110 Fun Facts About Psycho

Which author wrote the 1959 novel that Psycho was adapted from?

Robert Bloch sold the screen rights to an anonymous bidder and learned only after the deal had closed that the buyer was Alfred Hitchcock.

The character of Norman Bates was loosely inspired by which real Wisconsin murderer?

Ed Gein was arrested in 1957 not far from where Psycho's novelist was living; the author said what struck him most was that a killer could go unnoticed in a small town.

In Hitchcock's 1960 Psycho, how much cash does Marion Crane steal from her employer?

$40,000 in cash, which Marion hides in a folded newspaper; after the murder Norman tosses the paper unopened into her car trunk and never learns what he has thrown away.

In which city does Psycho open?

Phoenix was to be introduced in one unbroken helicopter shot gliding down to a hotel window, but the aerial shots came out too shaky, so the opening was pieced together from separate shots.

In Psycho, the Bates Motel sits a short drive from which fictional California town?

Fairvale is where Marion's boyfriend Sam keeps his hardware store; she is only about fifteen miles short of it when the rain drives her off the highway and into the motel.

What hobby does Norman describe to Marion over dinner in the motel parlor?

Taxidermy fills the parlor with stuffed birds; Norman, who has just told Marion that she eats like one, says he sticks to birds because he hates the look of stuffed beasts.

In Psycho, what is the surname of the private investigator hired to recover the stolen money?

Arbogast is attacked on the Bates staircase in a shot filmed from directly overhead, a high angle that keeps the killer's face hidden; the crew also built a pulley rig to carry the camera.

Where in the Bates house does Lila discover the mummified body of Norman's mother?

The fruit cellar is a hiding place: after the detective's visit Norman carries Mother down from her bedroom, while her voice protests that she will not be moved.

In Psycho, how does the local sheriff say Norman's mother died ten years earlier?

Strychnine poisoning, in the sheriff's telling, was a murder-suicide: Mrs. Bates poisoned her lover and then herself, which is why the woman seen in the window cannot be her.

Besides saving money, why did Hitchcock shoot Psycho in black and white?

To make the shower scene less gory, Hitchcock said, he gave up color; even so, Hollywood's censors refused to approve the finished film until the sequence had been revised.

Roughly how much did Psycho cost to make?

$800,000 was roughly the bill, low even for 1960: Hitchcock financed the film largely himself and kept costs down by shooting fast with the crew of his television series.

What did Hitchcock accept instead of a director's salary for making Psycho?

A 60% stake in the negative replaced his salary and kept the budget down; when the cheap thriller became the biggest hit of his career, that share earned him millions.

Who wrote the screenplay for Hitchcock's Psycho?

Joseph Stefano won the job by opening the story with Marion, where the novel opens with Norman, so that audiences would be on her side long before she reached the motel.

The Bates house in Psycho is said to be modeled on a painting by which American artist?

Edward Hopper is said to have based House by the Railroad on a real mansion in Haverstraw, New York; the same canvas is also credited with inspiring the lonely houses of Giant and Days of Heaven.

What does Hitchcock do for most of Psycho's original theatrical trailer?

Gives a guided tour of the set: a jovial Hitchcock strolls through 'the scene of the crime', starts to give the plot away at each stop, then thinks better of it.

Who composed the score for Psycho?

Bernard Herrmann wrote music for the shower murder even though Hitchcock had wanted the scene silent; the director was so pleased with the result that he roughly doubled the composer's fee.

Psycho's score was written for which kind of ensemble?

Strings only was the composer's answer to the film's look: one tone color for a black-and-white picture. Hitchcock had asked him for a jazz score.

On the American Film Institute's 2003 list of screen villains, Norman Bates ranks second behind which character?

Hannibal Lecter took first place, with Norman Bates second and Darth Vader third; the role that made Bates unforgettable also typecast its actor in unstable parts for years.

What stood in for blood in Psycho's shower scene?

Chocolate syrup it was, yet many viewers have sworn that the blood circling the drain was bright red, in a film shot entirely in black and white.

How was the sound of the knife entering flesh created for the shower scene?

The BBFC still required cuts to the stabbing sounds when the film first reached British cinemas.

Psycho's shower murder runs under a minute, but took roughly how long to shoot?

One week under the shower head went into a murder that lasts about 45 seconds on screen, and the film's star always insisted that Hitchcock stood by the camera for every shot of it.

The 2017 documentary 78/52 is named for the 78 camera setups and 52 what in Psycho's shower scene?

Cuts, in the editor's sense: by the documentary's count, 78 camera setups and 52 splices go into a murder that runs under a minute, and it spends a whole feature dissecting them.

In Psycho, what does Marion tell Norman she will do in the morning?

Drive back home: she tells Norman she stepped into a private trap and wants to pull herself out of it, then tallies what she has spent of the stolen money and steps into the shower.

Where is Hitchcock's cameo in Psycho?

Standing outside Marion's office in a Stetson hat, he is glimpsed through the window early in the film; he liked to appear near the start so audiences would stop looking for him.

In Psycho's original trailer, which actress screams in the shower in place of Janet Leigh?

Vera Miles, who plays Marion's sister Lila, put on a blonde wig to pass for the star when Hitchcock threw back the shower curtain at the end of his trailer.

What unusual policy did Hitchcock impose on cinemas showing Psycho in 1960?

No one admitted after the start was a rule theater owners feared would cost them business; instead it drew long lines, with Pinkerton guards hired to turn latecomers away.

Who played Hitchcock in the 2012 film about the making of Psycho?

Anthony Hopkins played the director under transforming makeup, in a film that is less about how Psycho was shot than about his marriage, with Helen Mirren as the wife who steers him through it.

Paramount released Psycho, but on which rival studio's lot was the film actually shot?

Universal's lot was home to Hitchcock's television unit, so he filmed there; the Bates house built on its backlot went on to become a fixture of the studio tour.

Psycho lost Best Director to which comedy?

The Apartment won it for Billy Wilder; Hitchcock was nominated five times as a director without ever winning, and his only award from the Academy was an honorary one in 1968.

Which award did Janet Leigh win for playing Marion Crane?

A Golden Globe went to an actress whose character is dead before the film is half over; the same role brought the only Oscar nomination of her career, which she lost.

When the MPAA re-rated Psycho in 1984, which rating did the 1960 film receive?

An R made the film more restricted in 1984 than it had been on release: it was passed under the old Production Code in 1960 and labelled M, for mature audiences, in 1968.

Why did CBS cancel Psycho's planned network TV premiere in 1966?

The murder of a senate candidate's daughter, Valerie Percy, stabbed at her family's home near Chicago days before the broadcast, alarmed Midwestern stations; CBS shelved the film and never aired it.

In Psycho, what is Mrs. Bates's first name?

Norma Bates is ten years dead when the 1960 film begins; the voice that scolds her son from the house was spliced together from three performers, one of them a man.

Janet Leigh was Psycho's biggest box-office name, but where does her name come in its opening cast credits?

Last is where the credits place her, the spot a star takes for a small guest part, though she is in every scene until the shower; top billing went to the actor playing Norman.

In Psycho's final shot of Norman, what is briefly superimposed over his smiling face?

A skull flickers across Norman's grin for an instant, his mother's, just after her voice resolves not to swat a fly, so that anyone watching will see she wouldn't even harm one.

In the novel Psycho, what is the first name of the film's Marion Crane?

Mary Crane is her name on the page, where the motel keeper she meets is no shy young man but a plump, hard-drinking forty-year-old; the film changed them both.

In the novel that Psycho adapts, how does the shower victim die?

She is decapitated: in the book Mother's blade takes her head off in the shower, and it was the film that turned the killing into a flurry of stabbing.

How does Norman get rid of Marion's car after the murder in Psycho?

Sinks it in a swamp, though the car stops going down for one long moment; Norman holds his breath, and the audience finds itself hoping that he gets away with it.

Who directed Psycho III (1986)?

Anthony Perkins was sent the script simply as an acting job, liked it so much that he asked to direct as well, and made his debut behind the camera with it.

Who directed the 1998 near shot-for-shot color remake of Psycho?

Gus Van Sant treated the remake as an experiment, reusing the original script and score; the critic Roger Ebert called it invaluable, as proof that a shot-by-shot remake is pointless.

On which network did the prequel series Bates Motel air from 2013 to 2017?

A&E was confident enough to skip the pilot stage and order ten episodes straight to series, for a prequel that moves the teenage Norman and his mother to the present day.

Who played the young Norman in the Bates Motel TV series?

Freddie Highmore, a former child star, played Norman as a present-day teenager in a prequel that also gave the future killer an older brother he never had on film.

In Psycho II (1983), which survivor of the original film campaigns against Norman's release?

Lila Crane, played by the same actress 23 years on, protests his release and then plots with her daughter to make him believe that Mother has come back.

How does Marion try to cover her tracks on the road to the Bates Motel?

Trades in her car for another at a used-car lot, paying the difference in cash without haggling; her haste only makes the salesman and a watching highway patrolman more suspicious.

Which horror film starring Janet Leigh's daughter named its doctor Sam Loomis in tribute to Psycho?

Halloween gave Jamie Lee Curtis her film debut and borrowed the name of Marion's lover for its psychiatrist; two years later mother and daughter shared the screen in The Fog.

Which rapper sampled Psycho's opening theme on a 1998 single?

Busta Rhymes looped the film's nervous main-title theme under his rapid-fire verses on 'Gimme Some More', giving a score written in 1960 a second life as a hip-hop hook.

Which 1960 British film is sometimes cited instead of Psycho as the first slasher?

Peeping Tom reached cinemas a few months before Psycho and was savaged by critics, all but ending director Michael Powell's career in the year Hitchcock had his biggest hit.

In Psycho, Norman tells Marion that we all go a little what sometimes?

Mad is the word: Norman has just said that his mother isn't a maniac, she 'just goes a little mad sometimes', and Marion answers that one time can be enough.

Which relative of Hitchcock's appears in Psycho as Marion's office colleague?

His daughter Patricia plays Caroline, the chatty co-worker who offers Marion one of the tranquilizers her mother's doctor gave her on her wedding day.

In Psycho, what did censors object to seeing in Marion's motel bathroom, a first for a mainstream American film?

A flushing toilet had never been shown in a Hollywood film, so the screenwriter made it part of the plot: the scrap of paper that fails to go down becomes a clue.

What is Marion Crane's job at the start of Psycho?

A real estate secretary, she is handed a client's cash payment for a house and told to bank it on her way home; she packs a suitcase instead.

Psycho was seen as a sharp departure from which big-budget Hitchcock film released the year before?

North by Northwest had been a glossy Technicolor chase with Cary Grant; for his next film Hitchcock gave up the color, the scenery and most of the budget.

Who plays Sam Loomis, Marion's lover, in Psycho?

John Gavin plays the debt-ridden hardware-store owner whose money troubles keep the lovers from marrying, which is what gives Marion her reason to steal.

Which actor plays the private investigator who follows Marion's trail to the Bates Motel?

Martin Balsam never really fell down the Bates staircase: for his character's backward tumble the crew built a special rig to hold him while a camera on pulleys followed him down.

Through which company of his own did Hitchcock make Psycho when Paramount balked at the project?

Shamley Productions was the company behind his television series, so its fast, frugal TV crew shot the film while Hitchcock put up much of the money himself.

Who played the teenage Norman in the 1990 prequel Psycho IV: The Beginning?

Henry Thomas, the boy from E.T., played the teenage Norman in flashbacks, as the screenwriter of the 1960 original went back to tell the story of Norman's youth with his mother.

Which radio actress voiced Norman's mother in Psycho and in its first two sequels?

Virginia Gregg was never seen or credited on screen in the 1960 film, yet she returned to the part twice in the 1980s; only the 1990 prequel put an actress in front of the camera.

Which actress played Norman's mother in the flashbacks of Psycho IV: The Beginning?

Olivia Hussey, the Juliet of Zeffirelli's 1968 Romeo and Juliet, showed Mrs. Bates alive on screen for the first time; in every earlier film Mother is a voice and a corpse.

A favorable review in which newspaper led Alfred Hitchcock to the novel Psycho?

The New York Times ran a warm review from its crime-fiction critic, and Hitchcock went after the rights even though Paramount's own reader had called the book too repulsive for films.

Who designed Psycho's titles and storyboarded its shower scene?

Saul Bass later claimed that he had directed the shower scene himself, a story the film's star and its assistant director both flatly denied.

Which sweet does Norman Bates nibble on screen in Psycho, a habit the actor improvised himself?

Candy corn was the actor's own touch: Hitchcock let his two leads improvise freely, so long as it never meant moving the camera.

While filming Psycho, which gruesome prop did Hitchcock keep hiding in Janet Leigh's dressing room?

Mother's corpse turned up there in several versions. Leigh took the joke well and wondered whether he was testing which dummy would scare audiences most.

Which Pixar film plays Psycho's shrieking theme whenever a dentist's niece named Darla appears?

Finding Nemo cues the theme as a warning: Darla is the girl whose pet fish never survive in her care.

Which pop star performed her song Haunted at the Bates house from Psycho for a 2010 NBC special?

Taylor Swift and her band played it at the film's surviving house set, for a Thanksgiving special promoting her album Speak Now.

Which singer played Marion Crane in the fifth and final season of the TV series Bates Motel?

Rihanna's Marion escapes the famous fate: she drives away alive, and it is her lover Sam who is stabbed in the motel shower.

Which Billy Joel hit name-checks Psycho and then echoes the film's shrieking score?

We Didn't Start the Fire files Psycho under its verse for 1960, and a burst of the film's shrieking score follows the title.

Which Swingers and Wedding Crashers star played Norman Bates in the 1998 color remake of Psycho?

Vince Vaughn took the part in a remake that restaged the 1960 film almost shot for shot, in color and moved to 1998.

After securing the film rights to Psycho, what did Hitchcock reportedly tell his assistant to buy up?

Copies of the novel, reportedly every one on sale, were to be bought up so that its surprises stayed secret. He had bid for the rights without revealing his name.

Psycho topped the American Film Institute's 2001 list of most thrilling films, ahead of which runner-up?

Jaws finished second on the list, 100 Years...100 Thrills, where Hitchcock was the most represented director with nine films.

Psycho's opening captions give a December date to explain which accidental sight in a street shot?

Christmas decorations had crept into footage shot downtown, so rather than re-shoot it, Hitchcock dated the story to a Friday in mid-December.

Which Marvel star played Janet Leigh in Hitchcock, the 2012 film about the making of Psycho?

Scarlett Johansson played the leading lady, while Jessica Biel was cast as the actress who plays Marion's sister.

In Psycho, what kind of small-town business does Marion's debt-ridden lover Sam Loomis run?

A hardware store barely keeps Sam afloat: he is paying off his father's debts and alimony to an ex-wife, which is why the couple cannot afford to marry.

In Psycho, who wakes Marion Crane after she pulls off the road to sleep in her car?

A highway patrolman, played by Mort Mills behind black sunglasses, discovers her asleep by the roadside and checks her licence plate.

In Psycho, where in the Bates house is the private detective attacked by a figure with a knife?

On the staircase, not in the foyer as in the novel: the move let Hitchcock shoot from high overhead and hide who the attacker really was.

In Psycho's closing scenes, the psychiatrist says which emotion drove Norman to murder his mother and her lover?

Jealousy then shaped the Mother he rebuilt in his mind, a personality as possessive of Norman as he had once been of her.

Which agency traced the senders of a grotesque letter Janet Leigh received about her Psycho character?

The FBI sent two agents to tell her the culprits had been found. Until her death in 2004 she received calls, letters and even tapes detailing what the senders would like to do to Marion.

Philosopher Slavoj Žižek maps the three floors of the Bates house in Psycho onto whose model of the mind?

Sigmund Freud's superego is the top floor where Mother lives, in this reading; the ground floor is Norman's ego and the basement his id.

Which actress earned an Emmy nomination as Norman's mother in the TV series Bates Motel?

Vera Farmiga played two roles in effect: the living mother and, after the character's death, the murderous Mother who exists only in Norman's mind.

Psycho's second unit filmed Marion Crane driving into which California city on US Route 99?

Bakersfield appears in real location footage, while the road views projected behind her car were shot on the same road between Gorman and Fresno.

Hitchcock turned to Psycho after scrapping No Bail for the Judge when which star withdrew from it, pregnant?

Audrey Hepburn's exit left Paramount still expecting a starry thriller, and the studio judged the horror novel he picked instead too repulsive to film.

Before Psycho opened, Hitchcock promised a film in the manner of which Henri-Georges Clouzot thriller?

Les Diaboliques had nearly been his own film: Clouzot optioned the novel first, and the French hit went on to help inspire Psycho.

Breaking with usual practice, how did Hitchcock make film critics watch Psycho on its 1960 release?

With the general public, because Hitchcock allowed no private press screenings, a break with custom that may have affected the first reviews.

Which British paper lost its film critic, C. A. Lejeune, who quit after walking out of Psycho?

The Observer had employed Lejeune since 1928. A friend of Hitchcock's from his silent-film days, she was so offended that she left before the end and resigned for good.

Which gimmick-loving producer answered Psycho in 1961 with the imitation thriller Homicidal?

William Castle's copy impressed Time magazine, which said it surpassed its model in structure, suspense and sheer nervous drive.

Which 1980 Brian De Palma thriller starring Michael Caine makes several direct references to Psycho?

Dressed to Kill borrows the structure too, following its apparent heroine up to her murder before a witness takes over the story.

Which actress took Janet Leigh's role as Marion Crane in the 1998 color remake of Psycho?

Anne Heche got the part only after Nicole Kidman, the first choice, had to drop out over scheduling; Drew Barrymore was considered too.

Which film composer re-arranged Psycho's original score for the 1998 remake rather than write a new one?

Danny Elfman and Steve Bartek kept the 1960 score rather than replace it, giving it a new arrangement and recording it in stereo.

The TV series Bates Motel moves Norman's story to White Pine Bay, a fictional town in which US state?

Oregon is the fresh start in the series: his mother buys a coastal motel there after her husband's death, far from the film's California setting.

Which actress plays the young diner waitress who moves into Norman's house in Psycho II (1983)?

Meg Tilly's waitress hides who she is: Marion Crane's niece, part of a family plot to drive the newly released Norman insane again.

In the prequel Psycho IV: The Beginning, what is said to have killed Norman Bates's father?

Bee stings are this film's account, quietly overruling Psycho III, in which an aunt was said to have murdered him.

In Psycho IV: The Beginning, how does a married Norman Bates end up telling his life story?

He calls a radio show whose host is discussing matricide with his former psychologist, and tells his story on air under a false name.

What did Hitchcock request for Psycho's music, only for the composer to go his own way?

A jazz score was the brief, but the composer ignored it and also refused to cut his fee for the low-budget film; Hitchcock insisted on hiring him anyway.

Hitchcock swapped his rights to Psycho and his TV anthology for 150,000 shares in which entertainment company?

MCA stock made him the company's third-largest shareholder and, in theory, his own boss, though that did not stop executives interfering with his later films.

Janet Leigh's Oscar nomination for Psycho lost out to which actress in Elmer Gantry?

Shirley Jones won Best Supporting Actress as Lulu Bains, and Psycho left the ceremony without a win from its four nominations.

Which future star of The Mary Tyler Moore Show plays a police guard at the end of Psycho?

Ted Knight, uncredited, guards the room where Norman sits wrapped in a blanket, a decade before sitcom fame as the vain newscaster Ted Baxter.

In Psycho, what does Marion Crane wrap the stolen cash in before hiding it in her motel room?

A newspaper hides it so well that Norman never learns it is there: clearing the room, he unknowingly disposes of a fortune along with her belongings.

Which actor plays the psychiatrist who explains Norman Bates's condition in the closing scenes of Psycho?

Simon Oakland made a career of tough authority figures, including the hard-boiled police detective Schrank in West Side Story the following year.

In which European country did the film censor ban Psycho outright after first viewing it in 1960?

Ireland's censor relented only for a heavily trimmed print the following year, and even then asked for seven more deletions.

What did Janet Leigh say she avoided whenever she could after watching Psycho's most famous scene?

Taking showers became a last resort for Leigh, and when she had to, she locked every door and window and left the bathroom door open.

In which Fox slasher-comedy series did Janet Leigh's daughter recreate the shower scene from Psycho?

Scream Queens gave Jamie Lee Curtis an intricate homage to her mother's scene; she rewatched it between takes to match details as small as which hand reaches for the soap.

Which 1977 Mel Brooks comedy restages Psycho's shower scene with a furious hotel bellboy as the attacker?

High Anxiety swaps the knife for the rolled-up paper its hero kept pestering the bellboy to bring, and it is ink that runs down the drain.

Hitchcock offered to re-shoot Psycho's racy opening if censors spared the shower scene; how did the censors respond?

They never turned up for the re-shoot he had invited them to supervise, so the opening stayed as filmed, and so did the scene he had bargained to protect.

After hearing the screeching cue written for Psycho's shower scene, what did Hitchcock do to the composer's salary?

Nearly doubled it: Hitchcock had meant the motel scenes to play with no music at all, and conceded that the cue vastly intensified the murder.

Why was the actor who plays Norman Bates absent when Psycho's shower murder was filmed?

He was on Broadway, working on a stage show, so two actresses rather than the star stood in as the figure with the knife.

Which close collaborator of Hitchcock spotted Janet Leigh's dead Marion still moving in a late edit of Psycho?

Alma Reville, his wife, caught it just before release: in one account Leigh blinked, in another she took a breath, and the frames were removed.

How did Psycho's crew film the shower head spraying straight at the camera without soaking the lens?

Blocked its inner holes, then filmed with a long lens from a distance, so the water only seemed to hit the camera and in fact streamed around it.

Which Lord of the Rings star is among those analysing Psycho's shower scene in the 2017 documentary 78/52?

Elijah Wood joins a line-up of admirers that includes Guillermo del Toro, Peter Bogdanovich and the son of the actor who played Norman.

Which Playboy cover model, hired as Janet Leigh's body double for Psycho, appears in the documentary 78/52?

Marli Renfro was paid $500 for the job, and for years Hitchcock and Leigh maintained that only Leigh had appeared in the scene.

Psycho's wardrobe mistress says she pasted which soft fabric onto Janet Leigh for the shower scene?

Moleskin patches, pasties and bodystockings kept Leigh covered. Striptease magazines were combed for ideas first, but every costume in them had tassels.

Why did Hitchcock abandon contact lenses for Janet Leigh's dead stare as Marion in Psycho?

Six weeks to adjust was what the lenses demanded of a wearer, so Hitchcock went without, and Marion's pupils are not dilated as a dead woman's should be.