1
00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:02,000
Speaker 1: The Stay in History Class is a production of I

2
00:00:02,080 --> 00:00:14,880
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, Hello, and Welcome to This Day in History Class,

3
00:00:14,920 --> 00:00:18,360
Speaker 1: a show that unmasks history one day at a time.

4
00:00:19,239 --> 00:00:23,280
Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Bluesier, and in this episode we're talking about Psycho,

5
00:00:23,680 --> 00:00:27,680
Speaker 1: the moody psychological thriller that's widely regarded as the first

6
00:00:27,760 --> 00:00:38,080
Speaker 1: modern horror film and one of the best too. The

7
00:00:38,200 --> 00:00:44,800
Speaker 1: day was September eighth, sixty Alfred Hitchcock's classics suspense thriller

8
00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:49,800
Speaker 1: Psycho opened in theaters across the United States. The director

9
00:00:49,920 --> 00:00:53,720
Speaker 1: took a secretive approach to the film's release, insisting that

10
00:00:53,760 --> 00:00:56,600
Speaker 1: no one be admitted to a screening after the movie

11
00:00:56,680 --> 00:01:01,560
Speaker 1: had begun. This was done not only to the public's curiosity,

12
00:01:01,840 --> 00:01:04,800
Speaker 1: but to help preserve the film's many twists and turns,

13
00:01:05,240 --> 00:01:08,559
Speaker 1: which fair warning we will be getting into a little later.

14
00:01:09,319 --> 00:01:13,080
Speaker 1: Hitchcock didn't want viewers to wander into a screening midway

15
00:01:13,120 --> 00:01:16,560
Speaker 1: through and be confused about the very different direction the

16
00:01:16,600 --> 00:01:20,560
Speaker 1: film takes in its final stretch. This unusual level of

17
00:01:20,600 --> 00:01:24,560
Speaker 1: secrecy also prevented critics from screening the film in advance,

18
00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:27,880
Speaker 1: a decision that probably played a role in the movies

19
00:01:27,959 --> 00:01:33,319
Speaker 1: decidedly mixed reviews. However, the box office success of Psycho

20
00:01:33,680 --> 00:01:38,039
Speaker 1: eventually led to its critical re evaluation, and today it's

21
00:01:38,080 --> 00:01:41,399
Speaker 1: now considered one of Hitchcock's finest works and a high

22
00:01:41,400 --> 00:01:44,920
Speaker 1: point of the thriller genre as a whole. In case

23
00:01:44,959 --> 00:01:47,800
Speaker 1: you've never seen Psycho, or if it's been a while

24
00:01:47,880 --> 00:01:51,200
Speaker 1: since your last viewing, the story goes something like this.

25
00:01:51,840 --> 00:01:56,320
Speaker 1: A young secretary named Mary and Crane played by Janet Lee,

26
00:01:56,360 --> 00:01:59,840
Speaker 1: decides on a whim to steal forty thou dollars from

27
00:01:59,840 --> 00:02:03,440
Speaker 1: her employer, money that she was supposed to deposit in

28
00:02:03,480 --> 00:02:06,760
Speaker 1: a bank. She flees the city with the cash and

29
00:02:06,880 --> 00:02:10,160
Speaker 1: drives all night, eventually stopping to rent a room at

30
00:02:10,160 --> 00:02:16,000
Speaker 1: the eerie, isolated Bates Motel. There, she encounters the motel manager,

31
00:02:16,320 --> 00:02:20,000
Speaker 1: a shy, awkward young man named Norman Bates, played to

32
00:02:20,120 --> 00:02:24,080
Speaker 1: unnerving effect by Anthony Perkins. He invites her to have

33
00:02:24,160 --> 00:02:26,720
Speaker 1: dinner with him in the motel office that evening, and

34
00:02:26,840 --> 00:02:29,520
Speaker 1: over the course of the meal, Norman explains that he

35
00:02:29,560 --> 00:02:33,400
Speaker 1: feels trapped by his controlling, elderly mother, who lives in

36
00:02:33,440 --> 00:02:37,799
Speaker 1: the manor house just behind the motel. Their conversation helps

37
00:02:37,880 --> 00:02:41,200
Speaker 1: Marian realize that she too, is trapped and that the

38
00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:43,960
Speaker 1: only way she can free herself is to return the

39
00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:48,160
Speaker 1: money she stole before departing. She decides to take a shower,

40
00:02:48,520 --> 00:02:52,079
Speaker 1: a way to symbolically cleanse herself with guilt, but as

41
00:02:52,120 --> 00:02:56,320
Speaker 1: she bathes, Norman's jealous mother enters the room and fatally

42
00:02:56,400 --> 00:03:00,640
Speaker 1: stabs her. A while later, a distraught no merman Bates

43
00:03:00,720 --> 00:03:03,679
Speaker 1: cleans up the murder scene and disposes of the evidence

44
00:03:03,760 --> 00:03:07,880
Speaker 1: by sinking Marion's body and her car in a nearby swamp.

45
00:03:08,720 --> 00:03:12,640
Speaker 1: A week later, Marion's boyfriend Sam and her sister Lila

46
00:03:12,919 --> 00:03:16,880
Speaker 1: come looking for her at Bates Motel. They grow suspicious

47
00:03:16,880 --> 00:03:19,360
Speaker 1: that Norman and his mother may be hiding something in

48
00:03:19,400 --> 00:03:22,120
Speaker 1: their house on the hill, and when the pair sneaks

49
00:03:22,160 --> 00:03:26,320
Speaker 1: inside to check, they find the mummified corpse of Norman's mother,

50
00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:30,720
Speaker 1: who has evidently been dead for some ten years. Suddenly,

51
00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:34,480
Speaker 1: they're attacked by the same shadowy figure who killed Marion.

52
00:03:34,960 --> 00:03:38,920
Speaker 1: The killer identifies themselves as Norma Bates, but it's soon

53
00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:41,960
Speaker 1: revealed to be her son, Norman. Dressed up in a

54
00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:45,480
Speaker 1: wig and gown. Sam is able to subdue him, and

55
00:03:45,520 --> 00:03:48,760
Speaker 1: it's soon revealed that a jealous Norman actually killed his

56
00:03:48,840 --> 00:03:52,800
Speaker 1: mother and her lover a decade earlier. He then preserved

57
00:03:52,840 --> 00:03:57,600
Speaker 1: her corpse and recreated her as an alternate personality. It's

58
00:03:57,600 --> 00:04:01,440
Speaker 1: explained that Marian was actually the third woman Norman had

59
00:04:01,560 --> 00:04:05,080
Speaker 1: killed while impersonating his possessive mother, and at the end

60
00:04:05,080 --> 00:04:08,440
Speaker 1: of the film, it suggested that the mother personality has

61
00:04:08,480 --> 00:04:11,760
Speaker 1: now taken full control of his mind and that Norman

62
00:04:12,160 --> 00:04:17,120
Speaker 1: is gone forever. This maccab tail was a drastic departure

63
00:04:17,200 --> 00:04:21,240
Speaker 1: from Hitchcock's previous film, the nineteen fifty nine commercial hit

64
00:04:21,520 --> 00:04:26,720
Speaker 1: North By Northwest. That movie's critical and financial success gave

65
00:04:26,800 --> 00:04:29,960
Speaker 1: the director the freedom to tackle any subject he wanted

66
00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:33,480
Speaker 1: for his next project, but no one in Hollywood imagined

67
00:04:33,520 --> 00:04:36,440
Speaker 1: he would choose to make a horror movie. The genre

68
00:04:36,560 --> 00:04:39,880
Speaker 1: commanded very little respect at the time and was mostly

69
00:04:39,920 --> 00:04:44,440
Speaker 1: known for campy storylines and cheap special effects. That lack

70
00:04:44,480 --> 00:04:48,080
Speaker 1: of prestige is exactly what attracted Hitchcock to the genre.

71
00:04:48,560 --> 00:04:50,960
Speaker 1: He was curious to see what could happen when a

72
00:04:50,960 --> 00:04:54,479
Speaker 1: horror movie was made by a filmmaker who quote knew

73
00:04:54,520 --> 00:04:58,200
Speaker 1: what he was doing. With that in mind, Hitchcock told

74
00:04:58,240 --> 00:05:00,839
Speaker 1: his production company to go out and find a suitable

75
00:05:00,880 --> 00:05:04,159
Speaker 1: story for him to adapt to the screen. Within a month,

76
00:05:04,360 --> 00:05:07,440
Speaker 1: they returned with a copy of Psycho, a well received

77
00:05:07,480 --> 00:05:11,599
Speaker 1: horror novel by author Robert Block. The book was loosely

78
00:05:11,680 --> 00:05:14,839
Speaker 1: based on the real life crimes of Wisconsin serial killer

79
00:05:15,040 --> 00:05:17,840
Speaker 1: Ed Gene, and the story turned out to be just

80
00:05:17,960 --> 00:05:22,040
Speaker 1: what Hitchcock was looking for. He particularly liked the idea

81
00:05:22,080 --> 00:05:25,440
Speaker 1: of the main character, Ms. Crane, being killed off so

82
00:05:25,520 --> 00:05:28,479
Speaker 1: early in the story. In fact, that was one of

83
00:05:28,480 --> 00:05:32,000
Speaker 1: the twists that Hitchcock was so adamant about protecting. He

84
00:05:32,080 --> 00:05:34,720
Speaker 1: knew it would shock audiences to see the lead character

85
00:05:34,880 --> 00:05:38,400
Speaker 1: die unexpectedly, but if someone entered the theater after the

86
00:05:38,440 --> 00:05:42,920
Speaker 1: shower scene, they might have just been confused. Robert Block

87
00:05:43,160 --> 00:05:45,800
Speaker 1: was paid nine thousand dollars for the film rights to

88
00:05:45,880 --> 00:05:49,279
Speaker 1: his novel, and not long after Hitchcock pitched the story

89
00:05:49,320 --> 00:05:53,960
Speaker 1: to his partners at Paramount Pictures. Studio executives weren't fans

90
00:05:54,000 --> 00:05:57,560
Speaker 1: of the unusual choice of subject matter. In fact, they

91
00:05:57,600 --> 00:06:00,680
Speaker 1: were so against the idea that Hitchcock wound up paying

92
00:06:00,720 --> 00:06:03,400
Speaker 1: for most of the movie himself, and he even gave

93
00:06:03,520 --> 00:06:07,479
Speaker 1: up his usual salary in exchange for sixty ownership of

94
00:06:07,480 --> 00:06:12,360
Speaker 1: the finished film. That arrangement was virtually unheard of in Hollywood,

95
00:06:12,600 --> 00:06:16,240
Speaker 1: but he wound up working in Hitchcock's favor. Psycho went

96
00:06:16,279 --> 00:06:19,479
Speaker 1: on to become the most financially successful film of his

97
00:06:19,760 --> 00:06:23,880
Speaker 1: entire career, pulling in thirty two million dollars during its

98
00:06:23,880 --> 00:06:27,040
Speaker 1: original theatrical run off of a budget of less than

99
00:06:27,120 --> 00:06:31,839
Speaker 1: one million. To help keep production costs low, Hitchcock shot

100
00:06:31,839 --> 00:06:34,320
Speaker 1: the film in black and white and borrowed the crew

101
00:06:34,360 --> 00:06:38,920
Speaker 1: from his anthology TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Even with

102
00:06:38,960 --> 00:06:42,640
Speaker 1: all of those concessions, Paramounts still tried to discourage the

103
00:06:42,680 --> 00:06:45,560
Speaker 1: director by refusing to let him shoot the film at

104
00:06:45,560 --> 00:06:51,080
Speaker 1: their studio. However, that plan backfired again when Hitchcock simply

105
00:06:51,120 --> 00:06:55,520
Speaker 1: rented space over at Universal. There he built the elaborate

106
00:06:55,560 --> 00:06:58,880
Speaker 1: set of Bates Motel and the gothic house that looms

107
00:06:58,920 --> 00:07:03,400
Speaker 1: over it. Those now iconic structures are still standing today

108
00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:06,240
Speaker 1: and are among the highlights guests can see on the

109
00:07:06,360 --> 00:07:10,840
Speaker 1: Universal Studios tour in Hollywood. So way to go, Paramount.

110
00:07:11,640 --> 00:07:15,080
Speaker 1: Of course, no discussion of Psycho would be complete without

111
00:07:15,120 --> 00:07:18,680
Speaker 1: talking about the infamous shower scene. It's one of the

112
00:07:18,720 --> 00:07:22,800
Speaker 1: most studied sequences in film history, and for good reason too.

113
00:07:23,120 --> 00:07:26,240
Speaker 1: Most of the shots were storyboarded by renowned title and

114
00:07:26,280 --> 00:07:30,160
Speaker 1: poster artists Saul Bass, who also created the opening credit

115
00:07:30,240 --> 00:07:33,640
Speaker 1: sequence for Psycho. One of the most impressive things about

116
00:07:33,680 --> 00:07:37,080
Speaker 1: the scene is what the viewer doesn't see. Thanks to

117
00:07:37,120 --> 00:07:40,800
Speaker 1: a series of quick cuts, the violence of Marion's murder

118
00:07:41,040 --> 00:07:45,360
Speaker 1: is mostly suggested rather than shown. In fact, we only

119
00:07:45,400 --> 00:07:48,200
Speaker 1: see the knife touch your skin for about two seconds

120
00:07:48,240 --> 00:07:51,200
Speaker 1: of the roughly five minute scene. For the rest of

121
00:07:51,240 --> 00:07:55,080
Speaker 1: the time, we're looking at the knife, the tile, the showerhead,

122
00:07:55,320 --> 00:07:58,920
Speaker 1: the blood trickling down the drain. We see the implication

123
00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:02,280
Speaker 1: of violence and its aftermath, but very little of the

124
00:08:02,320 --> 00:08:06,920
Speaker 1: act itself. Despite being rather tame for a murder scene,

125
00:08:07,120 --> 00:08:11,640
Speaker 1: the sequence still feels intense and suspenseful. That's partly down

126
00:08:11,680 --> 00:08:14,320
Speaker 1: to the brilliant editing, but a great deal of credit

127
00:08:14,400 --> 00:08:19,400
Speaker 1: also goes to Bernard Hermann's inspired score, in which violins, cellos,

128
00:08:19,480 --> 00:08:23,560
Speaker 1: and viola's screech along with every stab of Norman's blade.

129
00:08:24,040 --> 00:08:44,800
Speaker 1: Take a listen. Speaking of the sound of the scene,

130
00:08:45,160 --> 00:08:48,160
Speaker 1: Hitchcock held a bizarre kind of audition to find the

131
00:08:48,360 --> 00:08:52,760
Speaker 1: right sound to represent a knife stabbing flesh. He reportedly

132
00:08:52,840 --> 00:08:56,600
Speaker 1: had his prop master, Robert Bone stabbed dozens of different

133
00:08:56,679 --> 00:09:01,640
Speaker 1: kinds of melons, every variety of cantaloupe, watermelon, cassaba, and

134
00:09:01,720 --> 00:09:05,800
Speaker 1: honeydew that he could find. Meanwhile, the director sat in

135
00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:09,520
Speaker 1: the sound studio with his eyes closed, listening intently as

136
00:09:09,559 --> 00:09:13,520
Speaker 1: each melon was wounded. When the grizzly audition was finished

137
00:09:13,720 --> 00:09:17,240
Speaker 1: and every melon had been thoroughly slashed, Hitchcock opened his

138
00:09:17,320 --> 00:09:22,840
Speaker 1: eyes and uttered a single word, cassaba. He supposedly settled

139
00:09:22,840 --> 00:09:26,560
Speaker 1: on that one because the melon's thick rind provided a deeper,

140
00:09:26,720 --> 00:09:31,240
Speaker 1: fuller sound. In addition to the cassaba, Hitchcock also layered

141
00:09:31,280 --> 00:09:35,920
Speaker 1: in recordings of a sirloin steak being stabbed repeatedly. According

142
00:09:35,960 --> 00:09:39,320
Speaker 1: to author Stephen Rebelow, the sound man took the steak

143
00:09:39,320 --> 00:09:42,199
Speaker 1: home that night and had it for dinner. No word

144
00:09:42,240 --> 00:09:45,480
Speaker 1: on what happened to the cassaba. At any rate, the

145
00:09:45,559 --> 00:09:50,400
Speaker 1: sound and the scene itself proved incredibly effective. Audiences were

146
00:09:50,480 --> 00:09:53,480
Speaker 1: said to gasp and scream during the scene, and even

147
00:09:53,520 --> 00:09:57,600
Speaker 1: actress Janet Lee was disturbed after screening the finished film,

148
00:09:57,679 --> 00:10:00,480
Speaker 1: She later claimed that she never took a shower her again,

149
00:10:00,920 --> 00:10:03,480
Speaker 1: opting to take baths for the rest of her life.

150
00:10:04,360 --> 00:10:08,040
Speaker 1: Although the shower scene is arguably the film's most famous sequence.

151
00:10:08,400 --> 00:10:11,200
Speaker 1: Neither of the movie stars are in it all that much.

152
00:10:11,840 --> 00:10:14,800
Speaker 1: Anthony Perkins was away in New York rehearsing for a

153
00:10:14,840 --> 00:10:17,360
Speaker 1: Broadway show during the week when the film was seen.

154
00:10:17,920 --> 00:10:21,040
Speaker 1: In the footage of his character stabbing Marian, the person

155
00:10:21,120 --> 00:10:23,880
Speaker 1: in the wig is actually a stunt woman whose face

156
00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:27,480
Speaker 1: was blacked out to achieve a silhouette effect. As for

157
00:10:27,600 --> 00:10:30,360
Speaker 1: Janet Lee, she appears in about a third of the

158
00:10:30,400 --> 00:10:33,160
Speaker 1: scenes run time, but the rest of the time it's

159
00:10:33,200 --> 00:10:36,840
Speaker 1: actually Marley Renfro, a pin up model who served as

160
00:10:36,920 --> 00:10:40,320
Speaker 1: Lee's body double in the scene. If you ask me, though,

161
00:10:40,679 --> 00:10:44,000
Speaker 1: the real star of the famous scene is the unassuming

162
00:10:44,040 --> 00:10:47,200
Speaker 1: toilet that appears in a handful of shots. Believe it

163
00:10:47,280 --> 00:10:50,439
Speaker 1: or not, that was the first toilet to ever appear

164
00:10:50,480 --> 00:10:53,480
Speaker 1: in an American film, and the first to be flushed

165
00:10:53,480 --> 00:10:58,079
Speaker 1: on screen as well. Before Psycho broke the taboo, toilets

166
00:10:58,080 --> 00:11:00,760
Speaker 1: were considered too crude to be shown own in movies.

167
00:11:01,280 --> 00:11:04,280
Speaker 1: So for all you fans of big screen toilets, now

168
00:11:04,320 --> 00:11:08,760
Speaker 1: you know who to thank. Psycho premiered in downtown Manhattan

169
00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:13,040
Speaker 1: on June sixteenth, sixty and then rolled out to theaters

170
00:11:13,120 --> 00:11:16,720
Speaker 1: nationwide on September eight. It went on to earn four

171
00:11:16,800 --> 00:11:22,320
Speaker 1: Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best

172
00:11:22,360 --> 00:11:26,680
Speaker 1: Supporting Actress, and Best Director. It didn't win any of

173
00:11:26,679 --> 00:11:30,560
Speaker 1: those awards, marking the fifth and final time that Hitchcock

174
00:11:30,640 --> 00:11:34,520
Speaker 1: would be nominated for and ultimately denied the Oscar for

175
00:11:34,559 --> 00:11:38,400
Speaker 1: Best Director. That's right. As hard as it is to believe,

176
00:11:38,559 --> 00:11:42,840
Speaker 1: Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar for his directing. But

177
00:11:42,920 --> 00:11:46,840
Speaker 1: despite being snubbed by the Academy, Psycho was a massive

178
00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:50,000
Speaker 1: success at the box office, and due to his unprecedented

179
00:11:50,040 --> 00:11:52,920
Speaker 1: deal with Paramount, the Lion's share of that money went

180
00:11:53,040 --> 00:11:57,559
Speaker 1: right into Hitchcock's pocket. More importantly, though, the film proved

181
00:11:57,600 --> 00:12:00,840
Speaker 1: that horror movies could be every bit as art full, thoughtful,

182
00:12:00,960 --> 00:12:05,520
Speaker 1: and engaging as their non genre counterparts. Psycho demonstrated that

183
00:12:05,600 --> 00:12:09,320
Speaker 1: you don't need monster costumes or graphic violence to elicit

184
00:12:09,440 --> 00:12:13,640
Speaker 1: fear from an audience. Sometimes it's much scarier to skip

185
00:12:13,679 --> 00:12:16,040
Speaker 1: the haunted house and take them on a tour of

186
00:12:16,080 --> 00:12:20,880
Speaker 1: the human mind instead, because, after all, as Norman Bates says,

187
00:12:21,559 --> 00:12:33,040
Speaker 1: we all go a little match sometimes, haven't you. I'm

188
00:12:33,080 --> 00:12:36,439
Speaker 1: Gabe lousier and hopefully you now know a little more

189
00:12:36,440 --> 00:12:40,320
Speaker 1: about history today than you did yesterday. If you have

190
00:12:40,440 --> 00:12:45,000
Speaker 1: a second and you're so inclined, consider following us on Twitter, Facebook,

191
00:12:45,040 --> 00:12:49,280
Speaker 1: and Instagram at t d I HC Show. You can

192
00:12:49,360 --> 00:12:52,240
Speaker 1: also rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, or

193
00:12:52,280 --> 00:12:54,599
Speaker 1: you can drop me a line directly by writing to

194
00:12:54,760 --> 00:12:58,480
Speaker 1: this Day at I heeart media dot com. Thanks to

195
00:12:58,559 --> 00:13:01,160
Speaker 1: Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thanks to you

196
00:13:01,200 --> 00:13:04,400
Speaker 1: for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow for

197
00:13:04,440 --> 00:13:17,480
Speaker 1: another Day in History class. H