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Hitchcock
Following his great success with "North by Northwest," director Alfred Hitchcock makes a daring choice for his next project: an adaptation of Robert Bloch's novel "Psycho." When the studio refuses to back the picture, Hitchcock decides to pay for it himself in exchange for a percentage of the profits. His wife, Alma Reville, has serious reservations about the film but supports him nonetheless. Still, the production strains the couple's marriage.
2012 · Directed by Sacha Gervasi · 98 min · Drama · Screenplay in the scene database · 5 frames
Tagline
Behind every Psycho is a great woman.
Plot
In 1959, Alfred Hitchcock opens his latest film, North by Northwest, to both critical and commercial success, but is troubled by a reporter's insinuation that he should retire. Seeking to reclaim the artistic daring of his youth, Hitchcock turns down film proposals, including Casino Royale and The Diary of Anne Frank, in favor of a horror novel called Psycho by Robert Bloch, based on the real-life crimes of murderer Ed Gein. Gein appears in sequences throughout the film, in which he seems to prompt Hitchcock's imagination regarding the Psycho story or act as some function of Hitchcock's subconscious mind.
Hitchcock's wife and artistic collaborator, Alma, is no more enthusiastic about the idea than his colleagues, especially since she is being lobbied by their writer friend, Whitfield Cook, to look at his own screenplay. However, she warms to Hitchcock's proposal, suggesting the innovative plot turn of killing the female lead early in the film. The studio heads at Paramount Pictures prove more difficult to persuade, forcing Hitchcock to finance the film personally and use his Alfred Hitchcock Presents television crew (over at competitor Revue/Universal) to shoot the film, his last under contract to Paramount.
The pressures of the production, such as dealing with Geoffrey Shurlock of the Motion Picture Association of America, and Hitchcock's lecherous habits, such as when they confer with the female lead, Janet Leigh, annoy Alma. She begins a personal writing collaboration with Whitfield Cook on his screenplay at his beach house without Hitchcock's knowledge. Hitchcock eventually discovers what she has been doing and suspects her of having an affair. This concern affects Hitchcock's work on Psycho.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: John J. McLaughlin
- Cinematography: Jeff Cronenweth
- Edited by: Pamela Martin
- Music: Danny Elfman
- Production design: Judy Becker
- Produced by: Alan Barnette, Ivan Reitman, Tom Pollock, Tommy Thayer
Cast
- Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock
- Helen Mirren as Alma Reville
- Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh
- Danny Huston as Whitfield Cook
- Toni Collette as Peggy Robertson
- Michael Stuhlbarg as Lew Wasserman
- Michael Wincott as Ed Gein
- Jessica Biel as Vera Miles
- James D'Arcy as Anthony Perkins
- Richard Portnow as Barney Balaban
Production
- Country: United States of America, United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Studios: Cold Spring Pictures, The Montecito Picture Company
- Budget: $15,700,000
- Box office: $27,039,669
- Themes: husband wife relationship, movie business, biography, hollywood, psycho, movie set, domineering, complex, ambiguous, antagonistic
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