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Five Days of Film Fright
Day 5: Five things you didn’t know about Psycho
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Now 50 years old, some critics consider Psycho to be the greatest film of all-time. At the very least, it’s one of the finest horror films ever, which is why the Film Forum is screening the movie from Oct. 29-Nov. 4. But before heading out, here are five things you might not know about the film that you should—assuming you’ve already seen it, and really, who hasn’t Psycho at this point?
#1. Alfred Hitchcock anonymously bought the rights to Psycho from Robert Bloch, who wrote the novel in 1959, for only $9,000. According to Joseph W. Smith III, author of The Psycho File: A Comprehensive Guide to Hitchcock’s Classic Shocker, “Only afterward did Block learn that he had sold Psycho’s rights—with no provision for future royalties—to the most famous film director in the world.” Basically, Block is the original Harvey Ball.
#2. According to Robert Phillip Kolker’s Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho: A Casebook, the director sent out a trailer, which he narrated, meant only for theater employees. It was called “The Care and Handling of Psycho,” and it was all about the proper way for the film to be watched. Most memorably, Hitchcock says, “Do not expect to be admitted into the theater after the start of each performance of the picture. We say no-one, and we mean no-one, not even the manager’s brother, the President of the United States, or the Queen of England—God bless her.”
#3. Joseph Stefano, who wrote the film’s screenplay, wasn’t always in the film industry. In the 1940s, Stefano worked a songwriter, often for Donn Arden, the man who made the showgirl in sequins as much a part of Las Vegas as the gambling. Outside of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode “The Man Who Found the Money,” that’s about as close to Vegas as Hitchcock would ever get.
#4. Psycho is based on the crimes committed by Ed Gein, who was arrested in 1957 and passed away in 1984. Over the course of six years, Gein often went to a nearby graveyard and dug up women who resembled his mother, who died in 1945. He had decided that he wanted a sex change and wore the bodies of the woman he had unearthed. Among other body parts found when police arrested Gein were bowls made from human skulls. Other films based on Gein: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Silence of the Lambs, Ed Gein, Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield and Ed Gein: The Musical.
#5. Everything about the shower scene is iconic, right down to the noise the knife makes when it’s cutting into Janet Leigh’s flesh. Obviously, the knife wasn’t actually cutting into anything—at least anything human. After many tests to determine the proper item to slash in to, Hitchcock decided on…a Casaba Melon, a totally underrated melon, at that. And the black and white blood: Bosco Chocolate Syrup.