// Facts about 'Psycho' //

Hitchcock purchased the rights to the novel anonymously from Robert Block for only $9000.  He then made sure to buy as many copies of the novel as possible, in hopes that the audience wouldn't read it and the ending would be kept a secret.

The shower scene has over 90 splices in it.  Also, Anthony Perkins was not involved of the shooting scene at all.  He was in New York preparing for a play.

The sound that the knife makes penetrating the flesh is actually the sound of a knife stabbing a casaba melon.

Hitchcock originally envisioned the shower sequence as completely silent, but Bernard Herrmann went ahead and scored it anyway and Hitch immediately changed his mind.

The blood was Bosco's chocolate syrup.

Hitchcock tested the "fear factor" of Mother's corpse by placing it in Leigh's dressing room and listening to how loud she screamed when she discovered it.

Janet Leigh has said that when he cast her, Hitchcock gave her the following charter: "I hired you because you are an actress! I will only direct you if, A: you attempt to take more than your share of the pie, or B: if you don't take enough, or C: if you are having trouble motivating the necessary timed movement."

Norman's middle name is Francis, the patron saint of birds.

Features many references to birds:
- Begins in Phoenix, with an opening shot that floats down as a bird would
- major characters with surname "Crane"
- stuffed birds decorate parlor of the Motel building
- pictures of birds outside bathroom door of Marion's motel room
- when Bates enters the bathroom right after the shower scene he knocks a picture of a bird from the wall.
- Norman's line "they cluck their thick tongues and shake their heads"
- Norman tells Marion that she eats "like a bird."

The film only cost $800,000 to make yet has earned more than $40 million. Hitchcock used the crew from his TV series to save time and money. In 1962 exchanged the rights to the film and his TV-series for a huge block of MCA's stock (he became their third largest stockholder).

The painting that Norman removes in order to watch Marion undressing is a classical painting depicting a rape.

There is a rumor that the this film was not passed for release because it was claimed that Janet Leigh's nipple was visible during the shower scene. The nipple wasn't in the film at all, but the cinematography and score are so well performed here, it caused the release board originally to think that there was a nipple visible and send the film back for re-editing. The production team went through the shower sequence cut by cut to illustrate that there was not. Hitchcock made no changes (none were needed), but merely sent it back, assuming that they either wouldn't bother to watch it, or would realize their mistake.

After the film's release Hitchcock received an angry letter from the father of a girl who refused to have a bath after seeing Les Diaboliques  and now refused to shower after seeing Psycho. Hitchcock sent a note back simply saying "Send her to the dry cleaners".

In the office where Marion works, two paintings are on the wall: the first one is of the road where Marion will be questioned by the policeman and the second is of the swamp where Norman will sink the car.

Hitch's cameo appears about 4 minutes into the film.  He's wearing a cowboy hat outside of Marion's office.

The shot of Marion flushing the toilet is believed to be the first shot of a flushing toilet in film history.

Hitchcock was very uneasy about the "morphing" of Norman's face into Mother's at the end of the film. He sent out three different versions of the film during its initial release. The first version included the ending seen on all prints today, the second contained no "morphing" at all, and the third contained the trick at the end, yet also included it at an earlier point in the film. When Sam Loomis comes back to the Bates Motel to look for Arbogast, there is a zooming shot of Norman standing by the swamp, looking very sinister. The third version of the film included the subtle "morphing" of Norman's face into Mother's at this moment.

The opening theme, composed by Bernard Hermann, is done completely with stringed instruments.

The novel upon which the film is based was inspired by the true story of Ed Gein, a serial killer who was also the inspiration for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Silence of the Lambs.

In the opening scene, Marion Crane is wearing a white bra because Alfred Hitchcock wanted to show her as being "angelic". After she has taken the money, the following scene has her in a black bra because now she has done something wrong and evil. Similarly, before she steals the money, she has a white purse; after she's stolen the money, her purse is black.

For a shot right at the water stream, Hitchcock had a 6 ft in diameter shower head made up so that the water sprayed past the camera lens.

Whenever you can see someone's reflection in a mirror, they are doing something dishonorable. For example: When Marion is counting the (stolen) money you can see her in the mirror, when Sam and Lila are checking in under false names, etc. This shows the two sides of people's personalities.

The Bates' mansion was based on a house in Santa Cruz, CA, where Hitchcock used to visit.

Psycho is the first movie to show a woman (Janet Leigh) in just a bra and slip.

Not once during the shower scene do we actually see the knife stabbing Marion or a wound from a stabbing.

Marion's white 1957 Ford sedan is the same car (owned by Universal) that the Cleaver family drove on "Leave It to Beaver" (1957).

The stabbing scene in the shower is reported to have taken seven days to shoot using 70 different camera angles but only last 45 seconds in the movie.

Controversy arose years later when Saul Bass made claims that he had done the complete planning, and even directed the famous shower scene. Those who worked on the film have refuted this claim.

Among the major promotional items for this film was a lengthy trailer, running a full reel, with Hitchcock taking the audience on a quite humorous tour of the motel and the house. At the end, Hitchcock pulls open a shower curtain to reveal a close-up of a woman screaming. The actress in the shower in not Janet Leigh but Vera Miles.  (This is available in it's entirety on the special edition DVD.)

The house was modeled on Edward Hopper's painting "The House by the Railroad". The painting is in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the actual house that Hopper used as a model is in Iowa.

Hitchcock insisted that audiences should only be allowed to see the film from the start. This was unheard of back then as people were used to just coming in at any point during a movie. The reason for this was that the film was advertised as starring Janet Leigh, but her character is killed in the first half of the film.

During preproduction, Hitchcock said to the press that he was considering Helen Hayes for the part of Mother. This was obviously a ruse, but several actresses wrote to Hitchcock requesting auditions.

Differences Between the Novel & Movie (will be adding more soon, it's been a while since I've read the book)
-Norman is described as short, fat, older and very unpleasant.  Stefano and Hitchcock changed him to be younger, handsome and more sympathetic -- most likely to make the end reveal more shocking.
-In the film, we begin with Marion's story, but in the novel, it follows Norman more closely.
-Marion's name in the book is actually Mary Crane.
-It is heavily implied in the novel, that Norman was the cause of his mother and her boyfriend's deaths.

Psycho was followed up by three sequels, a hideous and unnecessary 1998 remake (at least in my opinion) and a TV series about the Bates Motel.   None of these follow-ups were as successful as the original film, but still proved that Psycho would always have quite a following.