Psycho Shower Murder Scene Fun Facts


Psycho - Shower Scene (may not be suitable for younger audience) [YouTube Link]

Motion picture decency standards in the 1960 didn't allow for things like nude women being stabbed to death in showers. Consequently, Hitchcock was forced to create the impression of nudity and violence without actually showing a breast, a buttock, or a knife puncturing skin. The result is a terrifying masterpiece of a montage. And even though it's probably the most analyzed (and parodied) 45 seconds in film history, we're willing to bet the following tidbits slipped past you.

Forget the bloody corpse in the bathtub: what really got "Psycho" censors worked up was the toilet. Just before stepping into that fateful shower, Marion tears up an incriminating note and flushes it. Hitchcock's close-up of the swirling commode water was the first ever allowed in an American film.

What looks like blood funneling down the drain is actually Bosco chocolate syrup. Hitchcock thought it looked more real in black-and-white than the fake stuff. Tastier, too.

The scene is composed of more than 90 shots seen in 70 different camera angles. It took Hitchcock and his crew an entire week to film it. To put that into perspective: The entire film took only six weeks.

The woman who played Janet Leigh's body double in about half of the shower-scene shots was named Myra Jones. In a sad case of life imitating art, Jones was stabbed to death in 1988. Her killer? A mentally disturbed handyman who targeted older women. He'd murdered at least one other before her - that police know about.

After the release of "Psycho," Hitchcock received an irate letter from a man whose daughter had refused to take baths after seeing the French thriller "Les Diaboliques" (in which a man is drowned in a tub). After seeing "Psycho," she refused to take showers as well. Hitchcock's reply? "Send her to the dry cleaners."

Although popular with most audiences, "Psycho" was reviled by ophthalmologists. Eye doctors everywhere pointed out that a corpse's pupil dilate, yet - in a stark close-up of her face after her supposedly deadly shower - Janet Leigh's eyes remain contracted. Ever the obsessed technician, Hitchcock listened, using dilating eyedrops for stiffs in all future films.


The article above was written by Ransom Riggs, as part of a longer article Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho in the Nov-Dec 2006 issue of mental_floss, published here with permission. Visit mental_floss for more fun stuff everyday!

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Unlike Christophe, this scene still has the power to grab me by the throat. My father before me and I, for many years, wouldn't take showers with opaque curtains. To this day all mine are clear but I'll shower in a hotel room or at my girlfriend's place.
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Hitchcock was simply brilliant.

I can watch Rear Window and North by Northwest every year and not get tired of them. I'd also highly recommend Lifeboat. Not seeing everything, but knowing it's happening (the shower scene, shark from Jaws, etc.) makes things so much scarier!
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You missed one bit of trivia: Hitchcock actually did show a breast on screen, albeit out of focus.

A detailed description is here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054215/faq#.2.1.9

In the clip above, it's at about 1:31.
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The universal studios tram tour guides used to tell the story that hitchcock actually blasted ice cold water in the shower scene so that leigh's screams were very real.
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I can't stand North by Northwest, however. So long and boring...

As for Jaws, Steven Spielberg takes that idea of not showing something and flogs it to death. Nowadays, it's more a way of avoiding special effects expenses than successfully creating suspense.
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Hitchcock said that the reason he decided to do the film in b/w is because he didn't want the blood to be in color (yes, I know he actually used syrup but he would have had to use something red-colored otherwise) -- he said it would be too upsetting to view. Also, he never has a shot in all that editting of a knife touching flesh or a wound - but what a clever, masterwork he created -- we think we are seeing that many times. Watch it again now!
My 22 year old cousin would call my house to ask her dad to come home because she would never take a shower unless he was in the house.
To this day I get worried if I see several birds in a row on an electrical wire - oh, wait -- that's another movie. But admit it, you do too. Hoo-Ray for Hitch!
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Despite numerous shortcomings, I maintain that Unreal is the most beautiful FPS ever made. By combining exotic locales with a mesmeric soundtrack, this game feels very much like a vacation rather than the frantic danger and shooting you see in all other FPSs. Yeah, you do have the usual bunch of monsters and weapons (which are kinda impotent and crappy in this game and that was a major shortcoming) but combat is really not that common or frantic and you'll find yourself saying OOh and AAAh at the environments and levels more often. It isn't just the graphics but also the very creative and intelligent level design that makes this game so good looking and hypnotic.
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ok, the license number on the car in the swamp NFB 418.
Norman Francis Bates, confirmed. 418...? Why not just that is adds up to 13 and she purchased a vehicle with Norman's initials and the unlucky number 13 just to be murdered at the motel??
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