Essential: THE L-SHAPED ROOM (1962)

THE L-SHAPED ROOM stays with you long after viewing. It is all quite memorable– the story itself, Bryan Forbes’ direction (and the changes he made from Lynne Reid Banks’ original novel) plus Leslie Caron’s performance. She should have received an Oscar.

There are so many remarkable scenes. My “favorite” part is the brief montage where she’s walking down the street after taking the pills (to induce an abortion), then collapses. One time I collapsed in public, after drinking too much wine, and this is exactly how it is…where there are these little jumps in time, losing consciousness and going down. Afterward, I felt disoriented and slightly embarrassed, which Caron experiences on screen.

I haven’t read the book yet, but in the original story Jane the main character has a boy. Not sure why Forbes felt the need to switch the child’s gender to a girl in the film. Banks wrote two more books about Jane raising her son, so there is a trilogy.

I think the second-best performance after Caron’s is Cicely Courtneidge emoting as an over-the-top over-the-hill music hall performer. She plays it with the right combination of gusto and vulnerability. She is both repulsive and endearing.

Less effective is American actor Brock Peters. He’s a highly competent performer but miscast. While he nails the beats of individual scenes I don’t think he brings the right amount of pathos to it. I felt Johnny, his character, should have been a bit more tormented about loving Toby and having to witness Toby’s relationship with Jane right under his nose.

In some ways Jane is a protagonist and an antagonist. She’s definitely a catalyst in all their lives, and they are catalysts in her life. Interestingly, daily routines continue as “normal” after she has the baby and leaves.

The final scene where she goes back to retrieve her belongings and meets Jane II, the new boarder in her old room– has echoes of the final scene in ALL ABOUT EVE. Though we are told that Jane II has no intention of interacting with the other boarders, we know she will get drawn into their lives and they will get drawn into hers, just as we had seen happen to Jane I.

Essential: PSYCHO (1998)

Jlewis wrote:

While it is not an exact scene-for-scene duplicate of the original, it is close enough. Director Gus Van Sant admitted in an online video interview that he knew well ahead of time that his great experiment would hardly win the critics’ approval. A few famous fans can be found who actually favor this over the Hitchcock version, including Quentin Tarantino, but this is otherwise more famous for the number of “worst of 1998” polls it ended up on, in addition to the endless hostile reviews on the IMDb.com site. It did manage a small profit, so neither Universal nor the director suffered all that badly in the end.

So…how bad is it?

Well…no movie utilizing essentially the same script as a well-regarded masterpiece can be all that bad. Needless to say, I did not think it was terribly good either.

I think my biggest issue, apart from the cast, was the director’s decision to update the setting from December 1959-January 1960, both the filming period and setting of the original, to July-August 1998, a filming period that is way too obvious on screen despite the original introductory date of “Friday, December 11” retained in the opening scenes. Everybody is wearing their summertime best (Anne Heche with an umbrella at the car dealership) and there’s no holiday décor anywhere that I noticed (but I can be corrected here).

Only a few modifications were made, resulting in a curious hybrid that looks quite “retro.” A Volvo gets its trunk open by key instead of the more advanced method of the time, so that the original script is still followed closely. William H. Macy as Arbogast wears practically the same clothes as Martin Balsam, long out of fashion for decades. Trying to remember how many phone booths were still operating in 1998, but I sense that they are present here simply because the 1959 script demands them. No computers prominent. On the plus side, there was a conscious effort to note inflation: $400,000 is stolen instead of $40,000.

The original film is a time capsule for me of the way things were back in the fifties. Overall, this updating felt like a nineties setting but with performers thinking they are living in the fifties.

A couple of things I liked…

Although Anne Heche was nominated for a Raspberry, I did not find her all that terrible as the doomed Marion. Apparently she only belatedly saw the original with Janet Leigh during production time and pretty much played it her own way…which did not please the critics but still made her rather interesting to lil’ ol’ me.

At least her performance was a bit different than the other actors and actresses who all tried too hard to match the originals. For example, I felt that Vince Vaughn was desperately mimicking Anthony Perkins in a fashion reminding me of Harpo mimicking Groucho in the famous mirror scene in DUCK SOUP.

When Marion debates on running off with the money in her room, we see birds settle on branches outside. (Birds subliminally get her on to her quest with destiny.) This is a fun fore-shadowing of both the stuffed birds and live ones in an aviary that her sister Lila would see in the Bates fruit cellar.

Oh…the fruit cellar where Mrs. Bates resides in the end. It is an aviary with live birds in a mini-zoo, a rather ambitious taxidermy “lab” and other interesting “stuff.” Sadly the director’s need to stick to the original script may not have allowed him to further pursue this very unique and imaginative take on the Bates home and Norman in particular.

The fact that Marion remembers to include her passport in her suitcase is important, making her stealing act more realistic for me than in the original. At least she is plotting to leave the country with Sam at some point. Now that I think about it, that may also have been Marion’s intention in the original as well even if it wasn’t spelled out like it is here.

There was some outrage over Norman, um, pleasuring himself when peeping on Marion which I wasn’t at all disturbed by. After all, it adds a certain realism that Hitchcock couldn’t depict back in the Production Code era. (No, we do not see anything shocking, being that it is all merely hinted off-camera.) It also adds commentary to the Internet Age when an increasing number of people felt more comfort sexually watching “online” rather than connecting with other human beings. That reminds me…why didn’t this Norman add some updated video security system to his hotel so he does not need a peep hole?

The not so good…

OK. To be fair, Vince Vaughn had to jump to this opportunity to play against the type of roles he was famous for, like WEDDING CRASHERS in which he’s the standard happy-go-lucky jock. This was as close to method acting as he could get at this point in his career. Unfortunately his delivery of the lines spoken by Perkins in the original are way too fast and monotone for my tastes. It is as if he is trying to memorize all of the material and forgot to add much feeling to his performance. “We have twelve cabins, twelve vacancies. Hee hee.”

Not that he is totally bad throughout. There are a few good moments that linger favorably on my mind, namely the shots of him looking like a lost little boy in the large all-gray room in the finale.

Bizarre artsy decision: When Arbogast is killed, we get two “what in the world?” shots of an almost naked lady wearing a mask and a cow in the middle of the road. Makes me ponder if these are the two most pleasurable mental images this man enjoyed in that critical moment he dies…

Overall, it was a little…dull. Was this because I had seen the original too many times and was spoiled? Perhaps. Maybe I would think differently if this was the only PSYCHO I had seen. Yet little of the dialogue spoken sounded spontaneous and emotional; so many of the performers behaved like they had been rehearsing from the script way too much. Check out the “Making Of” video online: you see each actor and actress comment on the original performer in every interview, suggesting that they are thinking of the past performers more than the characters they are playing.

Apart from the two leads and Macy, I liked all of the familiar faces selected for all of the supporting roles: the always feisty Julianne Moore as Lila, Viggo Mortensen as Sam (with an added Texas accent and a calypso-taste in shirts, but also exposing a bit more nudity on screen than John Gavin did), a very worried and tired looking Robert Forster as Dr. Simon Richmond, overdressed and stylish Rita Wilson as Caroline (but there’s nice video footage online of Pat Hitchcock visiting the set to socialize with Rita as she plays her role), and aging Chad Everett as Tom Cassidy.

Granted, they all look as lost here as John Wayne and Susan Hayward did in THE CONQUEROR but just their faces are pleasing enough for me. There may be cult appeal for this film in the future due to this very fact.

In the final analysis…

It is an experiment first and entertainment second. I was thinking a lot about Andy Warhol. Van Sant decided to make a mostly scene-for-scene remake of a classic for much the same reason why Warhol decided to make a 485 minute “epic” of the Empire State Building. Simply because it hadn’t been done before and he wanted to oh-so-desperately. Nothing wrong with that. Perhaps, as more years progress and newer viewers become less knowledgeable of the harsh criticism this received upon release, it may be viewed as a cult-worthy experiment.

TopBilled wrote:

I love your detailed analysis, Jlewis. When I was looking for photos to go with your review, it felt like 1998 again. I was remembering when I first saw this version. I don’t consider it a remake as much as a re-creation. I think it works best for those who have seen the original a million times and need another way to view it. An analogy would be if you’re Catholic (which Hitchcock was) and you’ve gone to mass a million times, but you just need a different priest in a different parish to go over the scripture with you.

Yes, this version feels like a religious experience to me. A form of communion with a classic. It’s like coming home.

I think they were all slightly bogged down having to “imitate” the original and really couldn’t venture off the page too much. But because Anne Heche was not trying to be Janet Leigh Junior, she achieves a bit more originality. Incidentally, Heche had worked with Vince Vaughn in a low budget drama called RETURN TO PARADISE the same year.

Gus Van Sant made it because he could. I wish someone would redo CITIZEN KANE, CASABLANCA and GONE WITH THE WIND, to show us that anyone can re-present a classic. It helps reframe the original and makes the original less untouchable. Nothing in movies should be so sacred that we cannot re-interpret it or at least make a facsimile of it. For our veneration. I think that was Van Sant’s unholy thesis…that we can co-opt something, sort of like Mother stealing Norman’s identity out from under him. (Jesus becoming Mary?) I would say that in itself is more shocking and disturbing than any gruesome shower scene.

Van Sant wasn’t trying to make a commercial hit. Instead he was examining the realm of ownership and re-manipulation of source material. That is what’s so shocking about what he has done. I deem him a brilliant and ballsy filmmaker.

As for the story’s most violent moment, Van Sant does show Marion’s flesh being pierced, something Hitchcock could not do in 1960.

And because he shoots it in color, the blood is of course red (not chocolate syrup) and the crucifixion is quite vivid.

Despite this added realism, I find the motel bathroom stuff less interesting than the cellar scene that occurs up at the house. Maybe because Mother’s decayed corpse grabs me as a bit more horrifying.

Norman Bates is now more sexual which I think is good for this particular story. He is able to experience new things in 1998. It helps that Vince Vaughn has an evil looking haircut. Unlike Anthony Perkins who comes across as a lost childlike man, Vaughn is the opposite. He’s a sexy man-child that gets off perversion. The difference is key.

It was smart how Universal execs allowed Van Sant to make this version. The studio didn’t have to pay anyone for the rites since it already owned the story. This production basically had to break even. And if that is all it did, break even without making even one dollar profit, it still gave employment to all these people in front of and behind the camera. Or should I say in front of and behind the altar/alter.

It doesn’t matter if critics showered Van Sant with praise. 

In the name of the mother, the son and the holy corpse. Amen.

Essential: Play for Today- Home Sweet Home (1982)

There’s something about Mike Leigh’s work that grabs you. I am not sure if it’s because the characters are simple, and the situations are anything but simple. Or if it’s because despite the contrivances of the plot, the characters are still living out a solemn existence. And in this case, solemn is anything but boring.

The story focuses on three postal workers in Hertforshire who do the same mundane job day in and day out. Two are married (not to each other) and the third one, whose wife left him, is sleeping with both his coworkers’ wives. What I like about the way this unfolds is how Leigh tells us right away that one of the affairs is occurring, but we do not know there is a second affair going on at the same time until halfway into the story. Gordon and Harold (Timothy Spall and Tim Barker), the unsuspecting husbands, don’t find out their wives (Kay Stonham and Su Elliott) are unfaithful with their oversexed coworker Stan (Eric Richard) until near the end of the story.

Woven into this is the fact that Stan’s teen daughter (Lorraine Brunning) is in foster care and a bubbly social worker (Frances Barber) is trying to help the daughter return home to live with Stan. The social worker is an unrealistic do-gooder who says “super” every thirty seconds and glosses over the problems in Stan’s life as well as the fact that Tina, the daughter, is still emotionally unstable.

It’s all rather depressing yet fascinating. Tina is allowed to spend a weekend with her father and while she’s at home, she learns about Stan’s affairs. She discovers her father’s lecherous behavior at the same time that Gordon and Harold find out what Stan’s been up to behind their backs. We’re not meant to pity Stan but rather to feel sorry for the people that Stan screws over; and in some ways, Tina is getting screwed over too because Stan’s no model of stability for her to come home to. 

The dialogue in this telefilm is crafted in a “natural” way that we feel like we’re listening to real dysfunctional conversations. We’re supposed to realize that all these people are trapped in some sort of unhappy working class environment. And we are also supposed to realize that none of society’s solutions work for these people. Honesty leads to heartbreak; friendship leads to betrayal; childcare leads to alienation; intervention leads to disaster; and night leads to another day of misery.

The film ends after Stan’s been found out, shortly after he speaks to a new social worker (Lloyd Peters) about Tina’s mental health. Stan doesn’t seem to be thrilled with the idea of having to deal with court-appointed imbeciles; or having to appear sincere in a conversation about how to fix Tina’s problems. We then cut to a shot of Tina wandering around outside a group home.  

It’s not a feel-good ending at all. But in a way you do feel good after watching this story, because you realize that your own problems pale in comparison to what’s just been depicted on screen.

 

Essential: PSYCHO (1960)

Based on Ed Gein

Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece was in all likelihood inspired by the serial killings of Ed Gein. However, PSYCHO does not use Gein’s name and many fictionalized elements have been added.

With the end of the production code in sight, Hitchcock probably felt he could take certain liberties. He knew stories about grisly murderers captured the public’s attention.

Although I had heard of the film during my youth, I didn’t see Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO for the first time until my Freshman year in college. It was while taking an introductory film course. An assignment required students to analyze the shots of the shower scene.

The purpose of the assignment was to learn how the director had devised a “formula” for horror through storyboarding and editing. As a result, I became very familiar with what is probably the most famous “action” sequence in motion picture history.

Shot by shot analysis

It starts with Marion Crane in the bathroom. She is showering, when her attacker enters. The knife slashes down for the very first time. Then, it is raised again.

Marion’s body has water splashing down it, partially obscured by the intruder’s shadowy arm. Marion realizes she is being attacked; instinctively, she begins to fend off the intruder. There’s a close-up of the knife striking her three more times.

As the knife slices towards her, Marion turns away. She is recoiling and confused. The knife comes into clear focus. Water bounces off the metal blade. We see Marion’s body. There is no blood, but it is implied that she is receiving the fatal wound.

Marion looks entranced, as if she is dreaming. But she knows she’s really dying. There’s a reverse angle of the door, and the knife slashing. Then, we see Marion’s face. She is in agony. Blood drips down her legs, and Marion turns herself away. There’s a slightly wider shot of Marion with the knife reappearing. Causing a greater flow of blood. Then a flash of the bare tile wall. Marion’s bloody hand is seen. She is still turned away.

We then get a shot of the intruder exiting.

It looks like a woman wearing a long dress. Marion is still pressed against the white tile. She manages to turn herself back around. She begins to slide down slowly with outstretched arm, as she loses her grip on life.

Her body is still sliding down the shower wall. She’s alive and conscious but her eyes are now glazed. She looks forward and her arm remains outstretched. Her hand grasps the curtain. Marion holds on to the curtain for dear life. But she begins to pull the curtain down with her. The curtain is unable to bear her weight and it rips away from the supporting bar. The hooks are popping, one at a time.

Then Marion’s arm falls, followed by her head and torso.

*****

I soon memorized the shower sequence forward and backward. When you go that deep with it, you start to think Marion Crane is real, that she is your own personal cadaver! Actually it feels like you are being shown how to violate a woman, and I think that is a bit of what Hitchcock and screenwriter Joseph Stefano intended.

The poetic, less scientific part of your brain sees her as a doomed creature. You think to yourself, if only she hadn’t stolen the money or left Phoenix.

Friday afternoon in Phoenix

It was Friday afternoon in Phoenix. Marion Crane was meeting her lover Sam Loomis at a hotel. Sam had a lot of debt, and until he was more financially secure, he wouldn’t be able to marry Marion.

After their romantic rendezvous, Marion went back to the real estate office where she worked. Her boss was a man named George Lowery. Mr. Lowery was meeting with an oil tycoon. The tycoon told Marion he was purchasing a house for his daughter and paying for it with cash. Mr. Lowery became concerned about leaving $40,000 in the office over the weekend, so he asked Marion to take it to the bank. Then Marion was free to go home afterward.

Instead of going to the bank, Marion just went straight home. She decided to keep the money for herself. She stuffed it into her purse and packed a suitcase. Then she got on the highway and drove out of Phoenix. She drove and drove until she was so tired, she was forced to pull over. Marion soon fell asleep on a lonely stretch of road.

She was awakened the next morning by a highway patrolman. The officer seemed suspicious of her behavior, but then let her go.

Marion feared he might remember her, so she stopped at a used car lot to trade in her vehicle for a different one. Later, as she continued to drive along the California highway, she found herself caught in a fierce storm. Marion then missed the turnoff to Sam’s place and ended up stopping at a quaint little motel. The charming proprietor welcomed her and offered to fix her dinner.

***

Jlewis wrote:

This essential needs no introduction since it has been discussed almost as much as CITIZEN KANE by the literary elite, despite most not considering it the “greatest,” even for director Alfred Hitchcock. It is one of those key mass-appeal hits that you pretty much remember where you were when you first watched it. I was roughly 12 and stayed up until midnight to catch it on TV, since that was the only time it was permitted on the air-waves. This was still before home video and also before PSYCHO II.

Also…roughly the same time…I saw JAWS on TV and, yes, I do need to mention both titles in comparison here because they were two that I greatly avoided as a child, being ominously tied by a shocking music score played during grisly murder scenes: PSYCHO had Bernard Herrmann’s screeching violins and JAWS had John Williams’ slowly accelerating train-like “approaching danger” theme. (Trivia note: Williams was initially considered to score PSYCHO II but Jerry Goldsmith took over on that one.) My parents saw the former in theaters the summer before they became seniors in high school while the latter was seen by my fellow elementary school students fifteen summers later but, as much as I loved sharks, I was very much afraid of them.

When I finally got to it, JAWS wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it would be, although I was genuinely riveted by all of the suspense leading up to the rather silly scene when the mechanical “Bruce” chomped at Robert Shaw. As for PSYCHO, I considered parts in the second half a trifle dull (too much Vera Miles and John Gavin) and so much of the overall “feel” being rather dated, but the shower killing still forced me to close my eyes at first viewing. Later I realized that it was all clever editing and we don’t even see the knife touch any skin. Supposedly chocolate sauce was used for “blood.” Yet there is no question which film is better, so I have returned to it many more times than JAWS.

As I suggest, PSYCHO does have various flaws but they do not make it any less entertaining and re-watchable. For example, as much as I adore Janet Leigh and everything she appears in, even I will admit that a younger actress with more adolescent anxiety would have been better suited to this role as Marion Crane since she tends to be too practical and maternal in her roles for one to believe she would abruptly steal money and escape…only to another state! Then again, I always felt the “hot money” part was just a gimmick to get her “on the run” and make Sheriff Chambers (played by the great radio voice John McIntire of Suspense fame) show at least some interest in her disappearance when boyfriend Sam (boring but picture-perfect John Gavin) and sister Lila (feisty Vera Miles) seek his help.

No question that Lila cared passionately for her sister in an overly protective way; Vera Miles repeated her role in PSYCHO II and was quite forceful in making sure justice is maintained against Anthony Perkins’ Norman Bates in that one.

One reason Hitch was so successful as a director and producer is that he would recycle what worked well in one film and improve upon the idea in a future one. Examples: his following up on the Statue of Liberty’s climax in SABOTEUR with the even more exciting Mount Rushmore in NORTH BY NORTHWEST, while one can easily see the menacing look of Norman Bates’ stuffed birds, including crows, in this feature as a teaser of THE BIRDS to come.

With VERTIGO, he played with a two part structure, spoiling the plot midway through but allowing us to follow Jimmy Stewart’s Scotty unravel it himself. Part one involves Madeleine, who dies tragically and puts Jimmy in the mental ward temporarily (listening to Beethoven), while part two involves Judy (also played by Kim Novak) whom Scotty eventually realizes is the same person…and she dies tragically as well. I think one reason this film was one of Hitch’s less successful efforts (initially, although now it is a critical darling) was due to the mystery angle being spoiled too early.

Therefore, PSYCHO repeats the 2 Part structure but makes sure that we the viewers merely think we are spoiled by almost-but-not-quite seeing “mother” doing it, leaving plenty of mystery regarding “mother” (always carefully obscured as in that wonderful overhead tracking shot of Norman taking her down the stairs to the fruit cellar even though she is…obvious spoiler…not struggling at all!) and provides us with one of those great gotcha endings that benefits, once again, by Bernard Herrmann’s explosive orchestra music over “The End.” There is little question that moviegoers in that summer of 1960, the last of eight tranquil summers of the Eisenhower Era, left the theater feeling they saw something so exciting and entertaining that, like your favorite amusement park ride, you just had to go back and experience it all over again (at 69 cents for matinee showings).

***

Part 1 is all about Janet Leigh’s Marion Crane. She has worked at the real estate firm for ten years, living with her sister. John Gavin’s Sam is the man she wants and, despite being divorced, he refuses to marry her on account of money issues. At this time, it was still customary for men to be providers and this potential provider is still paying off alimony checks to his ex-wife which Marion says she is willing to lick the envelopes and stamps for. When the greasy Tom Cassidy (Frank Albertson) purchases an expensive house for his daughter…who gets to be married, something that Marion longs for…he leaves her with a wad of cash that she is instructed to put in the bank deposit.

As hinted already, I do have a few issues with her abrupt decision to become a thief who violates a decade of her boss’ confidence just to “provide for” Sam, but…this is a movie about passionate sexual urges and Marion, like Norman, has these urges that must need to be satisfied! (Key line later applying more to Norman but relating to Marion as well: “These were crimes of passion, not profit.”) Maybe, she is thinking she could force Sam to marry her more quickly this way and then return the money?

At the close of Part 1, she meets Norman (Anthony Perkins) who resembles her in many ways, both feeling they have stepped into a trap they can’t get out of…and, yet, Marion is suddenly optimistic that she can return back to Arizona and settle her trap after her meaningful talk with the sweet Norman.

Then we get the shower scene. Now that I finally saw THE LODGER (1927), I realize that Janet Leigh was not the first Hitch lady to smile as she lathers up bathroom soap on her arms. The stuff of Irish Spring commercials.

Part 2 is focused on Norman after he meticulously cleans up after Mother. (Marion cleaned herself already just before her death but Norman has to clean up the chocolate sauce.)

We later learn from the sheriff that Mother has been technically “dead” for ten years, the same amount of time a frustrated Marion has worked for the real estate office. (Some acute observers have noted that Marion’s mother is also mentioned as deceased and, like Norman, she feels “judged” years later for everything she does…cue Sam’s joke about turning her picture at Lila and Marion’s home to the wall.) Like Marion (prior to meeting Sam), Norman hasn’t experienced much of a sex life and has no counterpart to Sam in female form.

Although there is one more official death, that of investigator Arbogast (Martin Balsam), Norman kinda-sorta dies at the end of the film. Not physically, but mentally as Mother takes full control of his mind. Unraveling all of the mysteries in the Scotty role are Sam and sister Lila, with our customary shrink (Simon Oakland, a familiar guest in a few TWILIGHT ZONE shows) giving a nice windy explanation in the final reel about everything that is not quite “normal” about Norman.

Speaking about Dr. Richmond’s diagnosis, this film is somewhat, if not totally, progressive for its time in that it makes a distinction between Norman’s cross dressing (being due to Mother and Mother = Murder in this story) and those who cross-dress because that is the gender they identify as or, as the good chain-smoking doctor coughs out, for “sexual satisfaction.” In other words, there is nothing specifically “wrong” with cross-dressing in itself except, perhaps, individuals like Sam not being comfortable with it.

This film is a fascinating time capsule on sexual mores of the times, since it arrived the same year as The Pill and before the hippy revolution and all that came after. I think one reason why the 1998 update was unsuccessful is because it was much harder to believe such characters would be so suppressed in the ’90s (since the setting in the remake was updated to present time). Plus Vince Vaughan is too confident in his heterosexuality to play his Norman all that effectively as Anthony Perkins did back in the day when he was constantly questioning his own sexuality, even if his character is supposedly heterosexual but still a virgin due to Mother. 

Marion feels shameful about using hotel rooms with Sam and, yes, there was still a taboo at that time for women especially having sex before marriage. When the wife of the sheriff (Lurene Tuttle, another great radio “voice” appearing on screen) discusses the reported story of Mrs. Bates’ death by suicide (not really) ten years ago, she lowers her voice to say that Mrs. Bates and her lover “were in bed” as if that was so much more shocking than the death itself.

Some viewers psychoanalyzing this film have considered Marion’s sister as either a lesbian or merely asexual, since we don’t get any sense that she has ever been interested in men like Marion is interested in Sam and it is suggested that she is a bit older than Marion. This also reflected an innocent bygone time when families tended to stick together much more frequently, but sometimes in a negative way as to stiffen an individual’s need for freedom.

One scene that humors me involves Marion’s co-worker Caroline (Pat Hitchcock, the director’s daughter) commenting on both her husband checking on her and her mother checking up on her husband so that the whole family is fully “supervised.”

For a film all about peep holes and sexual secrets, the famous animator and graphic designer Saul Bass provides us with one of his greatest and simplest opening title sequences to prep us. Note how the simple lines running from one end of the screen to the other morph into the credits, then break up shockingly in tune to Herrmann’s shocking music score to suggest we are in for 109 minutes of shocks galore. They also resemble the hotel blinds that we “peep” through to see Marion and Sam in states of undress barely a minute after the title sequence.

Lots of interesting tidbits are presented twice. We have two shocking stab scenes. Marion changes two cars, the ’57 Ford ending up in the swamp with her corpse. Also she has two bras, the one in the beginning is white and the one after she steals the money is black. Two visits by investigator Arbogast to Norman’s mother makes sure there is not a third visit. Two references to humans not wanting to harm insects; first, in a scene with a customer reading a bottle of insecticide at Sam’s hardware store and later Mother saying she would not hurt a fly.

There are a lot of cinematic visual delights peppered throughout, but I need to point out a few in the first half in particular. Although I may be a trifle skeptical of what Marion does since it does not fit Janet Leigh’s rather distinctive personality, it is all choreographed brilliantly. I especially love how she conjures up “voices” as she drives, imagining the various outcomes of her deed and constantly questioning herself “why am I doing this?”

Janet is a brilliant actress here whom all of us who have never once stole a wad of bubble gum from a pharmacy can easily relate to. I also love how she is so cautious at the used car dealer, but also forgetting her case when she is hastily trying to pull out. Also a brilliant touch is to show the cop checking on her wearing the darkest sunglasses imaginable.

While one can nitpick certain details that seem dated by today’s standards, this is representative of a director who had been working in the movie business for almost four decades and was at his creative zenith. Like Walt Disney and Cecil B. DeMille, he knew exactly what the public wanted. Everything about this film knits together as a perfect fabric and continues to fascinate no matter how many times you view it.