Licorice Pizza: A Shower with Norman Bates

6/16/2010

A Shower with Norman Bates

I read earlier that today is the 50th anniversary of the release of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and I thought it might be appropriate to make mention of that before I go shower.

Psycho is now, of course, considered a classic, but I was surprised to learn that it opened to not-so-great reviews: “There is not an abundance of subtlety or the lately familiar Hitchcock bent toward significant and colorful scenery in this obviously low-budget job,” Bosley Crowther wrote in a June 17, 1960, New York Times review.

Like now, though, even bad reviews didn’t keep the public away; the film broke box office records all over the world and would ultimately become Hitchcock’s most successful movie.

Some random Psycho trivia:

Anthony Perkins was paid $40,000 for his role, which is exactly the same amount of money that Marion Crane embezzles.

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

Psycho was the first American film ever to show a toilet flushing on screen.

In the murder scene in the shower, there are only two split second frames of the knife actually touching the body.

And some random music about Norman Bates:

Norman Bates.mp3 ~ Utopians
Norman Bates.mp3 ~ Bright Light Fever
Norman Bates.mp3 ~ The Tailgators
Norman Bates.mp3 ~ from a German electronica collection titled Cyberworld II
A Shower with Norman Bates.mp3 ~ Etienne & Moi

Labels: "alternative", electronic, movies, rockabilly