Name: Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho
ISBN: 9781593765118

Stephen Rebello

Shares a behind the scenes look at how "Psycho" was made, despite studio opposition, and includes interviews with the cast and crew.

Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho

Stephen Rebello's groundbreaking book offers the complete inside story on the making of Alfred Hitchcock's original Psycho, now seen as the forerunner of all modern horror thrillers. Rebello takes us behind the scenes for every step in the creation of this cinematic masterpiece-from the story's original inspiration to the controversy surrounding the creation of the famous shower scene. Drawing on new in-depth interviews as well as Hitchcock's private files, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho is an eye-opening portrait of the artist at work.

Sarah Sammis

Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho by Stephen Rebello opens with Ed Gein. Taxidermy, furniture and clothing made of human flesh and bone, cannibalism and run down cluttered homes. If you see any of these motifs in film you owe them to one real life monster named Ed Gein. And Psycho was the first to draw creative inspiration from his crimes. Ed Gein, though, makes Norman Bates look like a pussycat.

From the true crime this reissued book about the making of Psycho goes through all the steps that lead to the progenitor of the modern horror film. There's a chapter on Robert Bloch's novel and how it came to be purchased by Alfred Hitchcock.

Most of the book though is about the film itself. Of most interest to me was how the film was shot like an extended episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Although there was speculation at the time that it might be used for the series, Rebello argues (quite effectively) that the approach was a cost saving measure and as well as a chance for Hitchcock to step away from the elaborate (and expensive) full color films he had been making at the time. A low budget also gave Hitchcock more creative freedom because no one was worried about where the money was going.

I read an egalley via NetGalley.

Emmett

It is appalling that, a self-regarded Psycho fan as I am, this book would have escaped my notice if not for the movie Hitchcock (2012). The movie which centres around the brilliant Mr and Mrs Hitchcock (played by the equally brilliantly matched Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren) is based on Rebello's very book. (And Scarlett Johansson did a wonderful job being Janet Leigh...)

Rebello's book is less fiction and more documentation. It is a meticulous but very readable piece of journalism, following the director closely through all the stages of the making of this iconic film from the beginning to the end, almost like a camera in a documentary. There is a great deal for ardent fans to be delighted over: firsthand interviews with the crew, producers, director and individual stars, various film reviews, insightful opinions, the entirely of the process from inception to aftermath laid out in chapters. Reading this is as close to the possibility of reliving the making process as one will ever be able to get. The author's good sense of organisation brings everything together without the constant quotation becoming too dull. Rather, it's in these sentences bounded by quotation marks that one gets the strongest sense of the individual stories behind the film - whether it be Janet Leigh's, Anthony Perkins's or Saul Bass's, or anyone else involved in that arduous process.

Detailing even the most minor of considerations makes one aware of how much painstaking work, effort and care went into even something as innocuous as the credit sequence:
'The production team for the Psycho credit sequence settled on a configuration of over thirty parallel bars for each field. ... "We got six foot-long aluminium bars and sprayed them black. We worked on a large white-painted plywood board with push-pins to guide the bars. The bars had to follow a straight line and couldn't wriggle. Paul [Stolerodd] and I [Harold Adler] manually pushed in each bar at predetermined distances for each exposure. The bars came in at different positions and speeds. Each bar was precisely timed by numbers of frames per second, called 'counts.' Each bar had to be pushed in and shot separately. Once a bar had gone across the screen, it was tied down. There were lots of retakes because they'd come in crooked or something."'

And what more for the rest of the film? It all goes to show how much thought and care went into every scene, and that unfortunately not all of this can be appreciated solely on the side of the screen that faces the audience. Reading about Hitchcock agonising over the technical difficulties of the opening sequence over Phoenix, his pedantry for getting everything right to the point of obsession, amusing and annoying his stars and co-workers and the strange aura that surrounded him and his circle, is a remarkable, humbling encounter with a remarkable director. A director who cared too much but was never comfortable with the fickle public and press to ever reveal that other than in deadpan statements or airy pronouncements. A personality and brand crafted for mass consumption which hid a very real person indeed. Hitchcock was a dedicated artist helming a supportive and talented crew, working to bring to screen his vision/version of cinema. The work was not always smooth, he did not always know what to do, but there was devotion, and the unprecedented impact Psycho would have transformed the trajectory of his career significantly but also, as Rebello conjectures, made surpassing himself and outsmarting his audience more demanding and tricky.

Rebello crafts an intrusive look, as looks are, to satiate curiosity, but it is also respectful. That is more than what a reader and fan could ask for.

Andrew Millen

Luis Cascante

A “meticulous history” of the classic suspense film based on exclusive interviews with the director, writers, cast, and crew (The New York Times Book Review). First released in June 1960, Psycho altered the landscape of horror films forever. But just as compelling as the movie itself is the story behind it, which has been adapted as a movie starring Anthony Hopkins as Hitchcock, Helen Mirren as his wife Alma Reville, and Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh. Stephen Rebello brings to life the creation of one of Hollywood’s most iconic films, from the story of Wisconsin murderer Ed Gein, the real-life inspiration for the character of Norman Bates, to Hitchcock’s groundbreaking achievements in cinematography, sound, editing, and promotion. Packed with captivating insights from the film’s stars, writers, and crewmembers, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho is a riveting and definitive history of a signature Hitchcock cinematic masterpiece.

Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho

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