They are perhaps the most iconic few minutes of film in cinematic history—the “shower scene” in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 classic, Psycho. The segment continues to shock audiences, and film scholars have written about the brilliance of its construction and effectiveness for decades. It’s an astonishing, groundbreaking moment in cinema, yet this shower scene wasn’t the first of its kind. 

The 7th Victim is a 1943 cult film about a young woman named Mary, who, while looking for her missing sister, stumbles upon a satanic cult. The picture was produced by the legendary Val Lewton, remembered for the mysterious horror pictures he supervised in the 1940s.
 

 
Mary is portrayed by Kim Hunter, in her first film role. In one scene, as Mary is taking a shower, another figure walks in the bathroom. In a suspicious, not so vaguely threatening tone, this person encourages Mary to leave town. The scene is largely shot from behind Mary, as she faces the person through the shower curtain. The moment is made even more tense, as all we ever see is a strange shadow of the intruder.
 

 
It brings to mind the shadowy shots in the Psycho shower scene, in which the killer’s face is never seen clearly.
 

 

 
The 1958 film noir/exploitation movie, Screaming Mimi, concerns an exotic dancer, Virginia, who is severely traumatized after she is attacked while taking a shower.
 

 
During the opening minutes of Screaming Mimi, Virginia, played by Swedish model/actress Anita Ekberg, is bathing in an outdoor shower, when a man brandishing a large knife approaches her. Though the scene is clumsily staged, as viewers we recognize that, like Marion (Janet Leigh) in Psycho, Virginia is largely defenseless in the shower setting, which adds to the terror.
 

 
Of course, these previous shower scenes take nothing away from what Hitch accomplished in Psycho, though I can’t help but wonder if they influenced his most famous movie moment. Either way, the scene still makes us wary, from time to time, of taking a shower when home alone….
 
Continues after the jump…

An action shot of Rainman’s sculpt of ‘Norman Bates’ (famously played by actor Anthony Perkins) from the 1960 film by Alfred Hitchcock, ‘Psycho.’
 
As today marks the third day of October a month that brings out everyone’s inner ghoul, I thought it was high time I shared the latest collection of work from the talented sculptor known as “Rainman” called “Murderer” which features one of cinema’s best-known cross-dressing slashers, Norman Bates and of course Norman’s attic-dwelling mother.

Whatever character Rainman takes on he does with excruciating detail and his “Murderer” collection is almost perfect as the talented artist has once again created custom-sculpted action figures that look so much like the real thing it’s hard to comprehend that they are not. Rainman has even perfected Bate’s famously maniacal half-scowl/homicidal grin from the last scene in Hitchcock’s 1960 classic Psycho that looks so genuine it will send chills down your spine. The only thing missing from Rainman’s spendy “Murderer” collection is a figure based on Janet Leigh’s portrayal of Bate’s object of desire, runaway thief Marion Crane clad in her bullet bra and sensible slip, clutching her stash of cash. To make up for that there are a few choice extras in this collection, such as a fantastic bust of Alfred Hitchcock and some rather disturbing sculpts of Norman’s mother in various advanced states of decay.

I’ve blogged on DM about Rainman’s figures in the past and as usual due to the small quantity of sets the artist produces and his extensive fan base that pretty much follows Rainman’s every move, they sell out practically overnight after they are released. Which is sadly the case with all three of Rainman’s sets based on Psycho (despite their hefty price tags that run from $720-$1500 each). So if this is your kind of thing I’d keep up with Rainman because it is a safe bet that the incredibly talented Korean artist will once again come up with a figure collection that will blow minds (as well as a hole in your wallet). Images follow (some are NSFW).
 

 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
I recently had a conversation with film composer Harry Manfredini, the guy behind Friday the 13th‘s infamous “tch tch tch…” about the primary influences on modern horror soundtracking and we agreed on the works of Kryzstof Penderecki and Bernard Herrmann being basically ground-zero for fright music for the last 40 years or so of cinematic terror. One specific Herrmann work has informed horror scoring more than any other single piece of music anyone could possibly name: his iconic theme music for Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece, Psycho.

A novel rendition of Herrmann’s Psycho theme was recently brought to my attention, and, as covers go, is quite masterful in its own right. Joachim Horsley is a composer and orchestrator for television and film and has a few albums under his belt. His 2014 album Joachim Horsley Was Dead the Whole Time contains this particular version of the Psycho theme as played on a piano… with knives.

Horsley is able to coax some odd tonalities out of the piano strings both with the knife blades and by striking the strings with the knife handle, while muting with his palm. These sounds mimic the orchestration of Herrmann’s original score.

Obviously, there’s both symbolism and novelty going on here with the use of kitchen knives, Norman Bates’ personal weapon of choice, but the end result is quite beautiful. Horsley takes some liberties towards the end of the piece and it gets a bit jazzy (maybe even slightly Latin jazzy?) in its climax. It’s cool though. He owns it.

This KILLER cover version, after the jump…

Can Mary fry some fish, Mama
I’m as hungry as can be
Oh Lordy, how I wish, Mama
That you could stop that baby crying cause my head is killing me…

So begin the lyrics to Leon Payne‘s utterly unhinged country & western classic, “Psycho.” Payne, known as “the Blind Balladeer,” was a country music singer and songwriter who wrote songs that were recorded by the likes of George Jones, Leon Russell, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Jim Reeves, Hank Williams (Payne wrote “Lost Highway”), Johnny Horton, and Merle Haggard.

“Psycho” is the irony-free, point-of-view ramblings of a hillbilly murderer who you can’t even trust with a cute little puppy. To call it “memorable” is an understatement. It’s downright chilling and yet highly amusing at the same time. No mean feat!

There were several persistent rumors about the story behind the song: One, that it was about Charles Whitman, the former Marine mass murderer who killed his mother, wife and 14 more people at the University of Texas, Austin in 1966 after commandeering a bell tower with a sniper’s rifle. It makes sense as Whitman was famously known to have complained of headaches—he was found to have had a brain tumor during his autopsy—and headaches are mentioned in the song. And he was a psycho, obviously. But it wasn’t about him, or at least not directly about Whitman.

Secondly, that the song was written about the Alfred Hitchcock thriller. It wasn’t. An article about Payne’s oddball first person murder ballad on the Nashville Scene website clears this up:

“The movie story came from my mother, and she was known to exaggerate at times,” says Myrtie Le Payne, Leon Payne’s daughter. Since both Payne and his wife were blind, their daughter did accompany them to movies and whisper descriptions of what was happening onscreen, but cinematic horrors were not the direct source for “Psycho.”

After years of people asking her about the song, Myrtie Le recently tracked down the true story. “Jackie White was my daddy’s steel guitar player,” she says. “He started working with him in 1968, and the song came out of a conversation they had one day.”

According to the story related by White, in the spring of 1968, he and Leon Payne were discussing the Richard Speck murders. Speck murdered eight student nurses in Chicago in July 1966 and was convicted and sentenced to death the following year. Being a history buff, Payne was familiar with the cases of many notorious mass killers, and the discussion soon turned to other famous cases — Charles Whitman, Ed Gein, Mary Bell and Albert Fish. That conversation directly inspired the song, and Payne immortalized White’s contribution by naming the boyfriend killed in the first verse after him, along with working in references to some of the murderers they had discussed in lines like, “Can Mary fry some fish, Mama?”

That same article also dispels the third legend around the song, that Leon Payne, not wanting to sully his good name and songwriting career stipulated that it not be recorded until after his death. Well, the song was recorded before his death, by his pal cowboy singer Eddie Noack, for whom the song was probably written, so that’s another legend dashed.
 
More ‘Psycho’ after the jump…

 
In the 1960s, Castle Films released a series of Super 8 “digest” versions of Universal horror classics such as Frankenstein, Dracula and The Wolfman. Each Castle digest only lasted around about four to ten minutes but each movie was carefully and expertly edited to keep the best of the action without losing out on too much of the storyline. They were the original “trash compactor” or supercut videos in a sense, distilling the “essence” of the films to the barest bones. I mean, who needs 9/10ths of most movies, anyway? Too much acting!

Castle Films started in 1924 distributing 16mm newsreels, documentaries, and sports films primarily to schools. The company was founded by Eugene W. Castle with an investment of $10,000. By 1936, the company started selling their films as home entertainment. By the late 1940s, Castle had obtained rights to produce “Soundies”—short one reelers of performances of three or four musical numbers. The company then moved from music to comedy, editing and producing highlight packages of Abbott and Costello, W. C. Fields and cartoons like Woody Woodpecker.
 

 
The shift to Universal classic horror films started when Castle released a Super 8 digest of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. This digest film’s success led to the release of a whole back catalog of Universal movies featuring monsters ranging from Frankenstein to the Creature. Eugene Castle died in 1960, so never saw the great success Castle Super 8 digest films had during the 1960s and 1970s, when they were advertised in countless comic books, nostalgia magazines and, of course, the pages of Forrest J. Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland.
 

The Return of Frankenstein
 
Many more Castle Super 8 horror films with Karloff, Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. after the jump…

 
Two adult males reenact an actual conversation that one of the males acting in the skit had with his 2-year-old daughter. Once you replace the toddler with an adult, the whole thing comes off more than a little bit psycho.

Wunderbar! This is the first episode of what I hope is an ongoing series.

 
With thanks to Juan Monasterio!

 
A moment of Hollywood cool. Steve McQueen had already made 2 episodes of Alfred Hitccock Presents, and was about to start filming The Magnificent Seven, when he visited Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh on the set of Hitchcock’s Psycho. I wonder what they were talking about?
 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Alfred Hitchcock: Rules for watching ‘Psycho’

Via Decaying Hollywood Mansions
 

 
To ensure he made a return on his investment, Alfred Hitchcock created a set of rules for watching his 1960 classic horror film Psycho.

We won’t allow you to cheat yourself. You must see PSYCHO from the very beginning. Therefore, do not expect to be admitted into the theatre after the start of each performance of the picture. We say no one — and we mean no one — not even the manager’s brother, the President of the United States, or the Queen of England (God bless her)!

In foyer’s across the States, a Pinkerton guard was hired to bar any late comers.

Hitchcock had invested $806,947.55 of his own money, via his company Shamley Productions, into Psycho, after the Hollywood studios denounced it a sick film which would most likely destroy the great director’‘s reputation. It didn’t. Instead it made Hitchcock a lot of money, a generation of younger fans, and inspired a whole range of psychotic slasher movies.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Happy Birthday Norman Bates: ‘Psycho’ turns 50 today

Behind the Scenes: Alfred Hitchcock directs ‘Frenzy’ in 1972

 
Via Open Culture
 

 
Today in 1960, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho was released, ushering in the age of ultra-violence in American cinema and to some extent the independent movie (Paramount were aghast at Psycho‘s script, so Hitchcock financed the film via his own Shamley Productions for $806,947.55)

Based on the novel of the same name by famed author Robert Bloch, Psycho was inspired by real-life murderer Ed Gein. It was filmed in black and white, not just to save money, but because Hitchcock knew that the shower scene would have just been too much in color. Principle filming took place on the set of Revue Studios, the same location where Hitchcock shot his television show. The Bates Motel set is still standing at the Universal Lot (see above).

Janet Leigh was apparently so upset after she saw the infamous shower scene (which had over 50 edits and used chocolate sauce for as the blood stand-in) that she tried to avoid them for the rest of her life. Leigh told documentary producers in 1997 that she would only shower if everything in the house was locked down first and she felt safe. She also always left the bathroom door open.

As, well, psychotic as Psycho is, it would take another twelve years before Hitchcock would film his sickest film of all, Frenzy. You wanna talk about a sick film? Frenzy makes Psycho seem tame by comparison. Today’s “torture porn” ain’t got nuthin’ on Hitch, baby!
 

 

 
It’s not enough that British early-twenty-something film nut Charlie Lyne’s Ultra Culture is one of the best cinema blogs around.

Oh no. He’s also gotta do stuff like Death / Hitchcock, a wonderful tribute to a legend, and one of the most anxiety-inducing and ultimately satisfying short simultaneous montages you may ever see.

Dare you to watch it just once.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
24 Second Psycho
Psycho at 50: Zizek’s Three Floors of the Mind
Happy Birthday, Hitchcock: The Dali Dream of Spellbound

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
24 Second ‘Psycho’
Psycho at 50: Zizek’s Three Floors Of The Mind

(via the always delightful If we don’t, remember me.)

 
In 1993, Scottish artist Douglas Gordon exhibited his 24 Hour Psycho, a slowed-down screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film that lasted twenty-four hours. The project contained “many of the important themes in Gordon’s work: recognition and repetition, time and memory, complicity and duplicity, authorship and authenticity, darkness and light.”

In 2005, talented artist Chris Bors created his own version of the film and art work, but this time as 24 Second Psycho.

24 Second Psycho appropriates the entire Alfred Hitchcock movie Psycho and condenses it into twenty-four seconds. Tweaking the concept of artist Douglas Gordons 24 Hour Psycho, where Hitchcocks masterpiece was slowed-down to a crawl, here the process is reversed to accommodate society’s increasingly short attention span. Seeing Hitchcocks most lasting contribution to cinema flash before your eyes in a matter of seconds represents our new information age where culture is packaged for easy consumption at a breakneck pace.

Bors work has been exhibited at PS1 MoMA, White Columns, Sixtyseven and Ten in One Gallery in New York, Casino Luxembourg in Luxembourg, and the Videoex Festival in Zurich, Switzerland.

Update:

Also over on You Tube, Joe Frese has created a variety of mini masterpieces, including his own Sixty Second Psycho.
 

 
Bonus clip Joe Frese’s ‘Sixty Second Psycho’, after the jump…
 
With thanks to Henri Podin
 

 
Today marks the half-century anniversary of the premiere of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, which—along with Fellini’s La Dolce Vita opening earlier the same year—used the artform of cinema to hold up the cracked mirror of compulsive desire to Western civilization.

Movies, of course, would never be the same. Who better to drive the point home than our friendly neighborhood Lacanian critical theorist from Slovenia, Slavoj Žižek, from his excellent 2006 documentary, The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema?

 
Get: The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema Pt. 1-3 [DVD]