In November 1957, police in Plainfield, Wisconsin, investigating the disappearance of store owner Bernice Worden, arrested one Edward Gein. Upon searching his house, they found Bernice’s decapitated body hanging upside down by her legs and “dressed out like a deer”. In addition, they found a catalogue of grisly trophies and keepsakes made from human skin and bones. Gein confessed to murdering two women and, even more shockingly, exhuming up to nine corpses of recently-buried middle-aged women from local graveyards. The Butcher of Plainfield, as he became known, would provide inspiration for the future makers of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Silence of the Lambs, and – thanks to the 1959 Robert Bloch novel of the same name – Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
Besides making people forever wary of motel-room showers, Hitchcock’s Psycho continues to have an incalculable influence on popular culture. It was a clear marker in the history of cinema, particularly the psychological thriller, of which Hitchcock was a master. It may not have been the first “slasher movie” (that credit has been given to British movie Peeping Tom, released just three months prior to Psycho, or even 1932’s Thirteen Women) but it was certainly the most dramatic and impactful in the public consciousness.
It is of course the story of Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), the obsessional, split-personality psychopath of the title, and Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), the single female finding herself in very much the wrong place at the wrong time, namely Bates Motel. The notorious shower scene, in which Marion is murdered in a frenzied knife attack, is the pivotal scene and one of the most studied montages of film editing ever made. It was shot over one week in December 1959. The finished scene runs for three minutes, includes seventy seven different camera angles, mainly extreme close-ups and fifty cuts.
For Leigh’s blood, which swirled down the shower drain, Hitchcock used Bosco chocolate syrup. To create the sound effect of the knife stabbing flesh, he sent prop man Bob Bone out to fetch a variety of melons. The director then closed his eyes as Bone took turns stabbing watermelons, casabas, cantaloupes and honeydews (he chose casaba). The soundtrack of screeching string instruments was an original and highly effective piece by composer Bernard Herrmann.
Paramount had considered the movie a highly risky project, so Hitchcock deferred his salary in exchange for 60 percent of the net profit. The film cost just $800,000 to make, grossed $40 million and Hitchcock pocketed some $15 million…so not a bad decision!
