Psycho - Shower Scene (may not be suitable for younger audience) [YouTube
Link]
Motion picture decency standards in the 1960 didn't allow for things like nude women being stabbed to death in showers. Consequently, Hitchcock was forced to create the impression of nudity and violence without actually showing a breast, a buttock, or a knife puncturing skin. The result is a terrifying masterpiece of a montage. And even though it's probably the most analyzed (and parodied) 45 seconds in film history, we're willing to bet the following tidbits slipped past you.
Forget the bloody corpse in the bathtub: what really got "Psycho" censors worked up was the toilet. Just before stepping into that fateful shower, Marion tears up an incriminating note and flushes it. Hitchcock's close-up of the swirling commode water was the first ever allowed in an American film.
What looks like blood funneling down the drain is actually Bosco chocolate syrup. Hitchcock thought it looked more real in black-and-white than the fake stuff. Tastier, too.
The scene is composed of more than 90 shots seen in 70 different camera angles. It took Hitchcock and his crew an entire week to film it. To put that into perspective: The entire film took only six weeks.
The woman who played Janet Leigh's body double in about half of the shower-scene shots was named Myra Jones. In a sad case of life imitating art, Jones was stabbed to death in 1988. Her killer? A mentally disturbed handyman who targeted older women. He'd murdered at least one other before her - that police know about.
After the release of "Psycho," Hitchcock received an irate letter from a man whose daughter had refused to take baths after seeing the French thriller "Les Diaboliques" (in which a man is drowned in a tub). After seeing "Psycho," she refused to take showers as well. Hitchcock's reply? "Send her to the dry cleaners."
Although popular with most audiences, "Psycho" was reviled by ophthalmologists. Eye doctors everywhere pointed out that a corpse's pupil dilate, yet - in a stark close-up of her face after her supposedly deadly shower - Janet Leigh's eyes remain contracted. Ever the obsessed technician, Hitchcock listened, using dilating eyedrops for stiffs in all future films.
The article above was written by Ransom Riggs, as part of a longer article Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho in the Nov-Dec 2006 issue of mental_floss, published here with permission. Visit mental_floss for more fun stuff everyday!
Comments (13)
Norman Francis Bates, confirmed. 418...? Why not just that is adds up to 13 and she purchased a vehicle with Norman's initials and the unlucky number 13 just to be murdered at the motel??
My 22 year old cousin would call my house to ask her dad to come home because she would never take a shower unless he was in the house.
To this day I get worried if I see several birds in a row on an electrical wire - oh, wait -- that's another movie. But admit it, you do too. Hoo-Ray for Hitch!
As for Jaws, Steven Spielberg takes that idea of not showing something and flogs it to death. Nowadays, it's more a way of avoiding special effects expenses than successfully creating suspense.
At $3 million, it's even possible that the cost might be recouped by digitising and selling rare tracks that are out of copyright.
We need to visit this guy!!! What's his address? What's his phone number? How do we contact this fine gentleman?? Please respond!
I also wonder why such institutions like museums and most notably the Library of Congress hasn't expressed any interest in the collection?
This is probably the same reason why old film is degrading, and animals are going extinct. You don't realize its value until it's gone.
So that rare ROLLING STONES record he showed is American? He has to focus on something, but don't assume that's ALL he has.
what is with the human need of collection?
The reason I thought he only has American stuff is cuz it says on his website under "Whats in the collection " that "Every genre of American music is represented"
Ya know - so I thought thats why he only has American music - cuz thats what it says!
Tsk...
:-)
The *only* thing he's got going for him is the fact that he conveniently has every crappy Anne Murray, Firestone Christmas, Carpenters, Saturday Night Fever (and at least 20-50 copies of each of those) all in one location.
I used to travel from NYC to Pittsburgh when he was still an operating store and he'd try to sell a five dollar Beatles record for 50 based upon its "cultural importance."
That Rolling Stones record is nowhere near as rare as he wants it to be -- if I can find the completed Ebay auctions, it actually sells for about 75% of that...
Okay, negative ninny-ing over.
I'm finding with my art that people who want content, want content they want, not just a huge amount. Size perhaps doesn't matter here.
Peace.