10 Interesting Facts About Psycho

February 4, 2013 by Craig Sutherland

Psycho is Alfred Hitchcock‘s classic 1960 horror film starring Janet Leigh & Anthony Perkins, Here are some tidbits you might not know…

–Hitchcock‘s first horror movie.

-First American film ever to show a toilet flushing on-screen.

-The movie’s line “A boy’s best friend is his mother.” was voted as the #56 movie quote by the American Film Institute.

-There are several references to birds in this film : Marion’s surname is Crane, Norman’s hobby is stuffing birds and he states that Marion eats like a bird. Coincidentally Alfred Hitchcock’s next film was The Birds

-Although Janet Leigh was not bothered by the filming of the famous shower scene, seeing it on film profoundly moved her. She later remarked that it made her realize how vulnerable a woman was in a shower. To the end of her life, she always took baths.

-The reason Hitchcock cameos so early in the film was because he knew people would be looking out for him, and he didn’t want to divert their attention away from the plot.

-The highest grossing film of Hitchcock’s career.

-Alfred Hitchcock bought the rights to the novel anonymously from Robert Bloch for only US$9,000. He then bought up as many copies of the novel as he could to keep the ending a secret.

-This was Alfred Hitchcock’s last feature film in black and white.

-Walt Disney refused to allow Alfred Hitchcock to film at Disneyland in the early 1960s because Hitchcock had made “that disgusting movie, ‘Psycho’.”

-In the opening scene, Marion Crane is wearing a white bra because Alfred Hitchcock wanted to show her as being “angelic”. After she has taken the money, the following scene has her in a black bra because now she has done something wrong and evil. Similarly, before she steals the money, she has a white purse; after she’s stolen the money, her purse is black.

”We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven’t you?” –Norman Bates

Facts taken from IMDB