Psycho
Many thanks to the one and only Ben Nagy (@BJ_Nagy) for covering Slasher Life Lessons from A Nightmare on Elm Street. No Mutant Left Behind is our motto around these parts, in life and in blogging. LAST CALL returns this week with morality tales from Alfred Hitchcockโs Psycho and more amazing art by T.J. Denton (@TDenton_1138).
Numero-Uno: Respectability isnโt always respectful.
Today, the thought of two consenting adults meeting in a hotel room is about as shocking as watching paint dry. But in 1960, it would have been a very big deal. Psychoโs risquรฉ opening scenes still have power more than half a century later, and Joseph Stefanoโs adaptation of Robert Blochโs original novel is a big reason why. In a presumably seedy, pay-by-the-hour hotel, we meet Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) and Sam Loomis (John Gavin) โ the only place their life circumstances allow them to be intimate. She lives with her sister, he in a room behind the hardware store he manages, beset by financial burdens. Determined to either end it or make their relationship public, Sam assures Marion he wants to be with her under any circumstance, โeven respectability.โ
โYou makes respectability soundโฆdisrespectful,โ Marion replies, telling Sam sheโll even lick the stamps when he mails his ex-wifeโs alimony checks. They are both fully aware of the limitations their lives present. Itโs here that the seeds of crime are planted. Because people desperate for a second chance โ at life and at love โ often do desperate things.
Numero Two-O: You canโt buy happiness or buy off unhappiness.
โYou know what I do about with unhappiness? I buy it off.โ So says Tom Cassidy, the frisky cowboy of an oilman whose flaunts his wealth to Marion after she returns from her afternoon tryst with Sam. โAre you unhappy?โ he asks suggestively.
โNot inordinately,โ she answers.
But she is. When Marionโs boss puts Cassidyโs Forty Grand in her mitts, itโs just too tempting. When itโs clear the money hasnโt been deposited and Marion has skipped town, Hitchcock recaps the crimeโs discovery brilliantly as Marion speeds down the interstate toward Sam.
โHot creepers, she sat there while I dumped it out. Hardly even looked at it! Plannin. And even flirtin with me!โ she imagines Cassidy fuming โ her look of satisfaction nearly as devious as Norman Batesโ when he tells us, as Mother, that heโd never hurt a fly.
Numero-Three-O: Donโt take tranquilizers on your honeymoon.
No explanation needed.
Numero-Four-O: Being blonde and beautiful will not save your ass.
Before The Final Girl became a common trope in horror films, Alfred Hitchcock turned it on its head, killing the filmโs assumed leading lady in Psychoโs first 40 minutes. Featured prominently on the filmโs posters (just like Drew Barrymore in Scream) and with no rival female protagonist in sight, an innocent movie-going public had no reason to believe Janet Leighโs screen time would give way to another actress, Vera Miles, as Psychoโs plot shifts from Marionโs relationship drama, crime and eventual death to her sister Lilaโs search for her. Hitchcockโs promotional showmanship helped. No one would be admitted late to the film and once the doorโs closed, you were in for the long haul. We should have known: cool blondes never fare well with Hitchcock, on screen or off.
Numero-Five-O: Keep driving.
I try to put myself in Marionโs place. Iโve been on the lam for a little over 24 hours. An unexpected encounter with a State trooper has spooked me enough for me to trade my car, with him watching no less. Itโs late. Itโs raining. Iโve turned off the highway by mistake and found what appears to be a safe, comfortable motel. Iโve also just learned that Fairvale is only 15 miles away. Do I keep driving โ to โsafety,โ to Sam โ or start fresh in the morning after a good nightโs sleep?
After a full day of driving, everyone knows that last leg of the trip is the worst, even under the best of circumstances. This plus Normanโs kindness and Marionโs decision over the course of the evening to head back to Phoenix and return the money means she stays, one night only, in the Bates Motel. The rest is history.
Numero-Six-O: There comes a time when every boy must leave home.
In his novel of the same name, Thomas Wolfe writes โYou canโt go home again.โ Sometimes, apparently, you also canโt leave. Normanโs relationship with his mother is the epitome of the word enmeshed, their personas, dysfunctions and maladaptive appetites feeding one another to the point of possible incest, murder and subsuming self-identification.
But Norman isnโt the only man who’s trapped. While Sam Alpha-Males Norman about the lengths heโd go to to escape his prison, the truth is theyโre both trapped: Norman by his homicide-inducing attachment to his mother and conflicted sexual identity, Sam by the broken marriage for which he still pays his dues, literally and figuratively. Convinced Norman has killed Marion, Sam presses the hotel proprietor about the $40,000 it would take for him to be free, to create a new life. The moral of the story? Sometimes the other guyโs prison resembles your own.
Numero-Seven-O: Thereโs no safe spaces left, not even your own gulโdurn bathroom.
Thereโs nothing like the cleansing power of a good hot shower after a long stressful day. Some people will tell you thatโs where they do their best thinking. But Psycho ruined showers for Janet Leigh. And while we havenโt researched the relationship between the popularity of the walk-in shower with clear, sliding-glass doors and the release of Hitchcockโs classic, it’s hard to believe there wasn’t a spike starting around 1960.
Next Up: The Last Call where He came homeโฆ
