Psycho - Bloch vs Hitchcock, no spoiler boxes

Cafe Society
1

Finally after several years got to read the book version of Psycho, one of my favorite suspense movies=)

I have to admit, it was uncannily transfered to screen by Hitchcock, though I really sort of wished he had made the antihero Norman fit his book description - a pudgy 40 year old mama’s boy. Sort of had this mental image of the fat one in Seinfeld [glasses, slightly balding … I dont watch it other than seeing previews on commercials so I have no idea who it is] Although there were a few small differences between movie and book, they were fairly small and not to obtrusive. Well, ok, she was capped in a shower, not in a bathtub with a shower…but I can forgive that =)

So if Hitch could manage to make a book into a movie, and actually follow the book that closely, why in the name of little green apples can’t they do it now? It has to be cheaper [for example] to take a Bond movie set in a mountain ski resort and actually make it a mountain ski resort where they are doing ‘allergy’ research and not add in nuclear weapons, gadgets, nekkid women and futuristic garbage…

Having read all the Bond novels, I hate the Broccoli movies…I am the same way about the Jack Ryan novels…[although I wish they would pick one Jack Ryan and stick with him=]

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[QUOTE=aruvqan]
So if Hitch could manage to make a book into a movie, and actually follow the book that closely, why in the name of little green apples can’t they do it now?

[QUOTE]

  1. Hirtchcock was something special, its a bit like woundering why all the jobsworth painters of 15th/16th century Rome didn’t just make facimiles of Raphael (in truth they did, but you get the point). Because they are a class above.

The only real example of that today would be Tim Burton (and he still muddied his hands with that Planet of the Apes remake), maybe Almoldovar?

  1. The reson they have to stick all the gadgets/nekkid women/cars in is because they have to live up to certian expectation of what is in an action film, remember we are not in the same era as Fleming, so things must be viewed differently.

Its a travesty I know, but its one of the things we have to grin and bear.

3

Pity, Ian Fleming could seriously write great suspense…Probably due to his having been more or less a spook in WW2…

I would love to see a serious producer/director team go to town on the books and make them without all the crap. Actually, I would love a serious version of Casino Royale =) Bond vs Le Ciphre gambling in Monaco…Bond getting his nads thwacked to torture the location of the money out of him…

Jumpin Jehosophat - glam casinos, glam gambling women in great dresses [make it a period piece, they could dress in the 50s!] lovely vistas of the countryside and vilas in Nice, a sexy sportscar, a nasty villain…what more do you really need=) It would be great for one of those shorter made for cable movies [the ones that are around 1h30m to allow for commercials…

4

I don’t think the cinematic world is ready for the remake of Moonraker, featuring the heartpounding suspence of Bond trying to catch Hugo Drax cheating at Bridge.

5

There’s an awful lot of plot in most books, more than can fit in a movie. How did Hitchcock solve that problem?

6

Counterexample: Chris Columbus and the first two Harry Potter movies. Not only do they follow the books pretty closely, they also demonstrate quite handily that slavish devotion to a source book’s plot is no guarantee of exceptional cinematic quality.

And it’s not like Hitchcock always followed the source text. Compare the decent short story “Rear Window” to the masterpiece Rear Window and you’ll see a very different plot. Same with Du Maurier’s “The Birds” and Hitchcock’s The Birds. I suspect he was more faithful to Bloch’s Psycho because the book’s plot was relatively straightforward and easy to translate to the big screen.

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Well, a friend of mine that screenwrites for a living says that it is essentially 45 seconds/one minute screentime per page depending on the author. If the author [like Bloch] describes at least half the time, leaving the other half dialogue, it works out pretty much as planned. Also, in general many books written pre-70s aren’t more than 250 pages - the 500 page blockbuster is more of a modern entity. I think if I look in my bookshelves at my books, a serious majority of them are sf/fantasy and other fiction pre 70 and under 250 pages. Many of them run about 150-175 pages.

Just as a wild example…pp 37[i think 1 page falls under fair use=)]

Then she closed her door and locked it. She could hear his retreating footsteps, then the telltale click as he entered the office next door.

She didn’t hear him when he left; her attention had immediately been occupied by the duty of unpacking. She got out her pajamas, her slippers, a jar of cold cream, a toothbrush and toothpaste. Then she rummaged through the big suitcase looking for the dress she planned to wear tomorrow when she saw Sam. That would have to be put up now, to hang out the wrinkles. Nothing must be out of place tomorrow.

Nothing must be out of place —

All at once she didn’t feel seven feet tall anymore. Or was the change really so sudden? Hadn’t it started when Mr Bates got so hysterical back there at the house?

I think perhaps all of us go a little crazy at times.

Mary Crane cleared a place for herself on the bed and sat down.

Yes, it was true. All of us go a little crazy at times. Just as she had gone crazy yesterday afternoon when she saw that money on her desk.

And she had been crazy to think she could get away with what she planned. It had all seemed like a dream come true, and that’s what it was. A dream. A crazy dream. She knew it now.

The italic line ‘I think perhaps all of us go a little crazy at times’ in the movie she heard in her head as she was rummaging around thinking and getting her stuff for the shower - that was a line Norman said when they were talking while having dinner. The hearing Norman sounds were handled by having the Norman sounds in the background as she got her stuff out of the suitcase. Here is an entire page that was handled by about a minute of screen action and sound effects. Her mental state was reflected in her expressions and movements, small hesitations, looking thoughtful and so forth…very well directed by Hitch. He did sort of make the command decision to cut out Norman getting drunk and blacking out which is when Momma took over and killed Mary, he just showed Norman falling asleep. I think most of the cuts in the story he actually made were to accomodate the film censorship boards. At least they let him leave in the unmarried sexual affair=)

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Oh, and for what it is worth, it is 198 pages…and according to IDMB.com, the movie Psycho is 108 minutes, and Robert Bloch was one of the screenwriters=) so maybe that explains why it came out so well, and has really stood the test of time. I know people who it stillscares the bejesus out of when they see it the first time=)

And despite the good craftsmanship, the remake just was nowhere near as good, and I have no idea why making it color screwed it up=(

9

Aruvqan is right. The book was very short and to the point. It was really begging to be filmed, although having reread it about a year ago, I realize it’s not quite as good as the movie. I think this is one of the few times a movie has actually improved on its source material. I think the book lacks the subtlety and style of the movie. On the “making of” featurette on the DVD, they say that Hitchcock was trying to make a well-made pulp film. He wanted to take the conventions of the low-budget, pulp films of the day and raise them above the level of quality at which audiences were accustomed to seeing them. The book is just pulp. IMHO, of course.

I used to feel the same way you did about the changes made to Norman’s character, but now I think it was the right thing to do. Norman in the book and Norman in the movie are, in a way, two different characters. Keep in mind that Hitchcock and Stefano were trying to play a trick on the audience. They wanted the audience to think that Marion might fall in love with handsome, young Norman and that the two of them plus Sam would make a love triangle. No audience (certainly not in 1960) would have made that assumption had Norman looked like Newman from “Seinfeld”. Plus, as harsh as it sounds, people (then and now) tend to have more affection and sympathy for better-looking characters and the creative team wanted us to like Norman. We’re supposed to feel sorry for him even as he’s covering up for his mother’s crimes. Which, of course, makes the ending all the more shocking. In the book, Norman wasn’t a very likable character. Pitiable, maybe, but not likable.

Now, as for the remake… I went to see it when it was released theatrically and I went determined to judge it strictly on its own merits and not in light of its being a remake. Of course, that’s not entirely possible, but you know, I didn’t hate it. I didn’t love it, but still… Let’s say hypothetically that the remake existed exactly as is, but not as a remake. Let’s pretend that there was no original Psycho. I firmly believe that it would have gotten much better reviews than it did. Everyone seemed to think it was such a sacrilege to remake a classic film – a Hitchcock film, no less – shot for shot, word for word (although it wasn’t, exactly) and crediting Hitchcock’s genius with making the original such a success (artistically, I mean). While there’s no denying he was a masterful filmmaker, that’s kind of an insult to the rest of the cast and crew. Film, it’s been said time and time again, is a collaborative art. When you give Hitchcock all the credit for making Psycho great, you’re ignoring the contribution of Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins’ wonderful acting, Joseph Stefano’s brilliant script, etc. But I will admit it was a bad idea to use the same camera angles and everything. I would have reused the script, but gone with a completely different visual style. Nonetheless, I think Gus van Sant deserves credit for his bravery. Creating great art of any kind requires experimentation. Some experiments succeed, his failed, but at least he was brave enough to try.

10

Look at the IMDb again. Robert Bloch was not one of the screenwriters. The screenplay was solely by Joseph Stephano, who also created and produced the original series of The Outer Limits.

I found the novel more crude than the screenplay (e.g., Mary Crane is decapitated in the novel). Virtually every change Stephano and Hitchcock made was for the better. Casting younger and leaner Anthony Perkins in the role of Norman allows two things: the slightest plausibility of a mutual attraction between Norman and Marion as two lost souls who got off the highway of life, and it emphasizes Norman’s twitchy, birdlike characteristics.

11

That’s always bugged me. I don’t even think it’s possible to do that with an ordinary kitchen knife. Or at least, it’d certainly be very difficult.

12

my bad=) I was checking the site in a hurry…but I agree that I love the movie, and I loved Outer Limits as well…kudos to the whole cast and crew. It is almost impossible to get such great work done nowdays! You need to be a raving micromanager like Hitch who has the power to override producers and corporate weasels to put your vision onscreen!

13

He doesn’t describe it in the book, I just checked but I agree that it would be fairly difficult, but with enough hard work, and a large - 10 or 14 inch heavy french knife to crunch through the spine it could be done. I have disassembled whole sheep, and a 250 lb ram is fairly close neckwise to human and it was a pain in the ass getting through the spine. The esophagus and trachea are pretty tough and gristly also, it isn’t as easy as it looks in those slasher movies…unless you are talking scalpel or razor sharp, cutting a throat is work!

14

I haven’t read the original book, but it’s a fairly standard suggestion that Hitchcock and Perkins were possibly influenced by Dennis Weaver’s performance as the shy, nervous (and skinny) motel keeper in Welles’ Touch of Evil. The added resonance is that the woman being menanced in her room - though not by Weaver - is played by, of course, Janet Leigh.

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I confess I’m going from very very old memories, but I thought the movie made lots of changes to the book.

The book gave me a haunting memory of drums made from human skin, which the movie either ignored (or alluded to by Vera Miles opening an unidentified book in Norman’s room, but we don’t see what’s in the book except that it’s shocking. One presumes, pornography.)

The movie search of the house and suspense build-up wasn’t in the book, was it?

16

The skin drums came from a book Norman was reading on headhunters. He had a 2 page daydream about them. The house itself is described as being neatly kept, and clean though old fashioned. The ookiest stuff might have been considered his small taxidermy setup in the basement. That stuff is barely glossed over once or twice=)

Arbogast didn’t sneak in, ‘mother’ told Norman to invite him in to speak with her, and he comments that she found the razor. Lila does sneak in and search the house, but there is a certain amount of glossing over her finding mother’s body and Norman ‘becoming’ his mother and attacking her, but in the book the sherrif and Sam are already headed up to the house when she screams, so you can sort of assume that Norman is stopped in time.