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Psycho (1960)
Psycho is a 1960 American horror film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The screenplay, written by Joseph Stefano, is based on the 1959 novel by Robert Bloch. The film stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, and Martin Balsam. The plot centers on an encounter between on-the-run embezzler Marion Crane (Leigh), shy motel proprietor Norman Bates (Perkins), and his disturbed mother. A…
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock · Shot by John L. Russell · Cut by George Tomasini · Music by Bernard Herrmann · 109 min
How it was made
- Hitchcock financed Psycho himself through Shamley Productions after Paramount refused his usual budget, taking a 60% stake in the negative in place of his standard $250,000 director's fee.
- To cut costs, Hitchcock shot in black and white using his Alfred Hitchcock Presents television crew, keeping the budget under $1 million; the crew's total cost was $62,000.
- Saul Bass storyboarded the shower scene and designed the titles; Hitchcock shot nearly the entire film with 50mm lenses on 35mm cameras to approximate a human field of vision.
- Marion's tell-tale earring from the novel was changed to a scrap of paper that fails to flush down a toilet, itself a small shock since toilets were rarely shown on screen in American films of the period.
- Arbogast's death was relocated from the house's foyer in the novel to the staircase, giving Hitchcock more camera options for concealing the truth about "Mother".
- An aerial helicopter shot meant to open the film by descending into Marion and Sam's hotel room proved too shaky to use and had to be spliced together with separate studio footage.
Behind the scenes
Elsewhere
More by Alfred Hitchcock
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