Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates
September 8, 1960: The film Psycho premieres. It is based on the novel of the same title, published the year before, written by Robert Bloch.
The film was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, "The Master of Suspense." He wanted to avoid what are now called "spoilers," so he bought every known copy of the novel, to make sure that no one would read it and give away the ending. He also ordered theater operators to let no one in after the film began.
Well, if you haven't seen the movie yet, the basic story is familiar enough that you probably know it already. In case you still don't, what the hell: It's been 62 years since the movie's release, and 32 years since Hitchcock died, and he was a rotten guy, anyway, so screw his wishes:
At first, it looks like the main character of the film is Marion Crane (played by Janet Leigh), a real estate secretary in Phoenix. But she's no hero: She's been trusted with a $40,000 deposit (with inflation factored in, about $400,000 in today's money, or about 4 times the money George Bailey needed in It's a Wonderful Life), and she steals it so she can marry her boyfriend, Sam Loomis (John Gavin).
She drives to her boyfriend's California hometown. Stopping at the Bates Motel, she meets its keeper, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). He says his mother owns the motel, but that she's ill. That night, as Marion showers, she is stabbed to death, by a shadowy figure that appears to be an old woman. At first, we are led to believe that it is Norman's mother.
Due to Hitchcock's -- pardon my choice of words -- quick cuts, no one ever actually sees the knife hit Marion's body. And, despite Leigh having a sensational body, a double was used for the shower scenes, except where she was seen from the neck up. Given that the movie was black and white, chocolate syrup was used for the blood going down the shower drain. This was also believed to be the first wide-release feature film to show a toilet bowl.
(Janet's daughter, actress Jamie Lee Curtis, inherited that body, and also became a "scream queen," starring in the Halloween film franchise.)
Both Marion's sister Lila (Vera Miles) and a private investigator named Arbogast (Martin Balsam) arrive at the motel, Lila looking for her sister, Arbogast looking for the money. Arbogast questions Norman, and develops suspicions. When he enters the creepy-looking house behind the motel, he reaches the top of the stairs, and the apparent old woman stabs him in the head, causing him to fall down the stairs and die.
Lila meets with Sam, and they go to the local Sheriff (John McIntire, whose name would be used for the M*A*S*H character better known as Trapper). He tells them that Mrs. Bates died in a murder-suicide, 10 years earlier. Sam decides to distract Norman in the motel office, while Lila looks through the house. But Norman knocks Sam out. Lila finds Mrs. Bates, now just a preserved skeleton. Just as she screams, Norman comes up behind her, wearing a woman's bathrobe and a wig. But Sam has recovered, and stops Norman.
A psychiatrist (Simon Oakland) explains that it wasn't Mrs. Bates' boyfriend -- who was not Norman's father -- who killed her and them himself 10 years ago: Norman, then a teenager, killed both of them. Out of guilt, Norman preserved his mother, then allowed her to develop as an alternate personality, who takes over whenever Norman is attracted to a woman. It's revealed that he'd killed 2 others before Marion. The film ends with a straitjacketed Norman smiling, while his mother's voice (played by Virginia Gregg) says, "He wouldn't hurt a fly!"
Psycho remains Hitchcock's most familiar film. The Bernard Hermann score has become as iconic as the shower scene and the house, which often gets misremembered as being the motel. The house and the motel still stand, on the Universal Studios backlot, and are part of the Universal Studios Tour.
Sidney Zion, a columnist for the New York Daily News, listed Hitchcock as one of "The Century Seven," 7 people born in 1899, the last year of the 19th Century, whose work guided American popular culture through much of the 20th Century. They were: Duke Ellington, born on April 29; Fred Astaire, May 10; James Cagney, July 17; Alfred Hitchcock, August 13; Hoagy Carmichael, November 22; Noël Coward, December 16; and Humphrey Bogart, December 25.
Hitchcock died in 1980. Perkins, who had already played bipolar baseball player Jimmy Piersall in Fear Strikes Out, was now terribly typecast as mentally ill, his best-known film after this -- other than the much-later sequels to Psycho, which show him after his psychiatric treatment -- being Pretty Poison, in which his character was mentally ill, and confesses to a murder he actually didn't commit, to save the girl he loves (Tuesday Weld), who did do it.
Perkins was gay, and actor Tab Hunter later admitted to a 4-year relationship with him that had ended shortly before Perkins began filming Psycho. In spite of this, Perkins underwent "conversion therapy," and married actress Berry Berenson, sister of actress Marisa Berenson, and had 2 children. They were still married when he died of AIDS in 1992. Berry was on one of the planes that was crashed into the World Trade Center in 2001.
Since 2003, the Family Research Council has been run by a man named Anthony Perkins, no relation to the actor. The FRC claims to be Christian and pro-family. It is actually a very bigoted organization, despising gay people, and promoting the kind of "conversion therapy" that didn't work for the earlier Tony Perkins. The FRC's Tony Perkins? Now there's a psycho.
Simon Oakland lived until 1983, Virginia Gregg until 1986, John McIntire until 1991, Martin Balsam until 1996, Janet Leigh until 2004, Gavin until 2018. As of September 8, 2022, Vera Miles is still alive, age 93.
Robert Bloch would go on to write "Wolf in the Fold," an episode of the original Star Trek series, in which he suggested that the reason that Jack the Ripper was never caught was that he was actually an evil spirit, an energy being that possessed men and made them kill women, and was still doing so on other planets in the 23rd Century. Bloch -- who once said, "I have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a small jar on my desk" -- died in 1994.
In 1953, Janet Leigh, along with Jimmy Stewart (another Hitchcock favorite), starred in a Western, The Naked Spur. Seeing the words "Janet Leigh" and "Naked" together is okay with me. But, with the Hays Code still reigning supreme, there was no nudity in the film.
In a 2014 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist played Alfred Hitchcock. It became a "battle royale" of film directors, with "Nice" Peter Shukoff playing Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay, while rapper Michael "Wax" Jones played Quentin Tarantino, and rapper Ruggles Outbound played Stanley Kubrick.
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September 8, 1960 was a Thursday. These baseball games were played that day:
* The New York Yankees lost to the Chicago White Sox, 5-4 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Hector Loepz hit 2 home runs, and Roger Maris hit 1, in support of Art Ditmar. But Gene Freese hit one for the Pale Hose, and Ted Kluzewski went 3-for-3 with 3 RBIs in support of Russ Kemmerer, who had to step in after starting pitcher Billy Pierce had to leave the game with an injury.
* The Chicago Cubs beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-1 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Ernie Banks hit a home run.
* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Cleveland Indians, 9-0 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Brooks Robinson went 0-for-5, but former Yankee Gene Woodling hit a 3-run homer for the O's. Jack Fisher pitched a 5-hit shutout. Twenty days later, Fisher would give up a home run to Ted Williams in his last at-bat. The following season, Fisher would give up Maris' record-tying 60th homer of the season.
* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds, 7-4 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Sandy Koufax went the distance for the win. Frank Robinson did not play.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-1 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (It was renamed Tiger Stadium the next season.) Ted Williams went 3-for-3, including a home run. Al Kaline went 1-for-4.
* The Milwaukee Braves beat the San Francisco Giants, 9-4 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Warren Spahn went the distance for the win, and helped his own cause with a home run. Hank Aaron also hit one, and Eddie Mathews hit 2. Willie Mays went 1-for-4 with an RBI double.
* The Washington Senators beat the Kansas City Athletics, 7-0 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Jack Kralick pitched a 7-hit shutout.
* And the Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals were not scheduled.
