It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock (34 page)

“Martin Balsam and I had this scene together. We’re talking it and rehearsing together, and we figured out that it would work much better if we overlapped our lines. Just as we were about to shoot the scene, I saw the storyboard, and realized we wouldn’t be able to do it overlapping because we were both in close-ups. I’d been told that the storyboards were inviolate, and that he’d already made the movie in his head before he came to the set. But I thought I’d try anyway.

“I said, ‘Hitch, Marty and I have been rehearsing our lines, and we thought it might go better if we overlapped our lines.’

“Hitch said, ‘Try it.’

“He listened, and then he dropped the storyboard into a wastebasket. So much for anyone saying he wasn’t open to suggestions.”

“An example of where you need to storyboard,” Hitchcock said, “is the man coming up the stairs to make sure that you get the contrast in the size of the image.” He was referring to Martin Balsam’s character, Arbogast, on his way to Mrs. Bates’s bedroom, when the detective is seen from the front and from high above.

Hitchcock was open to other suggestions from Perkins. “It was my idea to be munching candy,” Perkins continued. “Since my character has a line about eating like a bird, Hitch suggested candy corn.

“I told Hitch I really felt the character of Norman, and would it be all right if I wore my own clothes?

“He said, ‘Fine.’”

Assistant director Hilton Green remembered Perkins as generally keeping to himself. “He was always private. Polite, pleasant, but kind of a loner. He asked me to have someone let him know five or ten minutes before he was to be called. Then, he’d go into his trailer, and when he came out, five or ten minutes later, he came out Norman Bates.”

Anthony Perkins had a theory about why Alfred Hitchcock chose not to make
Psycho
in color.

“Hitch really loved Clouzot’s
Diabolique.
I think it was one of the reasons he made
Psycho
in black and white.”

Hitchcock had a different explanation.

“I do not like to see blood in life or on the screen. I made
Psycho
in black and white because I knew I did not want to show all of that red blood in the white bathroom.”

Another reason was he wanted to keep costs down and to be able to use his TV production unit, which was accustomed to shooting in black and white.

Hitchcock continued. “It was important to have the biggest star we could have for the role of Marion Crane for the element of surprise, because no one would expect us to kill off our star so early in the film.”

Janet Leigh was his first choice for Marion Crane. He told her that her part would be enlarged and made more sympathetic, if she agreed to do it.

“He explained to me that my death so early in the film was going to be a great shock to the audience,” Leigh told me. “It was to me.

“It wasn’t a very big part, but I was told it would be written up for me, if I took it. I grabbed it, and the part was made bigger.

“I knew right away that it was going to be a very good picture. Something special. But who could have imagined what it became?

“He said something to me before we did it. Then, he didn’t say much of anything else during shooting. He said he would stop me if I did it wrong. He didn’t want too little or too much, and he expected me to come up with nuances. We had a wonderful working relationship.

“I didn’t need to ask what my motivation was. It was passion. That’s a pretty good motivation, I’d say.

“He made me so aware of the power of imagination. I always took it for granted. There had to be something that the audience has to imagine in a characterization and they’ll never forget what
they
put in.

“He only told me about ‘position,’ and if I was off-base. He said, ‘You can do pretty much what you want.’ There was a very nice meeting of the minds. There was this understanding that he appreciated what we were doing, and we knew what he was doing. We knew the rules, and we abided and we didn’t argue, because it made sense.

“Saul Bass did a storyboard for the shower scene, and that was what was followed. It was perfectly planned, but it still took a week of standing in a shower. It was a drenching experience. The shower scene was a baptism to wash away Marion’s crime.”

Hilton Green recalled the shower scene from the other side of the curtain: “That was a tough scene for Janet. I mean, to be in the water for so long. Although she was covered, it was still not very pleasant.

“We shot, I think, five days. She was in the shower every day for most of it. Of course, the water was heated, but it wore on you after a while. She’d have time between shots, but it was very difficult.”

Actually, neither Janet Leigh nor Anthony Perkins was there for the famous forty-five seconds of slashing. Leigh’s body double took her place for the murder, and Perkins was in New York doing a play.

The scene had seventy-eight setups, some lasting less than a second. Though the body double was nude, nothing censorable was ever shown, and the knife was never seen to penetrate her body, though the illusion was that it had.

“If you allow the audience to imagine what’s happening rather than see what’s happening, that’s what stays with them,” Leigh continued. “That’s what Alfred Hitchcock believed. The whole point being the manipulation of the audience, and that’s what a magician does, and that’s exactly what he did.

“After the film, we were friends, and we knew each other socially. We didn’t double-date, we’re not in the same generation, obviously, but we had rapport. If we went to dinner parties, they would always put us at the same table because it was mutually enjoyable.

“At his seventy-fifth birthday party that they had at Chasen’s, everybody in town who was anybody was invited. There were the klieg lights and the red carpet, and there was a receiving line with the Wassermans and the [Jules] Steins and the Hitchcocks. He’d spotted my husband, Bob, and me coming along, and as soon as he got to me, he leaned down and whispered to us the dirtiest story that we’d ever heard. We were in the aisles laughing, and people were trying to figure out what was happening. Everybody was craning their neck. ‘What the hell is going on?’ they were wondering.”

Leigh characterized Hitchcock as “an imp, a mischievous pixie, and a genius.” Her only regret was that she could never again appear in a Hitchcock film. “Hitch told me, ‘Audiences will immediately think of
Psycho
, and that wouldn’t be fair to the new picture or your character.’”

Psycho
was Patricia Hitchcock’s last feature film, though she continued to appear on television.

“I had mixed feelings when Pat chose marriage and family as her primary life, and her career and acting only as secondary,” Hitchcock told me. “I thought she was a talented actress. I would never have cast her in three films and numerous television programs if I hadn’t, but Mrs. H. was happy because she thought it would be a happier life for our daughter.

“The Madame was a romantic. Though I tried not to let it show, I suppose I am one, too. So it was natural our daughter would also be one of those.

“I did miss her when she left our house.”

P
SYCHO
WAS BASED ON
a novel by Robert Bloch, a contributor to the TV series. The novel was inspired by an actual Wisconsin serial killer, and the screenplay was written by Joseph Stefano.

“For the opening love scenes,” Janet Leigh said, “I wore a white bra and white half slip. After I stole the money and was off to Sam to show him what I’d done for him, I wore the black bra and black half slip. Mr. Hitchcock wanted to show Marion Crane as having both good and evil within her.”

Leigh told me she would appreciate my making it clear that not only were these underclothes bought over-the-counter, because Hitchcock instructed it, but that it was also what
she
wanted. Someone wrote that she had wanted made-to-order lingerie, “which was ridiculous,” Leigh said, “since I never wore made-to-order lingerie. Why would
that
be the moment I wanted to?

“Hitch was particularly anxious that I purchase a popular brand, so that women would recognize their own brassiere, and identify with me. It happened that my own brand was a
very
popular model.”

The opening scene shows lovers Janet Leigh and John Gavin in bed, making love during her lunch break from the real estate office where she works.

“In real life, we knew each other casually,” Leigh told me, “and there we were in our first scene, hopping into bed in front of a lot of people. Mr. Hitchcock did more takes than usual, so I knew we weren’t giving him what he wanted.

“He called me over and very discreetly, so no one else heard, whispered to me, ‘I think you and John could be more passionate. Would you please try it and see how it works out.’

“I went back and wondered what he had said when he spoke to John. I thought perhaps he’d put it somewhat differently in more specific terms when he coached him. I didn’t know what to expect.

“I went back to bed with John, determined to give my all to ardor.

“It was only much later that I realized Hitchcock’s mischief was at work, and I’d been had.

“When I asked John how Mr. Hitchcock had instructed him, and I said I didn’t want him to leave out the lurid details, John told me Mr. Hitchcock hadn’t said a word to him about our love scene.

“I understood immediately then that was how Mr. Hitchcock got what he wanted from me, which was to show that my character, Marion, wanted her lover more, very much more, than he wanted her. Mr. Hitchcock wanted me to be the one who was then more aggressive.

“At one point in bed, John said to me rather urgently, ‘Janet, stop! You’re getting me excited.’

“It was a pretty sensual scene, I think.”

C
OMPOSER
B
ERNARD
H
ERRMANN
said, “Originally Hitch told me, ‘Write whatever you like, but please, no music for the shower.’ He was adamant, but I felt music was needed.

“When the music was recorded, and we were dubbing the film and got to the murder scenes, we ran the scenes without music. Hitch was unhappy. I suggested he listen to the same scenes with music. He said, ‘But I thought we had agreed not to have any.’ I said, ‘Sure, we can do it that way, but at least listen to what I’ve written.’ So we ran it with the music, and he said, ‘We must have the music, of course.’

“I said, ‘But you said you were against it.’

“He said, ‘A mere importuning, my dear boy,’ which roughly translated meant he could admit when he was wrong.”

Psycho
was filmed at Revue television studios at Universal in five weeks during 1959 at a cost of $850,000. Three of the principal actors Hitchcock wanted to use were under contract to Paramount, the releasing company, and available for reasonable sums. Vera Miles, who played Marion Crane’s sister, Lila, was still filling out her five-year contract with Hitchcock. Herrmann received his usual fee, but compensated by scoring the film for strings alone.