When is psycho set

Hitchcock's film was based on the novel of the same name by Robert Bloch, and is one of the most iconic and well-known horror films of all time, though many audiences try to elevate it with the classification of 'thriller'. While Psycho did get an almost shot-for-shot remake in from director Gus Van Sant , it was not well-received, and earned largely negative reviews from critics. That, plus Hitchcock's vision and aesthetic makes Psycho arguably one of the hardest films to remake.

Even though Bates Motel very cleverly invigorated the Psycho original movie and franchise, a few areas of artistic license ultimately forced the series to cut away from its roots. The premise of the show seemed like it was timeless enough to seamlessly transition into the movie-verse, but these little alterations ultimately made all the difference.

Bates Motel was intended as a prequel , but also operated under a modern timeline. Given the fact that Psycho was set in the s, Norman would have likely been in his 20s or even 30s during the film.

This was the highest-grossing movie of Sir Alfred Hitchcock 's career. Joseph Stefano was adamant about seeing a toilet on-screen to display realism. He also wanted to see it flush. Sir Alfred Hitchcock told him he had to "make it so" through his writing if he wanted to see it.

Stefano wrote the scene in which Marion adds up the money, then flushes the paper down the toilet specifically so the toilet flushing was integral to the scene, and therefore irremovable. This was the first American movie and possibly first fictional movie ever to show a toilet flushing on-screen. Sir Alfred Hitchcock used the crew from his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents to save time and money. In , he exchanged the rights to the movie and his television series for a huge block of MCA's stock, becoming its third-largest stockholder.

In Robert Bloch 's novel, Norman Bates is short, fat, older, and very dislikable. It was Sir Alfred Hitchcock who decided to have him be young, handsome, and sympathetic. Norman is also more of a main character in the novel.

The story opens with him and Mother fighting, rather than following Marion from the start. According to Janet Leigh , the wardrobe worn by her character Marion Crane was not custom made for her, but rather purchased "off the rack" from ordinary clothing stores. Sir Alfred Hitchcock wanted women viewers to identify with the character by having her wear clothes that an ordinary secretary could afford, and thus add to the mystique of realism.

Janet Leigh only had three weeks to work on the movie and spent the whole of one of those weeks filming the shower sequence.

When Sir Alfred Hitchcock was off due to illness, the crew shot the sequence of Arbogast inside the house going up the stairs. When Hitchcock saw the footage, he complimented those responsible but said the sequence had to be reshot.

Their version made it appear as if Arbogast was going up the stairs to commit a murder. Hitchcock reshot the sequence. Shooting wrapped February 1, , nine days over schedule. A rough cut was finished by April, at which point, Sir Alfred Hitchcock was convinced his "experiment" had failed. He was ready to cut the movie down to a television episode, but handed it to Bernard Herrmann to score.

After he saw the completed movie with the music, he was very pleased. Sir Alfred Hitchcock even had a canvas chair with "Mrs. Bates" written on the back prominently placed and displayed on the set throughout shooting. This further added to the enigma surrounding who was the actress playing Mrs.

The canvas is called "House by the Railroad" and was painted in by the iconic American artist Edward Hopper. The architectural details, viewpoint, and austere sky is almost identical as seen in this movie. This was Sir Alfred Hitchcock 's first horror movie. The censors reviewed the script and censored the "unimportant" extra material and Hitchcock managed to sneak in his "important" material. Sir Alfred Hitchcock ran a deliciously droll and terse radio ad in the summer of In an era when sponsors used "Brand X" to describe their competitors' products, Hitchcock's voice said he wanted to compare his new movie with "Brand X.

Then, the sound of a horse neighing and horse clippity-clop sounds. Hitchcock's voice said simply "Brand X is a western. End of commercial. Janet Leigh has said that when he cast her, Sir Alfred Hitchcock gave her the following charter: "I hired you because you are an actress.

I will only direct you if A: you attempt to take more than your share of the pie, B: you don't take enough, or C: if you are having trouble motivating the necessary timed movement. Sir Alfred Hitchcock hated the infamous psychiatrist explanation scene done by Dr. Fred Richman Simon Oakland at the end of the movie. He felt the scene was boring, and the movie came to a grinding halt at that point. The scene has also been ripped to shreds by critics over the years as the worst scene in the movie, and one of Hitchcock's worst scenes ever.

Hitchcock and viewers felt the scene was unnecessary, overly obvious, and too talky, slowing down the action and suspense of the rest of the movie. But there was strong pressure from the studios and powers-that-be that funded and distributed the movie to relieve the pressure from earlier scenes, and also to explain the action to less insightful audience members who might be confused by the big reveal at the ending, so the scene was kept in.

While writing the screenplay, Joseph Stefano was in therapy dealing with his relationship with his own mother. According to biographers, Sir Alfred Hitchcock had a troubled relationship with his own domineering mother, who, like Mrs.

Bates, forced him to stand at the foot of her bed and tell her everything that had happened to him, although the real relationship was not as disturbed as that seen in the movie. First billed Anthony Perkins does not appear until twenty-seven minutes into the movie. Second billed Vera Miles does not appear until fifty-seven minutes into the movie.

As part of publicity campaign prior to release of this movie, Sir Alfred Hitchcock said: "It has been rumored that 'Psycho' is so terrifying that it will scare some people speechless.

Some of my men hopefully sent their wives to a screening. The women emerged badly shaken, but still vigorously vocal. Sir Alfred Hitchcock was initially disappointed with the movie. He even disliked the shower scene and believed the movie would end up on a low budget drive-in double-bill.

According to Bernard Herrmann , Hitchcock thought of editing it down for broadcast on his television show. Hitchcock did not conceive of music for the shower scene, but Herrmann did it anyway.

After seeing the movie with its score, including the shower sequence, that he realized that the movie would work. In total, three actresses recorded Norma Bates' dialogue.

Their recordings were then mixed together until Sir Alfred Hitchcock found the right tone of voice for each particular scene. Vera Miles wore a wig for her role, as she had to shave her head for her role in Jovanka und die Anderen In an interview on The Dick Cavett Show , Sir Alfred Hitchcock said of the shower scene, "everything was so rapid that there were seventy-eight separate pieces of film in forty-five seconds.

The car dealership in the movie was actually Harry Maher's used car lot near Universal Studios. This was Sir Alfred Hitchcock 's last theatrical movie in black-and-white. It was filmed from November 30, to February 1, There are several references to birds in this movie: Marion's surname is Crane, Norman's hobby is stuffing birds, and Norman states that Marion eats like a bird.

Sir Alfred Hitchcock 's next movie was The Birds Hitchcock replied: "The sheriff's intervention comes under the heading of what we have discussed many times before: "Why don't they go to the police? I've always replied: "They don't go to the police because it's dull. Bernard Herrmann related how the shots of Marion driving away after taking the money looked very ordinary. Sir Alfred Hitchcock thought of having the soundtrack convey anxious voices in her head to add to the action and tension.

Herrmann noted, however, that it still didn't work until he suggested bringing back the main title music. All in all, Hitchcock was delighted with Herrmann's very significant contribution to this movie, giving the composer an unusual amount of credit for Hitchcock and stating openly that "Thirty-three percent of the effect of Psycho was due to the music.

Features Janet Leigh 's only Oscar nominated performance. Danvers in Rebecca , would play the part of Mrs. Rebecca was another thriller with an evil mother figure manipulating things from beyond the grave.

Virginia Gregg as a matter of fact would go on to voice mother in this movie and a couple of sequels. This movie was first scheduled to air on U. Just before it would have aired, however, Valerie Percy, the daughter of then-U. Senate candidate Charles H. Percy U. Senator, R-Illinois: to , was stabbed to death, apparently by an intruder, in a murder that, as of , remains unsolved.

It was deemed prudent, under the circumstances, to postpone the scheduled airing. Ultimately, this movie was not shown on U. At that time, Universal Pictures released it on the syndication market, where it quickly became a popular staple on local late night horror movie showings. An early script had the following dialogue: Marion: "I'm going to spend the weekend in bed.

Only playground that beats Las Vegas. In the novel, it is explained that Marion and Sam met on a cruise and fell in love, which is how their relationship became a long distance one, with Marion in Phoenix, Arizona, and Sam in Fairvale, California. Among the major promotional items for this movie was a lengthy coming attractions trailer filmed in several languages of Sir Alfred Hitchcock taking the audience on a seemingly lighthearted tour of the house and motel.

At the end, Hitchcock pulls open a shower curtain to reveal a close-up of a woman screaming. The logo "Psycho" simultaneously comes onto the screen and cleverly covers Miss Miles' eyes so that the switch is not easily discernible. Director John Carpenter was inspired by Psycho when making Halloween and was quite excited when Leigh's daughter Jamie Lee Curtis auditioned and was cast. Leigh played Curtis' secretary. When Marion is having a conversation with Norman in his parlor, Norman says in reference to his mother: "She had to raise me all by herself after my father died.

I was only five and it must have been quite a strain for her. From then on, he was raised by his mother. During pre-production, Sir Alfred Hitchcock said to the press that he was considering Helen Hayes for the part of Mother. This was obviously a ruse, but several actresses wrote to Hitchcock requesting auditions. Before Psycho , movie theaters would play shows on rotation all day long.

People would frequently come in the middle of one and stay till the middle of the next showing; leaving when they came in. But HItchcock made all the movie theater owners sign a contract that they would not let anyone in until the start of the film. Once they were late; they would not be let in until the next showing. This started formalizing the whole process of mandatory seating times at theaters which continues until today.

Parts of the house were built by cannibalizing several stock-unit sections including a tower from the house in Harvey The house was the most expensive set of the movie, but came to a mere fifteen thousand dollars. This movie marked the fifth and final time that Sir Alfred Hitchcock earned an Oscar nomination for Best Director, though he never won. The first scene to be shot was of Marion getting pulled over by the cop. The shower scene was shot from December 17 through December 23, It features seventy-seven different camera angles, and includes fifty cuts.

Multiple characters in Halloween are inspired by this movie. Jamie Lee Curtis was cast as the heroine in this movie, based on the casting of her mother, Janet Leigh , in Psycho. Sam Loomis is directly named after John Gavin 's character, the boyfriend to Marion in this movie. Ranked 1 on the AFI Years On CA 99, which eventually turns into Pacific Avenue near the Fife and Tacoma border in Washington, there are several older hotels along the strip.

One of the former owners of one of the hotels is a horror movie buff, and puts on costume parties in his retirement. Being a fan of horror movies, he renamed his motel "Bates Motel. Kim Stanley , noted Actors Studio legend, was offered the role of Lila, but turned it down due to personal reservations about working with Anthony Perkins. One of the reasons why Sir Alfred Hitchcock wanted to make this movie in black-and-white is because Hitchcock loved the French horror movie Diabolique , which was made in black-and-white.

Hitchcock attempted to buy the rights to this novel in s. But Director Henri-Georges Clouzot bought the movie rights to the original novel. Clouzot reportedly beat Hitchcock by only a matter of a few hours.

The novel "Psycho", written by Robert Bloch , was part of a series of pulp novels marketed in conjunction with the popular spooky radio show "Inner Sanctum".

Although disputed, it is claimed that graphic designer and title director Saul Bass directed the shower sequence. Bass certainly storyboarded the scene, but there is disagreement about the level of direction by Sir Alfred Hitchcock , and how much credit can be afforded by Bass for the construction of this iconic scene. Janet Leigh flat-out denies this claim, saying that Hitchcock directed the sequence one hundred percent.

Sir Alfred Hitchcock produced this movie when plans to make a movie starring Audrey Hepburn , called "No Bail for the Judge", fell through. The look of the tall vertical mansion on the hill contrasted with the low, long motel was a deliberate composition choice. Yet Sir Alfred Hitchcock said it wasn't his intention to create a mysterious atmosphere with the big Gothic house, but to re-create the kind of older architecture that existed in the Northern California setting of the story.

Marion Crane's white Ford sedan is the same car owned by Universal Studios that the Cleaver family drove on the television series Leave It to Beaver Lila Crane is standing in front of a display of lawn rakes in the hardware store scene that are arranged to give the appearance of hands reaching out to grab her. Bernard Herrmann wrote the main title theme before Saul Bass created the opening credit sequence.

Bass animated it to the music, creating the stabbing, wrenching look in which the credits are ripped in half. Bernard Herrmann decided to use only strings in his score to have a black and-white sound to go along with the black-and-white images. The psychiatrist also reveals that Norman, in his "Mother" state, had killed two missing girls prior to Marion and Arbogast.

Norman is now locked into his mother's identity permanently. Bates, who, in a voice-over, talks about how it was really Norman, not her, who committed all those murders and that she should have 'put him away' years ago, finally saying that she 'wouldn't even harm a fly' A double exposure shows Norman's face merging with that of his mother's corpse. The final scene shows Marion's car being recovered from the swamp. Psycho Wiki Explore. Bates Motel Bates Motel Explore Wikis Community Central.

Register Don't have an account? Psycho Edit source History Talk 0. Saul Bass Titles. Marion Crane. Highway Patrol Officer. The Bates House. Norman Bates. Shower Scene. Death of Marion Crane. Milton Arbogast. Video:Psycho Trailer. Hitchcock right with Lester Berke center and unidentified man. Individuals Milton Arbogast Mr. Originally it consisted of just the left wall and the front of the house.

In photos below , the other side wall was added, and then in , the rear of the house was added. Location 1: approximate dates The house appeared as above, on the hill above Singapore Lake now the home of the Jaws attraction.

Until , the house consisted only of two sides. The Psycho house was one of the main attractions of the early days of the tour. Location 1a: — In December , the Psycho House set was seen being dismantled.

During major earthworks were in progress on the backlot to level the hill tops to create CityWalk and the new Upper Lot, along with the new Colonial Street and Falls Lake locations. The house set appeared to be setup outside the Studio Mill building above. Location 2: —?