even AFTER I worked there, at which time it was still MCA, it's been owned serially by Panasonic/Matsushita, Seagram's, Vivendi, NBC, and now Comcast---whewww!) I think you are right about the relative necessity of having Norman 'explained' at the end of the film, and equally right that this now gives this portion of the film a stilted, smug, outdated quality. But, of course, Joe Stefano admitted himself that he was in therapy at that time and probably jumped at the opportunity to sell the whole thing in his script. (I think he later even admitted to his own mother/son conflicts.) His script, or any ad-libs (I've never seen the published script) is very, very hip, very modern, very condensed and convinced its 'modern' late 20t century audience, coming in from the cold of the Catholic bans for 30-odd years, would 'get' the references and the adult tone. I agree that the assignation scene is still sexy, bra or (as Hitch claimed he would have preferred it) bra-less. Hitch is an easy target now, but I think his reference to 'bra-less' was not because, duh, he was a "dirty old man", but because he was a bleeping sophisticated man, and he realized young people like Leigh and Gavin (that is, their characters mainly) WOULD play footsie with even fewer clothes on than just a missing bra, and may I once again say "Duhhh!", loudly? Hitch didn't live in a provincial world, though I don't doubt he was PERSONALLY paralyzed with Puritanism as most of us born in the early-to-middle 20th century WERE, in spite of being smart and worldly enough to regret it and rebel against it, as well as recognizing that its miserable effects were deleterious and had really seen their day, current politics notwithstanding.
Tony Perkins is said, by himself also, to have thought up the idea of Norman crunching Kandy Korn (I remember that spelling, too! I always hated the stuff and always got too much of it in my "trick or treat" bag at Halloween!) It's a great prop as it communicates perfectly his nervous tension. But that nervous tension is in EVERY early Perkins performance, if you look for it. Why, in "Tall Story", in which he's merely playing a 'cute' (by the '50s-'60s standards that benefited his early career) college kid who's the object of lust and affection of Jane Fonda, he says some of his lines as if he's actually choking with terror, which I actually think he was, with Fonda pressed up tight against him! I worked with Tony on one of his last projects, a dopey horror movie produced partially by CBS for late night presentation, made in Budapest (of all places) in 1989. I liked him, but he was not a relaxed sort of guy, particularly. I know, that's not going to come as a shocking revelation. The real masterstroke of Hitch is seeing Perkins' potential as Norman Bates at a time when Perkins was actively enjoying a career (whether he enjoyed it personally or not!) as a 'heterosexual' girl's idea of a total dreamboat. But Hitch apparently saw a LOT of movies, and he'd caught "Fear Strikes Out", in which Perkins was obliged to mirror the inner torment of baseball player Jim Piersall (I think I've got that right--?), who'd suffered severe emotional problems. And evidently Hitch saw that and must have thought, "NOW I can have a Norman who's actually interesting!"--versus the stock character the otherwise-brilliant Robert Bloch limned in his novel, a middle-aged, dumpy and nondescript mama's boy. To me, watching this outwardly-attractive 'boy' (I'm 61, now, after all), i.e., Perkin's Bates, struggling with shyness and awkwardness when he meets the Auber-attractive Marion Crane in the person of a ripened beauty easily embodied by Janet Leigh, is terribly poignant. Ultimately learning that Norman is completely off his rocker never entirely dispels for me this initial sense of pathos. Well, almost! Perkins is equally adroit at portraying the guy completely off his hinges in the final moments.
As you know, I think, Universal acquired some special sort of software patented by a French company to filet the mono-mix original soundtrack and completely reconstruct it in true stereo, which boggles the mind---but there's a completely-convincing short subject about it included with the excellent Blu-ray. The masterstroke was to avoid 'improving' the actual QUALITY of the 1960 recorded sound; they "merely" rejiggered it completely to remix not only the directionality of the voices, but the sound effects, and the long-since-classic Bernard Herrmann score, almost instrument-by-instrument. But I think the great cinematography by the hugely-underrated journeyman D.P. John Russell (his middle name should be "not the actor") is also a HUGE, huge plus to the movie. Russell shot the Hitchcock TV show (probably in relay with at least another D.P., to keep up with the killing schedule of providing networks in those days with 32 shows a season---unbelievable.) Hitch knew Russell would be fast, and therefore cheaper, and he wanted to make "Psycho" on the cheap. But he got fast, cheap, and GREAT---not just "good". I'm thinking Robert Burks must have seen "Psycho" and either thought, "I have to belittle this thing!", or, worried for his next job with Hitch! But, sure enough, Hitch went back to Burks for "The Birds" and "Marnie" (after which Burks, apparently died in a fire at his home---horrible!)
I agree entirely that Vera Miles was dead wrong for "Vertigo"---and I feel her replacement, Kim Novak, was bloody perfect in it. BUT, Miles is great in "Psycho". There's a no-nonsense quality in almost all of Miles performances that would have sunk "Vertigo", which utterly depends on nonsensical situations made fascinating by fantasy and desire (which Novak had NO PROBLEM furnishing.) My late pal and colleague Mike McCracken worked on "Psycho 2" (something I've successfully avoided seeing ever since it was released), and he worked with Miles, who apparently suffers a typically graphic, stupid '80s-style death-by-knifing which McCracken simulated with a full head replica of Miles. I asked him about her at the time, and he said she was, quote, "great" to work with. I quite agree that to lose the resource she at least could provide as to a unique experience working with the guys you mention would be a crime. Perhaps by now memory itself might be suspect, but I wish somebody would try. Perhaps she's rebuffed requests. After all, even "Psycho 2" was over 30 years ago. Whew, imagine that one!
He even puts the perfect fade-out on the movie...a chilling, austere tableau spookily haunted by the horrendous grinning face of 'Ma' almost superimposed over Perkins' features, and then the disorientation of seeing that auto pulled up from the muck and mire. I hardly knew what the hell I was looking at when I first saw that ending in '65---but, unlike some, I DID see the appalling face of Ma Bates, one more time! And yet, Hitchcock triumphed, because I honestly thought I'd imagined it! I thought it was coming back to haunt me from somewhere in my subconscious. That's how brilliant he was. He totally understood how to use the 'stuff' of filmmaking to achieve his frequently exquisite, versus bombastic effects.
Fun one-two punch o' Psycho, a film I find myself occasionally having to defend to movie-lovers who simply find the whole thing representing the "mean side" rather than the artistic side of Mr. Hitchcock.
I love how people who have seen the film STILL scream when Lila goes down to the fruit cellar, even though, technically, that's probably the safest place in the house for her, if she doesn't mind sharing it with a corpse.
The candy corn was to make Norman more bird-like, wasn't it?
I always assumed Ms. Crane doesn't push on the 15 miles to Sam because she's decided to rest up and drive back home in the morning and turn herself in.
Craig Reardon and I have been in some back-and-forth about Vera Miles, and here are some further observations he offered:
John,
I think we've already swapped this one about, but on one of the extras on one of the delightful DVDs from Warner Home Video that really sort of exploded for awhile in the earlier '00's, there was one loaded onto one of the typically-terrific '40s programmers from the latter part of the decade. See if you can figure out which one---I never can remember which short or old cartoon or 'special feature' goes with what title, unfortunately. I THINK it had to do with a regional celebration, but I'm not sure what, or where. Might even very well have been something loaded in the 'newsreel' section, one of those often enjoyable compilations the DVD producers called "Warners Night at the Movies". Anyway, it was an earlier Miss America, I think, and it was covered with B&W footage. And the whole point of all this is, one of the contestants is obviously Vera Miles! I think she was Miss Kansas (?) Can't remember for sure. It's a lot of fun to spot her, because she is so recognizable with that distinctive, intelligent-looking (and needless to add, very pretty) face. She did, and so in this movie forever 'does' NOT win the contest, and the lady who does---I wouldn't take away her Great Moment, and she's obviously and predictably excited and moved---still doesn't hold a candle to the young Ms. Miles, in my opinion. However, someone less nuts about old movies and more objective might observe that Vera's wonderful looks as evidenced in her numerous appearances in future movies and TV shows were not yet quite in perfect focus, as they often aren't in celebrities just prior to hitting big, nor in fact in many of our youthful faces upon which Life has not yet written its history.
And, it's pretty well-known by now that Miles is startlingly recognizable (functioning as a young WB contract player with no say in the matter!) in a quick speaking part in the TRAILER for "Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" (a 'fun' job---ugghhh---she shares with fellow contracted youngsters Paul Picerni and---gulp!---Merv Griffin!)
I also forgot to point something else out about "Psycho" that's of some interest, I think! Not to SANE people, but to movie nuts! In "Psycho", Vera Miles was obliged to wear a blond WIG all through her part. I am guessing, but I'm all but certain this is due to the fact that she'd previously appeared in a movie called "Five Branded Women," for which she had to have her hair severely cropped. I've never seen it so I don't know if she was actually shaved bald, or just given the kind of ragged cropping that was often used to disgrace women. But it sure explains the kind of stiff wig (and hairstyle---but, that was 1960, and 'stiff' hairstyles were the rage in the early '60s! I know---I remember!) she wears. In stills, and quite likely in some close-ups, you can see the lace 'blender' at the top of her forehead which was a constant companion to full wigs and even some hairpieces on men in films in that era.
Dan Mercer further considers Vera Miles as "Vertigo" leading lady (Part One):
I shouldn't want to suggest that Kim Novak's performance in "Vertigo" is anything less than sublime. I remember driving home after seeing the film for the first time, still caught in its spell, and imagining that the streets in the suburbs of southern New Jersey were those of San Francisco and that I was Scotty following Madeline's car. A lot of that had to do with Kim Novak, with the first glimpse of her profile at Earnie's or the way she turned to him from his bed, with that breathless stillness, like a summer night waiting for a storm to break.
But could Vera Miles have provided another kind of rightness for the role, maybe even one closer to Hitchcock's heart?
He didn't always have his first choice for important parts, as in "Vertigo" or with Theresa Wright as the young Charlie in "Shadow of a Doubt." She was wonderful but he really wanted Joan Fontaine for the role. At least with Fontaine, we know how good she would have been by her astonishing performances in "The Constant Nymph" and "Letter from an Unknown Woman." If we haven't the same assurance with Vera Miles, though, as she never played a similar role to Judy or Madeline, we do know that Hitchcock had tailored "Vertigo" for her.
How much credence can we give to his choice?
He'd worked with a diverse group of actresses, including Fontaine, Ingrid Bergman, and Grace Kelly, and almost always got what he needed in the way of a performance. The Eve Kendall of Eva Marie Saint in "North by Northwest" revealed a beauty and glamour that was somewhat surprising from an actress better known for sensitive portrayals of working class women. Even 'Tippi' Hedren, upon whom he imposed himself in no way forgivable, save that he had lived with his fantasies for too long, was remarkable in "The Birds" and especially "Marnie." As to the last, she was entirely believable as a woman trapped by her compulsions, possibly because she was trapped by his during the making of this film.
What would he have seen in Vera Miles? She'd done some television work but had never caught on in films until she did "The Searchers" in 1956. She was placed under an exclusive contract with Hitchcock the following year and appeared in "Revenge," the pilot episode of the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" television series. The role of an emotionally troubled young bride was almost a tryout for her first film role for Hitchcock, in "The Wrong Man," which she did later that year. Here she was entirely convincing as a wife and mother who is slowly crushed by the events ensnarling her life with that of her husband, when he's wrongly accused of a crime. From a bright and attractive woman, probably not so very different from Miles in real life, she becomes sad and withdrawn, increasingly plain and clumsy. Were there echoes here of Madeline playing out her faux dreams of the mad Carlotta? At the very least, it suggested how malleable she was to her director's instructions.
Hitchcock had been paying close personal attention to her, allowing Edith Head to create a new wardrobe and look for her and further refining her acting technique. Later she said that she could never please him. He been used to actresses like Madeline Carroll or Grace Kelly, she said, who were beautiful and sexy, but hers was an entirely different approach. It is disingenuous in a way, as she surely understood that the beauty and allure which is so apparent in their performances was at least a collaboration between them and their director. In retrospect, though, there is something in this story hauntingly close to Scotty trying to recreate the dead Madeline in the all too alive Judy, bringing out all that is Madeline to him but repressing all that is not; that is, all that is Judy. When she protests, he cries out, "It can't really matter to you." He means that this is so important to him that nothing must be allowed to interfere with it, even Judy herself. But Vera Miles was a real woman, not a character on a typescript to be amended as another pleased. She became pregnant and unable to continue with the transformation that would have lead to "Vertigo." It was curious in a way--she divorced her husband, Gordon Scott, the following year--except that, like 'Tippi' Hedren after her, she could not bear to die as Judy did and so found this avenue of escape.
How good Vera Miles might have been in "Verigo" is a moot question now. Kim Novak played the role and made it her own. All that really can be said is that she understood it better than anyone other than its creator, Alfred Hitchcock.
As for complete viewings. ...at least 25 to 30....wore out a VHS....and when it's on now,I watch little bits,maybe a scene or two...divorced from the whole,certain things seem to come to light a lot easier....maybe by not being numb from the earlier scenes.
12 Comments:
Probably around 25 to 30 times for me. Every time I read a Hitchcock biography or a book on Psycho I go back to the film with fresh insights. The movie never gets old. I love Vertigo with a passion, I'm crazy about Strangers On A Train and Shadow of a Doubt but I think Psycho is for me the quintessential Hitchcock film and my favourite. I saw it on its first run in the UK, with all the ballyhoo about managers allowing no one to enter after it had started and stern admonitions not to reveal the ending. The tension among the audience as Vera Miles walked up to the house was palpable, and there were audible gasps and shrieks when the big reveal came and Tony Perkins rushed in. People did listen to the psychiatrist's explanation but there was also a lot of chatter during it as people discussed what they had just seen. It wasn't until then, with the release of tension, that I realized just how taut my muscles had been while watching. I've never had a cinema experience like it since. What a masterful director Hitchcock was. I don't think he ever excelled this.
Dan Mercer speculates on what "Vertigo" might have been with Vera Miles:
Hitchcock was grooming Vera Miles to be another Grace Kelly when she escaped to the arms of Gordon Scott. She was still under contract to him, though, and her reward was the severe Lila Crane of "Psycho." Was it a thankless role? Perhaps, but her character was the moral agent for the resolution of the story.
"Vertigo" would have been very different, had Miles essayed Madeline, but I shouldn't be too glad that she was unable to. Kim Novak is superb in it, but her performance is an example of Hitchcock obtaining what he wanted from what he was given. The yearning and vulnerability, which is so affecting, may be as much the expression of an actress thrust into a role beyond her comprehension as to her particular skills. She was, like Judy, play acting upon a stage set by someone else.
Novak was a statuesque blonde with a cool, patrician beauty, but also an almost coarse carnality. Hitchcock effectively played upon those contrasts in creating the Madeline and Judy characters. Vera Miles was very different, petite and delicate, very pretty but without the visual dominance of Novak. She was like a glass of Lalique crystal, exquisite in herself, but needing to be filled in order to have color and scent.
There are three roles Miles is remembered for today, the wife and mother in "The Wrong Man," descending into melancholy and madness, the hoydenish young woman in John Ford's "The Searchers," and this role in "Psycho." The first and the last of these were done for Hitchcock, but the great range encompassed by them suggests not only a genuine talent that he recognized, but also a vessel in which he could invest himself. It was her relative anonymity, as to herself, that allowed her to assume so effectively such diverse characters.
"Vertigo" is a superb achievement, in which Hitchcock effectively used the immutable qualities of Kim Novak to advantage. In Vera Miles, however, he might have obtained something even closer to his all too distant heart.
Oooo! Many of us would add one more signature role to Dan's Vera Miles tally: the traumatized wife in the 1955 episode of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS: 'REVENGE'.
I kinda think director Gus Van Sant performed something of a public service with his 1998 re-make. A shot for shot duplication with an A-list cast and the original score, yet the film is, by any metric, just plain terrible, proving once and for all you can not photocopy genius!
Craig Reardon weighs in with some terrific "Psycho" commentary, in several parts. Take it away, Craig! (Part One):
Your two-part observations on "Psycho" are marvelous. I can shoot away at some of your open questions or observations, NOT in the sense of "shooting them down", but firing away so to speak. In no particular order, YES, as incredible as it may seem, Phoenix CAN be hot in winter, but as logic dictates, it normally DOES cool down in December, so you're mostly RIGHT---score one for McElwee's peerless pragmatism. (In fact, it also often rains in Phoenix and other Arizona cities in winter.) You may be interested to know that some of the location stuff in "Psycho" was recognizably shot on the famous (?) southern California "grapevine", the Interstate 5, which wends its way through some tall country (Angeles Forest) and peaks out someplace, I don't really know where is the highest spot, before descending finally down into the actual San Fernando Valley. At one high point there is a city which never really has grown, and often gets socked in with snow (otherwise rare in Southern Cal!), called Gorman. When you watch "Psycho" AGAIN (and, you will!), look for a sign that indicates an offramp to Gorman. The unnamed city where Janet Leigh stops to sell her car, the paranoia setting in, was I believe only a few blocks east of Universal on Cahuenga Blvd. You are dead right in referring to the FACT that "Psycho" was shot at Universal, I think due to Hitch already having inked some kind of deal where he'd be moving his production facilities (i.e., from Paramount), in part because Paramount raised objections, as you know, to the content of "Psycho". I'm sure they didn't mind taking their cut from what proved to be a monster hit by terms of that day. However, boo-hoo to Paramount as Hitch owned controlling interest by contract and that was signed away (in blood!) to MCA, and so remains with Comcast Universal to this day. (Universal's been passed around more than a whore at a lowdown stag party, and even AFTER I worked there, at which time it was still MCA, it's been owned serially by Panasonic/Matsushita, Seagram's, Vivendi, NBC, and now Comcast---whewww!) I think you are right about the relative necessity of having Norman 'explained' at the end of the film, and equally right that this now gives this portion of the film a stilted, smug, outdated quality. But, of course, Joe Stefano admitted himself that he was in therapy at that time and probably jumped at the opportunity to sell the whole thing in his script. (I think he later even admitted to his own mother/son conflicts.) His script, or any ad-libs (I've never seen the published script) is very, very hip, very modern, very condensed and convinced its 'modern' late 20t century audience, coming in from the cold of the Catholic bans for 30-odd years, would 'get' the references and the adult tone. I agree that the assignation scene is still sexy, bra or (as Hitch claimed he would have preferred it) bra-less. Hitch is an easy target now, but I think his reference to 'bra-less' was not because, duh, he was a "dirty old man", but because he was a bleeping sophisticated man, and he realized young people like Leigh and Gavin (that is, their characters mainly) WOULD play footsie with even fewer clothes on than just a missing bra, and may I once again say "Duhhh!", loudly? Hitch didn't live in a provincial world, though I don't doubt he was PERSONALLY paralyzed with Puritanism as most of us born in the early-to-middle 20th century WERE, in spite of being smart and worldly enough to regret it and rebel against it, as well as recognizing that its miserable effects were deleterious and had really seen their day, current politics notwithstanding.
Part Two with Craig Reardon:
Tony Perkins is said, by himself also, to have thought up the idea of Norman crunching Kandy Korn (I remember that spelling, too! I always hated the stuff and always got too much of it in my "trick or treat" bag at Halloween!) It's a great prop as it communicates perfectly his nervous tension. But that nervous tension is in EVERY early Perkins performance, if you look for it. Why, in "Tall Story", in which he's merely playing a 'cute' (by the '50s-'60s standards that benefited his early career) college kid who's the object of lust and affection of Jane Fonda, he says some of his lines as if he's actually choking with terror, which I actually think he was, with Fonda pressed up tight against him! I worked with Tony on one of his last projects, a dopey horror movie produced partially by CBS for late night presentation, made in Budapest (of all places) in 1989. I liked him, but he was not a relaxed sort of guy, particularly. I know, that's not going to come as a shocking revelation. The real masterstroke of Hitch is seeing Perkins' potential as Norman Bates at a time when Perkins was actively enjoying a career (whether he enjoyed it personally or not!) as a 'heterosexual' girl's idea of a total dreamboat. But Hitch apparently saw a LOT of movies, and he'd caught "Fear Strikes Out", in which Perkins was obliged to mirror the inner torment of baseball player Jim Piersall (I think I've got that right--?), who'd suffered severe emotional problems. And evidently Hitch saw that and must have thought, "NOW I can have a Norman who's actually interesting!"--versus the stock character the otherwise-brilliant Robert Bloch limned in his novel, a middle-aged, dumpy and nondescript mama's boy. To me, watching this outwardly-attractive 'boy' (I'm 61, now, after all), i.e., Perkin's Bates, struggling with shyness and awkwardness when he meets the Auber-attractive Marion Crane in the person of a ripened beauty easily embodied by Janet Leigh, is terribly poignant. Ultimately learning that Norman is completely off his rocker never entirely dispels for me this initial sense of pathos. Well, almost! Perkins is equally adroit at portraying the guy completely off his hinges in the final moments.
As you know, I think, Universal acquired some special sort of software patented by a French company to filet the mono-mix original soundtrack and completely reconstruct it in true stereo, which boggles the mind---but there's a completely-convincing short subject about it included with the excellent Blu-ray. The masterstroke was to avoid 'improving' the actual QUALITY of the 1960 recorded sound; they "merely" rejiggered it completely to remix not only the directionality of the voices, but the sound effects, and the long-since-classic Bernard Herrmann score, almost instrument-by-instrument. But I think the great cinematography by the hugely-underrated journeyman D.P. John Russell (his middle name should be "not the actor") is also a HUGE, huge plus to the movie. Russell shot the Hitchcock TV show (probably in relay with at least another D.P., to keep up with the killing schedule of providing networks in those days with 32 shows a season---unbelievable.) Hitch knew Russell would be fast, and therefore cheaper, and he wanted to make "Psycho" on the cheap. But he got fast, cheap, and GREAT---not just "good". I'm thinking Robert Burks must have seen "Psycho" and either thought, "I have to belittle this thing!", or, worried for his next job with Hitch! But, sure enough, Hitch went back to Burks for "The Birds" and "Marnie" (after which Burks, apparently died in a fire at his home---horrible!)
Part Three with Craig Reardon:
I agree entirely that Vera Miles was dead wrong for "Vertigo"---and I feel her replacement, Kim Novak, was bloody perfect in it. BUT, Miles is great in "Psycho". There's a no-nonsense quality in almost all of Miles performances that would have sunk "Vertigo", which utterly depends on nonsensical situations made fascinating by fantasy and desire (which Novak had NO PROBLEM furnishing.) My late pal and colleague Mike McCracken worked on "Psycho 2" (something I've successfully avoided seeing ever since it was released), and he worked with Miles, who apparently suffers a typically graphic, stupid '80s-style death-by-knifing which McCracken simulated with a full head replica of Miles. I asked him about her at the time, and he said she was, quote, "great" to work with. I quite agree that to lose the resource she at least could provide as to a unique experience working with the guys you mention would be a crime. Perhaps by now memory itself might be suspect, but I wish somebody would try. Perhaps she's rebuffed requests. After all, even "Psycho 2" was over 30 years ago. Whew, imagine that one!
Part Four and Conclusion with Craig Reardon:
I've always heard that the death of Marion Crane played VERY much a shock to contemporary audiences, who were as ambushed by it as Hitchcock hoped they'd be. But, anyone who'd read the book first would have seen it coming, as it is EXACTLY the same in Bloch's book---i.e., a total shock, a complete, neck-jerking hard right turn in the story. In fact, you're left almost too stunned to turn the page! And, I first encountered "Psycho" in the book, because there was "no way, José!" my protective mother would have ever permitted me to see "Psycho" in 1960 when I was 7 years old---darn it! However, to her credit, she DID allow me to see it---in fact, TOOK me (and my younger brother) to see it, at the Greenbriar favorite, the Century Drive-In (across from the also lately defunct but once famous Hollywood Park Racetrack) in Inglewood...when it was reissued (apparently for the second time?) in 1965. I say "second time", as I've seen ads in which it was co-billed with "Vertigo". I wish! I saw it with William Castle's asinine but enjoyable (a description which fits all his films) "Straitjacket". Not exactly "Vertigo"! But, to a 12-year old (as I was by 1965), "Straitjacket" was a scary, silly, enjoyable wind-up for the real pitch which was Hitchcock's infinitely superior "Psycho". Even by 1965 movie standards, "Psycho" had---then, I emphasize---a queer realism, an almost documentary feeling, which is difficult to sell to movie fans today who would be justified in responding that it seems very much a theatrical or part-artificial sort of film, seen today. I concede that much, but ONLY from a contemporary perspective, as then I still insist "Psycho" had that 'here and now', real quality. Hard to substantiate, what with Herrmann's brilliant and manipulative score percolating behind it all the way. But even Herrmann was a man apart, like Hitch, and at that time (I keep repeating!), his style was a one-off, and somehow his music seemed more on the order of being 'feelings' and 'intimations' gelled into music, or sound, or emotion itself. As you say, when the murder finally happens, you are simply like a person going out for a walk at night jumped from all sides by predatory thugs. It was a rape, really. The score conspires with brilliant and fragmentary, weirdly attenuated sound effects to put you right into Marion's tragic...not shoes, but certainly her slippery footsteps, as this crazy SOMEBODY madly intrudes and begins attacking her for no reason with a gigantic butcher knife. To a still basically polite and orderly society, Hitch wickedly threw in a cherry bomb with this scene. The movie DOES recover from it. Think of that! It shouldn't have been able to even come close to that apex, and yet it actually does, in its own way, and almost twice, to boot.
He even puts the perfect fade-out on the movie...a chilling, austere tableau spookily haunted by the horrendous grinning face of 'Ma' almost superimposed over Perkins' features, and then the disorientation of seeing that auto pulled up from the muck and mire. I hardly knew what the hell I was looking at when I first saw that ending in '65---but, unlike some, I DID see the appalling face of Ma Bates, one more time! And yet, Hitchcock triumphed, because I honestly thought I'd imagined it! I thought it was coming back to haunt me from somewhere in my subconscious. That's how brilliant he was. He totally understood how to use the 'stuff' of filmmaking to achieve his frequently exquisite, versus bombastic effects.
Fun one-two punch o' Psycho, a film I find myself occasionally having to defend to movie-lovers who simply find the whole thing representing the "mean side" rather than the artistic side of Mr. Hitchcock.
I love how people who have seen the film STILL scream when Lila goes down to the fruit cellar, even though, technically, that's probably the safest place in the house for her, if she doesn't mind sharing it with a corpse.
The candy corn was to make Norman more bird-like, wasn't it?
I always assumed Ms. Crane doesn't push on the 15 miles to Sam because she's decided to rest up and drive back home in the morning and turn herself in.
Anyway, good to visit the Greenbriar, as always!
Craig Reardon and I have been in some back-and-forth about Vera Miles, and here are some further observations he offered:
John,
I think we've already swapped this one about, but on one of the extras on one of the delightful DVDs from Warner Home Video that really sort of exploded for awhile in the earlier '00's, there was one loaded onto one of the typically-terrific '40s programmers from the latter part of the decade. See if you can figure out which one---I never can remember which short or old cartoon or 'special feature' goes with what title, unfortunately. I THINK it had to do with a regional celebration, but I'm not sure what, or where. Might even very well have been something loaded in the 'newsreel' section, one of those often enjoyable compilations the DVD producers called "Warners Night at the Movies". Anyway, it was an earlier Miss America, I think, and it was covered with B&W footage. And the whole point of all this is, one of the contestants is obviously Vera Miles! I think she was Miss Kansas (?) Can't remember for sure. It's a lot of fun to spot her, because she is so recognizable with that distinctive, intelligent-looking (and needless to add, very pretty) face. She did, and so in this movie forever 'does' NOT win the contest, and the lady who does---I wouldn't take away her Great Moment, and she's obviously and predictably excited and moved---still doesn't hold a candle to the young Ms. Miles, in my opinion. However, someone less nuts about old movies and more objective might observe that Vera's wonderful looks as evidenced in her numerous appearances in future movies and TV shows were not yet quite in perfect focus, as they often aren't in celebrities just prior to hitting big, nor in fact in many of our youthful faces upon which Life has not yet written its history.
And, it's pretty well-known by now that Miles is startlingly recognizable (functioning as a young WB contract player with no say in the matter!) in a quick speaking part in the TRAILER for "Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" (a 'fun' job---ugghhh---she shares with fellow contracted youngsters Paul Picerni and---gulp!---Merv Griffin!)
I also forgot to point something else out about "Psycho" that's of some interest, I think! Not to SANE people, but to movie nuts! In "Psycho", Vera Miles was obliged to wear a blond WIG all through her part. I am guessing, but I'm all but certain this is due to the fact that she'd previously appeared in a movie called "Five Branded Women," for which she had to have her hair severely cropped. I've never seen it so I don't know if she was actually shaved bald, or just given the kind of ragged cropping that was often used to disgrace women. But it sure explains the kind of stiff wig (and hairstyle---but, that was 1960, and 'stiff' hairstyles were the rage in the early '60s! I know---I remember!) she wears. In stills, and quite likely in some close-ups, you can see the lace 'blender' at the top of her forehead which was a constant companion to full wigs and even some hairpieces on men in films in that era.
Craig
Dan Mercer further considers Vera Miles as "Vertigo" leading lady (Part One):
I shouldn't want to suggest that Kim Novak's performance in "Vertigo" is anything less than sublime. I remember driving home after seeing the film for the first time, still caught in its spell, and imagining that the streets in the suburbs of southern New Jersey were those of San Francisco and that I was Scotty following Madeline's car. A lot of that had to do with Kim Novak, with the first glimpse of her profile at Earnie's or the way she turned to him from his bed, with that breathless stillness, like a summer night waiting for a storm to break.
But could Vera Miles have provided another kind of rightness for the role, maybe even one closer to Hitchcock's heart?
He didn't always have his first choice for important parts, as in "Vertigo" or with Theresa Wright as the young Charlie in "Shadow of a Doubt." She was wonderful but he really wanted Joan Fontaine for the role. At least with Fontaine, we know how good she would have been by her astonishing performances in "The Constant Nymph" and "Letter from an Unknown Woman." If we haven't the same assurance with Vera Miles, though, as she never played a similar role to Judy or Madeline, we do know that Hitchcock had tailored "Vertigo" for her.
How much credence can we give to his choice?
He'd worked with a diverse group of actresses, including Fontaine, Ingrid Bergman, and Grace Kelly, and almost always got what he needed in the way of a performance. The Eve Kendall of Eva Marie Saint in "North by Northwest" revealed a beauty and glamour that was somewhat surprising from an actress better known for sensitive portrayals of working class women. Even 'Tippi' Hedren, upon whom he imposed himself in no way forgivable, save that he had lived with his fantasies for too long, was remarkable in "The Birds" and especially "Marnie." As to the last, she was entirely believable as a woman trapped by her compulsions, possibly because she was trapped by his during the making of this film.
Part Two from Dan Mercer:
What would he have seen in Vera Miles? She'd done some television work but had never caught on in films until she did "The Searchers" in 1956. She was placed under an exclusive contract with Hitchcock the following year and appeared in "Revenge," the pilot episode of the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" television series. The role of an emotionally troubled young bride was almost a tryout for her first film role for Hitchcock, in "The Wrong Man," which she did later that year. Here she was entirely convincing as a wife and mother who is slowly crushed by the events ensnarling her life with that of her husband, when he's wrongly accused of a crime. From a bright and attractive woman, probably not so very different from Miles in real life, she becomes sad and withdrawn, increasingly plain and clumsy. Were there echoes here of Madeline playing out her faux dreams of the mad Carlotta? At the very least, it suggested how malleable she was to her director's instructions.
Hitchcock had been paying close personal attention to her, allowing Edith Head to create a new wardrobe and look for her and further refining her acting technique. Later she said that she could never please him. He been used to actresses like Madeline Carroll or Grace Kelly, she said, who were beautiful and sexy, but hers was an entirely different approach. It is disingenuous in a way, as she surely understood that the beauty and allure which is so apparent in their performances was at least a collaboration between them and their director. In retrospect, though, there is something in this story hauntingly close to Scotty trying to recreate the dead Madeline in the all too alive Judy, bringing out all that is Madeline to him but repressing all that is not; that is, all that is Judy. When she protests, he cries out, "It can't really matter to you." He means that this is so important to him that nothing must be allowed to interfere with it, even Judy herself. But Vera Miles was a real woman, not a character on a typescript to be amended as another pleased. She became pregnant and unable to continue with the transformation that would have lead to "Vertigo." It was curious in a way--she divorced her husband, Gordon Scott, the following year--except that, like 'Tippi' Hedren after her, she could not bear to die as Judy did and so found this avenue of escape.
How good Vera Miles might have been in "Verigo" is a moot question now. Kim Novak played the role and made it her own. All that really can be said is that she understood it better than anyone other than its creator, Alfred Hitchcock.
As for complete viewings. ...at least 25 to 30....wore out a VHS....and when it's on now,I watch little bits,maybe a scene or two...divorced from the whole,certain things seem to come to light a lot easier....maybe by not being numb from the earlier scenes.
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