Psycho Trivia

There is so much lore about this film that I have decided to give it its own page. The following is taken from the IMDb:

· Considered for the role of Marion were: Eva Marie Saint, Piper Laurie, Martha Hyer, Hope Lange, Shirley Jones, and Lana Turner.
· Hitchcock bought the rights to the novel anonymously from author Robert Bloch for just $9,000. He then bought up as many copies of the novel as he could to keep the ending a secret.
· Filmed in black and white because Hitchcock believed the movie would be too gory for color.
· During filming, this movie was referred to as "Production 9401" or "Wimpy".
· Hitchcock paid the title sequence designer Saul Bass (also credited as "Pictorial Consultant") $2,000 to render storyboards for the scene where Arbogast is killed at the stairs. Bass was excited about the movie and asked Hitch for the opportunity. Hitchcock discarded his work because the shots showed Arbogast's feet slowly going up the stairs and this prepared the audience for a shock. Hitch wanted it to be a surprise and that's why he filmed Arbogast in a completely natural way. Controversy arose years later when Saul Bass made claims that he had done the complete planning, and even directed the famous shower scene. Those who worked on the film have refuted this claim.
· Hitchcock originally intended to open the film with a four-mile dolly shot from a helicopter, a scene similar to Orson Welles' bravura opening of Touch of Evil (1958). The early motel scene between Norman and Marion (Leigh) resembles in many ways another scene from that movie featuring Leigh.
· A nude model was used for some of the shower scene to create realism.
· The shower scene has over 90 splices in it, and did not involve Anthony Perkins at all. Perkins was in New York preparing for a play.
· Contrary to popular rumors, during the shooting of the shower scene, Hitchcock did not arrange for the water to suddenly go ice-cold when the attack started.
· The sound that the knife makes penetrating the flesh is actually the sound of a knife stabbing a casaba melon.
· Hitchcock originally envisioned the shower sequence as completely silent, but Bernard Herrmann went ahead and scored it anyway and Hitch immediately changed his mind.
· The blood was Bosco's chocolate syrup.
· Hitchcock tested the "fear factor" of Mother's corpse by placing it in Leigh's dressing room and listening to how loud she screamed when she discovered it.
· Janet Leigh has said that when he cast her, 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, or B: if you don't take enough, or C: if you are having trouble motivating the necessary timed movement."
· The license plate on Marion's car is ANL-709.
· The female lead is named Marion. In The Birds (1963) it's Melanie. The next movie uses a combination of the two names: Marnie (1964).
· The actual house used for the design construction of the house used in Psycho still stands in Kent, Ohio
· Features many references to birds:
     -- Begins in Phoenix, with an opening shot that floats down as a bird would
     -- major characters with surname "Crane"
     -- stuffed birds decorate parlor of the Motel building
     -- pictures of birds outside bathroom door of Marion's motel room
     -- when Bates enters the bathroom right after the shower scene he knocks a picture of a bird from the wall.
     -- Norman's line "they cluck their thick tongues and shake their heads"
     -- Norman tells Marion that she eats "like a bird."
     -- Norman's middle name is Francis, the patron saint of birds.
     -- Norman's hobby is taxidermy, stuffing birds.
· The film only cost $800,000 to make yet has earned more than $40 million. Hitchcock used the crew from his TV series to save time and money. In 1962 exchanged the rights to the film and his TV-series for a huge block of MCA's stock (he became their third largest stockholder).
· An early script had the following dialogue: Marion: "I'm going to spend the weekend in bed." Texas oilman: "Bed? Only playground that beats Las Vegas." (This discarded dialogue was resurrected for the Gus Van Sant remake.)
· The painting that Norman removes in order to watch Marion undressing is a classical painting depicting a rape.
· The last shot of Norman Bates' face has a still frame of a human skull inserted in it. The skull is that of "Mother."
· Hitchcock was very uneasy about the "morphing" of Norman's face into Mother's at the end of the film. He sent out three different versions of the film during its initial release. The first version included the ending seen on all prints today, the second contained no "morphing" at all, and the third contained the trick at the end, yet also included it at an earlier point in the film. When Sam Loomis comes back to the Bates Motel to look for Arbogast, there is a zooming shot of Norman standing by the swamp, looking very sinister. The third version of the film included the subtle "morphing" of Norman's face into Mother's at this moment.
· Hitchcock insisted that audiences should only be allowed to see the film from the start. This was unheard of back then as people were used to just coming in at any point during a movie. The reason for this was that the film was advertised as starring Janet Leigh, but her character is killed in the first half of the film.
· After the film's release Hitchcock received an angry letter from the father of a girl who refused to have a bath after seeing Les diaboliques (1955) and now refused to shower after seeing Psycho. Hitchcock sent a note back simply saying "Send her to the dry cleaners".
· In the office where Marion works, two paintings are on the wall: the first one is of the road where Marion will be questioned by the policeman and the second is of the swamp where Norman will sink the car.
· Hitchcock produced Psycho when plans to make a film starring Audrey Hepburn, called "No Bail for the Judge," fell through.
· Director Cameo: about 4 minutes in wearing a cowboy hat outside Marion's office.
· In the closing scene, as the camera moves down the long, dark hallway to where police have confined Norman Bates, the uniformed guard posted at the door is a young Ted Knight ("Ted Baxter" of the Mary Tyler Moore series.)
· Hitchcock and Joseph Stefano originally conceived the film with a jazz score instead of Herrmann's miniature string orchestra.
· In Robert Bloch's novel, Norman Bates is short, fat, older, and very dislikable. It was 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.
· The opening theme, composed by Bernard Hermann, is done completely with stringed instruments.
· The novel upon which the film is based was inspired by the true story of Ed Gein, a serial killer who was also the inspiration for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
· In the opening scene, Marion Crane is wearing a white bra because Alfred Hitchcock wanted to show her as being "angelic". After she has taken the money, the following scene has her in a black bra because now she has done something wrong and evil. Similarly, before she steals the money, she has a white purse; after she's stolen the money, her purse is black.
· For a shot right at the water stream, Hitchcock had a 6 ft in diameter shower head made up so that the water sprayed past the camera lens.
· Whenever you can see someone's reflection in a mirror, they are doing something dishonorable. For example: When Marion is counting the (stolen) money you can see her in the mirror, when Sam and Lila are checking in under false names, etc. This shows the two sides of people's personalities.
· The Bates' mansion was based on a house in Santa Cruz, CA, where Hitchcock used to visit.
· This film was selected to the National Film Registry, Library of Congress, in 1992.
· Psycho is the first movie to show a woman (Janet Leigh) in just a bra and slip.
· Despite the fact that the entire film is in black and white, several viewers vividly (and specifically) recall the "red" blood as it swirled down the shower drain. Obviously, this could not be true, not just for the fact of the black and white film, but the "blood" was actually chocolate syrup. Although feature films were produced in color at the time, newsreels were shown in black and white. Filming the movie in black and white might have made it seem less gory (see other trivia), but it also might have seemed more "real" to viewers at the time who were used to seeing the news in black and white.
· Marion's white 1957 Ford sedan is the same car (owned by Universal) that the Cleaver family drove on "Leave It to Beaver" (1957).
· The stabbing scene in the shower is reported to have taken seven days to shoot using 70 different camera angles but only last 45 seconds in the movie.
· CBS had planned to broadcast this film in 1966. However they had to cancel it due to the murder of Senator Charles Percy's daughter just before the scheduled airdate.
· When 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 re-shot. Their version made it appear as if Arbogast was going up the stairs to commit a murder. Hitchcock re-shot the sequence.
· Among the major promotional items for this film was a lengthy trailer, running a full reel, with Hitchcock taking the audience on a quite humorous tour of the motel and the house. At the end, Hitchcock pulls open a shower curtain to reveal a close-up of a woman screaming. The actress in the shower in not Janet Leigh but Vera Miles.
· During preproduction, 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. (IMDb)

Is that enough "Psychotrivia" for you?