The casting of Anthony Perkins was perhaps the most important decision that Alfred Hitchcock made while in pre-production on what would become his greatest and most notorious achievement. Perkin’s nuanced performance as Norman and Janet Leigh’s restrained portrayal of Marion Crane are among the finest performances either have given. The peculiar fact that Hitchcock said in an interview with François Truffaut, “People will say (of Psycho), ‘It was a terrible film to make. The subject was horrible, the people were small, there were no characters in it.’ I know all of this.” (Hitchcock by François Truffaut) cautions us not to take what the director says in interviews at face value. He was emphasizing his focus on technique. On shooting and editing, but before all of that came the careful preparation of the script and the casting.
Hitchcock always took special care in script preparation and casting, both very important steps in creating any film but even more so with one that defies description. It is a horror story in no uncertain terms, but it is also a love story gone terribly wrong. With very short brush strokes, Hitchcock and screenwriter Joseph Stefano create the characters of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) and Sam Loomis (John Gavin). There is no doubt that they are fully formed characters. Given the short amount of time that we get to know them, they’re three dimensional in our minds. Marion’s desperation is palpable, and we find ourselves cheering her on as she takes off with the loot.
The same can be said of Norman Bates as his character is revealed (if somewhat misleadingly due to its nature) through both his words and his actions. He has advised Marion that the hotel has “...twelve cabins, twelve vacancies…” yet when he goes to reach for a room key his hand hovers hesitatingly over room 2 and 3 and then slowly moves to pick room 1’s key from the board.
Norman’s hospitality to Marion is borne out of loneliness. His offer of a meal up at the house is derailed by the ravings of the woman that Marion saw in silhouette in the window of the house up the hill. We see Marion’s response to the old woman’s insinuating tirade. The voice is as much a shock as it is disturbing in what it conveys.
“No! I tell you no! I won’t have you bringing strange young girls in for supper. By candlelight, I suppose, in the cheap, erotic fashion of young men with cheap, erotic minds.”
We can’t help think of Marion’s conversation in the hotel room with Sam:
MARION: “…Sam, this is the last time…We can see each other. We can even have dinner. But respectably. At my house. With my mother’s picture over the mantle and my sister helping to broil a big steak for three.”
SAM: “And after the steak? Do we send sister to the movies and turn Mama’s picture to the wall?”
The later scene echoes the conversation that Sam turns lurid with his suggestions for being alone with Marion. In the scene with Sam we see Marion’s sandwich untouched and it hammers home the sadness of the tryst. Norman comes down from the house with a tray of milk, bread, and butter which is his pathetic attempt at being hospitable. They have a conversation during which Marion is moved to change her mind about what she is doing. When she suggests that Norman leave his mother he goes into a controlled rage. Marion tries to convince him, and though he comes back to his senses and admits that he has even thought about it, he remains unresolved:
MARION: “…She’s hurting you…
NORMAN: “…She needs me…She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven’t you?
MARION: “Sometimes just one time can be enough…I have a long drive tomorrow, all the way back to Phoenix.”
NORMAN: “Really?”
MARION: “I stepped into a private trap back there I’d like to go back and try to pull myself out of it before it’s too late for me too.”
Marion goes back to her room and Norman checks the register and sees that although she told him her name is Crane while in the parlor with him, she signed it as Samuels. Then he goes back into the parlor and removes a picture from the wall exposing a hole, and through the hole we see Marion preparing to shower.
We no longer wonder why Norman hesitated on giving Marion the key to room #1. His odd behavior is beginning to add up, but to what?
Janet Leigh in Psycho (1960)
After this, Norman goes back up to the house. He stops at the stairs and it appears that he thinking about something–probably to go up and tell his mother that he is leaving? He thinks better of it and goes into the kitchen. Sitting down at the table, he fidgets with the lid of a sugar bowl.
Then we are back in the hotel room with Marion. She is also sitting as she tries to figure out how much of the money she has spent so she knows what she has left. It is clear that she intends to go back and return the money and face the consequences. She tears up the paper that she has been doing the figures on, and she flushes the scraps down the toilet. Then she closes the door of the bathroom, gets in the shower, and turns it on.
The suddenness of the act is horrifying even after multiple viewings. It is also what makes the film so memorable. That, and the incredible performances by both Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh.
The old woman runs out of the bath. We see the house and hear Norman’s horrified reaction to his mother returning spattered with blood. He bursts from the house and down to the hotel room where he is visibly repulsed, and yet he proceeds to clean up. We quickly realize that he is going to cover up for his mother. The methodical way that he does this gives us the idea that this may not be the first time his mother has gone a little ‘mad.’ After he clears the room of any trace of Marion (even taking the newspaper wrapped forty thousand dollars and throwing it into the truck), he pushes her car into a swamp behind the hotel and stands watching it sink. His nervousness brings our sympathy. What a horrid trap he was born into! When the process stalls and the car appears not to be sinking, we find ourselves hoping it does and that he is not caught. We have shifted our identification from Marion to Norman.
NEXT: The Investigation
