A Look Back At Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’

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I'm David B.Chuli. Sixty-five years ago, director Alfred Hitchcock shocked audiences and changed cinema forever with the release of his 1960 thriller movie Psycho. It was a slasher film before that term existed and was based on a book by Robert Block. Hitchcock was attracted to the film because of the unexpected sudden murder of a central character early on. Joe Stefano, who wrote the screenplay, preserved that central surprise, and so did Hitchcock.

He cast movie star Janet Lee in the role of a criminal on the run, then had her character stabbed to death in the shower after checking into a remote motel run by Norman Bates, played by Anthony Perkins. Most of Psycho was photographed quickly and cheaply by the same crew Hitchcock used for his still running TV anthology series Alfred Hitchcock presents. The budget for Psycho was eight hundred thousand dollars, making it one of the most profitable films in Hollywood history, and one of the most influential, too. Psycho elevated the suspense and murder genre to a higher level, and has been copied, saluted, even remade by generations of subsequent movie makers. Today we're going to hear from actress Janet Lee, the star of Psycho well, the star for the first third of the movie anyway.

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