'Psycho' Is 50: Remembering Its Impact, and the Andrew Sarris Review

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 6/16/10 at 5:11pm

It was 50 years ago this week, Alfred Hitchcock taught the world to shriek. Sunday morning June 16, 1960, Psycho opened at two midtown Manhattan theaters, with crowds already lined up on Broadway.

Was it the insolently blunt title? Hitchcock's hilarious first-person trailer ("and here we have the b-a-a-ah-th room")? The unprecedented print ads featuring a Hollywood star (voluptuous Janet Leigh) in a slip and brassiere? The well-publicized absence of press previews? The radio spots promising, "no one... but no one... will be admitted to the theater after the start of each performance"? According to film historian Steven Rebello, "ticket holders standing in line grilled the patrons who poured out of the theater, laughing, outraged, shaken." Asking about the ending they were told, "You gotta see it for yourself!"
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[morosco]

Posted: 6/16/10 at 5:22pm

It will be released on Blu-ray in October, btw.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/16/10 at 5:25pm

Seems like only yesterday! Anne Heche was terrific!

[SNAFU]

Posted: 6/16/10 at 5:57pm

That film broke so many conventions. It still holds up. The editing in the shower scene is amazing. You THINK you saw much more then you actually were shown.
Today's horror and suspense directors show way too much which actually works against what they want to do. WHat you imagine is always much more scarier.

[morosco]

Posted: 6/16/10 at 6:08pm

Bernard Herrmann's score is also part of what makes PSYCHO an amazing work of art.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 6/16/10 at 6:11pm

Yes of course! Those discordant violins! The whole film is perfect!

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/16/10 at 6:13pm

Psycho, The Exorcist and 2001 are my three top films I wish I could have seen in their original releases.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 6/16/10 at 6:16pm

I personally would add Alien to that list. Saw all but Psycho in their original release. Stood in line for hours for the Exorcist, I believe at The PARIS.

[morosco]

Posted: 6/16/10 at 6:18pm

[strummergirl]

Posted: 6/16/10 at 7:54pm

My dad told me his parents took him and his siblings to see Psycho at a drive-in somewhere in San Diego. He was 4 at the time (I almost found this unbelievable since his mother was so prudish but it turns out the sitter was not available), but I think since the typical conventions were taken down by this film, so seamlessly, it impacted anybody who saw it for the first time. I still enjoy watching it again and again because of how unconventional it is in by today's modern cinema standards. I would have loved to seen it in its original release. The Birds (for some reason this Hitchcock film got to me), the first three Star Wars films, The Exorcist, and The Wizard of Oz are also on that list.



Updated On: 6/17/10 at 07:54 PM

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 6/16/10 at 9:34pm

I'll concur with those who wish they could have seen this, The Exorcist, The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, and The Empire Strikes Back. Return of the Jedi and E.T. are some of the earliest memories I have of going to the movies so I will also add wishing that I was a little older when they first arrived in theaters, though my vague memories of the Ewoks, Luke taking off Vader's helmet, and sobbing over E.T. dying are great early cinema memories to have.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 6/17/10 at 2:49am

Guess where I was today?

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 6/18/10 at 5:59pm

1. The knife never touches Janet Leigh
2. Perkins was not even in the shower scene as he was in NY
doing a show at the time.
3. At the end, you can see John Gavin pull open Perkins dress
as apparently it was not opening on its own.