Movie Review: Psycho (1960)

Psycho may be almost 60 years old, but I think it’s still the greatest horror film ever made. Alfred Hitchcock, “The Master of Suspense,” built such a reputation on this film alone, that he’s often considered a horror director, though really only this and The Birds would fit squarely in that genre. He already had his reputation before this movie as being one of film’s greatest directors for his movies like Rear Window, Strangers on a Train, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and The 39 Steps, but this movie would move him into the status of legend.

This is the first Hitchcock movie I ever saw, and that might be why it’s still my favorite. It’s one of those movies that I’d love to be able to genuinely watch again for the first time. Even the first time I had seen it, I knew so much about it; I knew the twist, I knew about the shower scene and the chocolate syrup and all that stuff. And yet it’s still so masterfully done that it manages to be suspenseful even if you know what’s coming.

What a lot of people probably don’t realize, given that Hitchcock had been an established director for decades, is how low budget this movie is. It was independently financed by Hitchcock himself, and was shot in black and white even though Hitch had been using primarily color film for over a decade. It makes sense that this would be such a low budget movie. It benefits from a small cast, and most of the people in the movie weren’t huge names.

The movie starts in Phoenix with Marion Crane (Janet Leigh, Touch of Evil) and her boyfriend, Sam Loomis (John Gavin). They hope to get married, but Sam has a bunch of debts, so it doesn’t look like it’s going to work out.

At work, Marion receives a cash payment of $40,000 from a drunk client (nearly $350,000 today). Her boss tells her to deposit it in the bank, but she decides to steal it and bring it to her boyfriend. As she’s leaving, she sees her boss, who does a double take, but she makes it out. She acts very suspiciously and eventually sleeps on the road and gets woken up by a police officer. She’s worried that the police officer suspects her crime, so she goes and buys a car from the salesman (Twilight Zone veteran John Anderson), who remarks on how quickly she’s moving.

She gets lost on her way to Sam’s, and stops at the Bates Motel, where she’s greeted by the proprietor, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins, Friendly Persuasion, Fear Strikes Out). Norman is very kind and open, if a little awkward, and offers to make her dinner. He says that it’s just him and his mother here, and that the motel is not doing well since the new highway was built.

After she checks into her room, she overhears Norman and his mother getting into an argument, before he brings her her sandwich. She eats with him, and they have an interesting discussion that is probably my favorite scene of dialogue in movie history. At times, it’s innocent, and at times it’s quite sinister. Norman states that his mother is controlling, but at the same time, she’s ill, and needs him to help her.

He says something about how people set up their own personal traps, and this encourages Marion to go and give back the money the next day. She goes back to her room to take a shower, and does some math on how much money she owes for buying the car.

Norman spies on her as she gets undressed.

And then, in probably the most famous scene in movie history, she gets killed.

Norman finds the body and assumes his mother did the killing. He cleans it up thoroughly and puts her in the car, which he sinks in a swamp.

So much has been said about Alfred Hitchcock’s decision to kill off the biggest star of the movie in the first half. Janet Leigh was a pretty big star, and she was on all the posters and everything. This kind of thing has been duplicated a lot in horror movies, especially by Wes Craven, who had the girl that appears to be the protagonist being the first to die in A Nightmare on Elm Street, and recognizable star Drew Barrymore being the first to die in Scream. Needless to say, this movie pulls it off best.

Marion’s sister, Lila (Vera Miles, The Searchers), shows up to Sam’s place of work trying to find her sister. They’re greeted by a private investigator, Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam, A Thousand Clowns), who is looking for Marion in order to find the missing $40,000.

Arbogast makes his way to the Bates Motel, and believes that Marion had stayed there under a false name. Norman is polite, but acts a little suspicious, and eventually lets it slip that Marion may have met his mother. Arbogast then wants to talk with his mother, but Norman says that won’t be possible, since she’s sick up in their house up the hill from the motel.

After calling Lila to tell her that Marion had stayed there, Arbogast sneaks up to the house to talk to Mrs. Bates. As he climbs up the stairs, he’s killed, falling down the stairs.

Eventually Sam and Lila disguise themselves as husband and wife and come to the motel. Norman lets them into a different room than Marion had stayed, and as Sam distracts Norman, Lila sneaks into the house. Norman realizes what’s going on, and knocks out Sam to run to the house. Lila sneaks into the fruit cellar and finds Mrs. Bates.

She screams, and Norman arrives, dressed like a woman. As he’s about to kill her, Sam stops her from behind.

The movie cuts to the weakest part of the movie, in which a psychiatrist (Simon Oakland) explains Norman’s affliction. There was a part of his brain that was his mother, and that part would consume him when he was threatened, and act out. It’s annoying how it spells it out for the audience, but I also give it a bit of a pass, considering in 1960, this was something so off the wall, that it probably needed explaining.

Anyways, the movie ends with Norman’s mother’s voice concluding that she wouldn’t even harm a fly, while Norman is in solitary confinement.

It’s a fantastic movie. Even if you know the twist, the execution is so great. So much of this movie works because of Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates. He’s so unassuming, but you do see glimpses of the dark side of his personality even early on. It’s a tough role, and according to the 2012 movie Hitchcock, Perkins was cast because he was closeted, and had a history of hiding things from others. I doubt that’s the case, but it’s kind of an interesting story, and it is true that Perkins was gay.

Hitchcock pulled every trick in the book not just in terms of filmmaking, but in terms of advertising. He insisted that theaters would not let anyone in after the movie started, because he didn’t want anyone to wander in and wonder where Janet Leigh was. He also had some ads out where he claimed he was holding an open casting call for someone to play Norman’s mother. And supposedly he bought up as many copies of the novel by Robert Bloch as possible, so that no one would know the ending.

With all this information, you might imagine that the movie is all about the twist, but really it isn’t. It’s an interesting story, and I love that the stolen money thing is really just a coincidence and doesn’t have anything to do with the Norman Bates plot. But it could have. Arbogast thinks that it’s possible that Norman was hiding Marion in order to take care of his own financial woes with the motel not doing well. It’s great stuff.

It’s not scary today, but it is still very suspenseful.

Rating: 10/10