Psycho [Includes Digital Copy] [Blu-ray]

Overview

In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock was already famous as the screen's master of suspense (and perhaps the best-known film director in the world) when he released Psycho and forever changed the shape and tone of the screen thriller. From its first scene, in which an unmarried couple balances pleasure and guilt in a lunchtime liaison in a cheap hotel (hardly a common moment in a major studio film in 1960), Psycho announced that it was taking the audience to places it had never been before, and on that score what followed would hardly disappoint. Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is unhappy in her job at a Phoenix, Arizona real estate office and frustrated in her romance with hardware store manager Sam Loomis (John Gavin). One afternoon, Marion is given $40,000 in cash to be deposited in the bank. Minutes later, impulse has taken over and Marion takes off with the cash, hoping to leave Phoenix for good and start a new life with her purloined nest egg. 36 hours later, paranoia and exhaustion have started to set in, and Marion decides to stop for the night at the Bates Motel, where nervous but personable innkeeper Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) cheerfully mentions that she's the first guest in weeks, before he regales her with curious stories about his mother. There's hardly a film fan alive who doesn't know what happens next, but while the shower scene is justifiably the film's most famous sequence, there are dozens of memorable bits throughout this film. The first of a handful of sequels followed in 1983, while Gus Van Sant's controversial remake, starring Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche, appeared in 1998.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/06/2014
UPC:	0025192235511
Original Release:	1960
Rating:	R
Source:	STUDIO DISTRIBUTION SERVS LLC
Presentation:	[B&W, Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo, DTS 5.1-Channel Surround Sound]
Language:	English
Time:	1:49:00
Sales rank:	40,775

Special Features

The making of Psycho Psycho sound In the master's shadow: Hitchcock's legacy Hitchcock/Truffaut interview excerpts Newsreel footage: the release of Psycho The shower scene: with and without music The shower scene: storyboards by Saul Bass Feature commentary with Stephen Rebello (author of "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho")

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Anthony Perkins	Norman Bates
Janet Leigh	Marion Crane
Vera Miles	Lila Crane
John Gavin	Sam
Martin Balsam	Arbogast
John McIntire	Sheriff
Simon Oakland	Dr. Richmond
Frank Albertson	Millionaire
Patricia Hitchcock	Caroline,Man Outside Office in Cowboy Hat
Lurene Tuttle	Mrs. Chambers
Vaughn Taylor	George Lowery
John Anderson	California Charlie
George Eldredge	Chief of Police
Sam Flint	Official
Helen Wallace	Woman Customer
Ted Knight	Police Guard
Frank Killmond	Bob Summerfield
Anne Dore	Perkins' Double in Shower Scene
Marli Renfro	Leigh's Double in Shower Scene
Mort Mills	Highway Patrolman
Fletcher Allen	Policeman on Steps
Walter Bacon	Church Member
Francis De Sales	Deputy District Attorney Alan Deats
George Dockstader	Extra
Paul Jasmin	Norma Bates
Lee Kass	Extra
Pat McCaffrie	Police Guard
Hans Moebus	Passerby on Sidewalk
Virginia Gregg	Norma Bates (uncerdited)
Jeanette Nolan	Norma Bates (uncredited)
Marion Crane	Actor
Bernard Herrmann	Composer

Technical Credits

Joseph Stefano

Robert Bloch

Alfred Hitchcock	Director,Producer
Joseph Stefano	Screenwriter
Clarence Champagne	Special Effects
Robert Bloch	Screenwriter
Waldon O. Watson	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer
John Ruth	Sound Effects
William Russell	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 masterpiece, not only encouraged thousands to shun showers in favor of baths, it completely changed the face of horror and suspense films to come. From naughty Janet Leigh's heist of $10,000 in the opening scenes to her risqué display of personal hygiene at the Bates Motel, Hitchcock's classic simultaneously pushed Hollywood's buttons and created some of the most memorable and horrific images in cinematic history. Inspired by the psychology and handiwork of real-life psychopath Edward Gein (also the inspiration behind The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), the story introduces Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), a reclusive motel manager and amateur taxidermist who has a strange relationship with his mother. Although certain scenes -- particularly Bates's psychiatric evaluation -- come off as stilted and dated today, both Perkins and Leigh deliver eternally creepy performances, and Bernard Hermann's soundtrack is arguably the most chilling ever recorded. The stabbing violins complement the film's atmosphere the way that a good Merlot complements a bloody filet mignon. Hitchcock's notorious attention to detail emerges in endless bird references, from the opening camera work reminiscent of a feathered friend's flight, to the Phoenix locale, to Bates's taxidermy and middle name, "Francis," the patron saint of birds. Hitchcock felt that Psycho was too gory to be shot in color, and he probably never imagined that anyone would try. Still, director Gus Van Sant remade the classic in 1998, in color, but otherwise matching Hitch shot-by-shot. Like Norman's birds, it didn't quite fly. Simon Goetz

Barnes & Noble

In a decade in which what was acceptable onscreen would change more radically than at any other time in history, Psycho was in some ways the first shot in the battle for freer filmmaking in the 1960s. Few movies of its time were more direct and unapologetic in their violence or served it up with such disorienting abruptness or tongue-in-cheek wit. With its casual depiction of sex outside marriage, fleeting nudity, bursts of shocking violence, killing off a major character less than halfway through the movie, and focus on the psychological subtext of the murderer's personality, as well as the geometric imagery of Saul Bass's credit sequence and the percussive strings of Bernard Herrmann's score, Psycho was the film with which Hitchcock left the 1950s behind and started the 1960s with relish. Time hasn't hurt the film, either; it still generates a palpable tension and the odd chemistry between Perkins and Leigh in their dinner scene is a wonder to behold. While the film is still frightening after all these years, repeated screenings reveal a cold-blooded humor; with Psycho, Hitchcock tore asunder the audience's expectations of what a suspense film should be, and he appears to have had a wonderful time doing it.

All Movie Guide - Mark Deming