Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho
Encyclopedia
Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho is the title of a non-fiction book by Stephen Rebello
.
First published in May 1990 by Dembner Books and distributed by W. W. Norton and Company, the book details every aspect of the creation of director Alfred Hitchcock
's famous thriller Psycho
released to theaters in 1960. From Hitchcock's acquisition of the original novel by Robert Bloch
to his work with two different screenwriters, casting, filming, editing, scoring, and promotion, the book takes readers into the day-to-day lives of moviemakers who believed they were making a modestly budgeted, black-and-white shocker that represented a radical departure from the elegant, suspenseful films that had made director Hitchcock's reputation, including Rope
, Rear Window
, To Catch a Thief
, The Man Who Knew Too Much
and North by Northwest
.
The project Hitchcock tackled in part as an experiment to compete with financially successful, low-budget, youth-oriented horror movies went on to astound many by becoming a cultural watershed, an international box-office success, a film classic, and a forerunner of the violent, disorienting films and real-events of the turbulent 'Sixties.
Stephen Rebello researched the film thoroughly through Hitchcock's personal records and archives and he interviewed virtually every surviving cast and crew member. Prior to the book's publication, Rebello's initial research appeared as a 22-page article in the April 1986 issue of Cinefantastique
magazine entitled "Psycho: The Making of Alfred Hitchcock's Masterpiece".
called the book "indispensable and marvelously readable" and "one of the best accounts of the making of an individual movie we've ever had." Christopher Lehmann-Haupt in the New York Times declared it a "meticulous history of a single film production." Anthony Quinn in The Sunday Times
wrote; "[the book] combines a gossipy retrospective with a serious work of criticism, presenting an articulate guide to Hitchcock's idiosyncratic approach to film-making and the collaborative efforts that underpinned it. The author has conducted interviews with all those involved in the making of Psycho -- its casting, scripting, art design, lighting, editing, selling -- in the course of it, we inch closer to the bizarre, unpredictable quality of its director."
Psycho
star Anthony Perkins
called the book, "Meticulously researched and irresistible ... Required reading not only for Psycho-files, but for anyone interested in the backstage world of movie-creation." Reviewer Gary Johnson called it "one of the best books ever written about the making of a movie." Gerald Kaufman of the "Sunday Telegraph
" found it "joyously entertaining."
Entertainment Weekly, referring to Rebello's revealing how Hitchcock arrived at the sound of the knife stabbing the heroine in the shower, opined "the melon tale alone is worth the price of [the book]." Another top critic wrote that, unlike other books about films and filmmakers, it "reads more like a gripping novel than detached intellectualism."
In a January 18, 2010 Newsweek
story called "The Mother of All Horror Films," Malcolm Jones
called the book "fascinating." Leonard Maltin in his "Movie Crazy" blog of October 29, 2010 called the book "landmark."
The 1994 paperback version is ISBN 0-312-20785-9.
St. Martin's Griffin published a trade paperback edition in 1998.
Open Road Media launched the ebook version in 2011.
The book is widely used in university and college courses on film and the work of Hitchcock.
would produce a television film or miniseries based on the book. Later, the motion picture feature rights were optioned by Focus Features.
On November 20, 2011 Sacha Gervasi
was announced as being in negotiations to direct the dramatic motion picture for The Montecito Picture Company
, owned by Ivan Reitman
. Anthony Hopkins
has been widely mentioned to star as Alfred Hitchcock
for producers Tom Thayer and Alan Barnette. John J. McLaughlin wrote early screenplay drafts. Stephen Rebello
wrote subsequent screenplay drafts.
Stephen Rebello
Stephen Rebello is an American writer, screenwriter and former clinical therapist.-Biography:Born to parents of third-generation Portuguese-American and French-Portuguese American extraction in Fall River, Massachusetts, Rebello was raised in Somerset, Massachusetts. He graduated from Somerset High...
.
First published in May 1990 by Dembner Books and distributed by W. W. Norton and Company, the book details every aspect of the creation of director Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
's famous thriller Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...
released to theaters in 1960. From Hitchcock's acquisition of the original novel by Robert Bloch
Robert Bloch
Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock...
to his work with two different screenwriters, casting, filming, editing, scoring, and promotion, the book takes readers into the day-to-day lives of moviemakers who believed they were making a modestly budgeted, black-and-white shocker that represented a radical departure from the elegant, suspenseful films that had made director Hitchcock's reputation, including Rope
Rope (film)
Rope is a 1948 American thriller film based on the play Rope by Patrick Hamilton and adapted by Hume Cronyn and Arthur Laurents, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and produced by Sidney Bernstein and Hitchcock as the first of their Transatlantic Pictures productions...
, Rear Window
Rear Window
Rear Window is a 1954 American suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by John Michael Hayes and based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder"...
, To Catch a Thief
To Catch a Thief (film)
To Catch a Thief is a 1955 romantic thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis and John Williams. The movie is set on the French Riviera, and was based on the 1952 novel of the same name by David Dodge...
, The Man Who Knew Too Much
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956 film)
The Man Who Knew Too Much is a suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring James Stewart and Doris Day. The film is a remake in widescreen VistaVision and Technicolor of Hitchcock's 1934 film of the same name....
and North by Northwest
North by Northwest
North by Northwest is a 1959 American thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason, and featuring Leo G. Carroll and Martin Landau...
.
The project Hitchcock tackled in part as an experiment to compete with financially successful, low-budget, youth-oriented horror movies went on to astound many by becoming a cultural watershed, an international box-office success, a film classic, and a forerunner of the violent, disorienting films and real-events of the turbulent 'Sixties.
Stephen Rebello researched the film thoroughly through Hitchcock's personal records and archives and he interviewed virtually every surviving cast and crew member. Prior to the book's publication, Rebello's initial research appeared as a 22-page article in the April 1986 issue of Cinefantastique
Cinefantastique
Cinefantastique was a horror, fantasy, and science fiction film magazine originally started as a mimeographed fanzine in 1967, then relaunched as a glossy, offset quarterly in 1970 by publisher/editor Frederick S. Clarke...
magazine entitled "Psycho: The Making of Alfred Hitchcock's Masterpiece".
Critical reception
On the publication of the hardcover first edition in 1990, critic Richard SchickelRichard Schickel
Richard Warren Schickel is an American author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He is a film critic for Time magazine, having also written for Life magazine and the Los Angeles Times Book Review....
called the book "indispensable and marvelously readable" and "one of the best accounts of the making of an individual movie we've ever had." Christopher Lehmann-Haupt in the New York Times declared it a "meticulous history of a single film production." Anthony Quinn in The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
wrote; "[the book] combines a gossipy retrospective with a serious work of criticism, presenting an articulate guide to Hitchcock's idiosyncratic approach to film-making and the collaborative efforts that underpinned it. The author has conducted interviews with all those involved in the making of Psycho -- its casting, scripting, art design, lighting, editing, selling -- in the course of it, we inch closer to the bizarre, unpredictable quality of its director."
Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...
star Anthony Perkins
Anthony Perkins
Anthony Perkins was an American actor, best known for his Oscar-nominated role in Friendly Persuasion and as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho , and its three sequels.-Early life:...
called the book, "Meticulously researched and irresistible ... Required reading not only for Psycho-files, but for anyone interested in the backstage world of movie-creation." Reviewer Gary Johnson called it "one of the best books ever written about the making of a movie." Gerald Kaufman of the "Sunday Telegraph
Sunday Telegraph
The Sunday Telegraph is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961. It is the sister paper of The Daily Telegraph, but is run separately with a different editorial staff, although there is some cross-usage of stories...
" found it "joyously entertaining."
Entertainment Weekly, referring to Rebello's revealing how Hitchcock arrived at the sound of the knife stabbing the heroine in the shower, opined "the melon tale alone is worth the price of [the book]." Another top critic wrote that, unlike other books about films and filmmakers, it "reads more like a gripping novel than detached intellectualism."
In a January 18, 2010 Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
story called "The Mother of All Horror Films," Malcolm Jones
Malcolm Jones
The Malcolm Jones was an American automobile manufactured in Detroit from 1914 to 1915. It was a four-cylinder water-cooled cyclecar....
called the book "fascinating." Leonard Maltin in his "Movie Crazy" blog of October 29, 2010 called the book "landmark."
Publication history
The book has been subsequently published in hardcover and paperback by Marion Boyars Limited in Great Britain and Australia. It has been published in translated international editions in Japan by Byakuya Shobo, France, Germany, and in Italy by Il Castoro.The 1994 paperback version is ISBN 0-312-20785-9.
St. Martin's Griffin published a trade paperback edition in 1998.
Open Road Media launched the ebook version in 2011.
The book is widely used in university and college courses on film and the work of Hitchcock.
Table of contents
- Foreword
- The Awful Truth
- The Trouble With Alfred
- The Novel
- The Director
- The Deal
- The Screenplays
- Preproduction
- Shooting
- Postproduction
- Publicity
- The Release
- Afterglow and Aftermath
- Cast and Credits
- The Films of Alfred Hitchcock
- A Note On Sources
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Film adaptation
In 2005, the newspapers Variety and Hollywood Reporter reported that the Arts & Entertainment NetworkA&E Network
The A&E Network is a United States-based cable and satellite television network with headquarters in New York City and offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, London, Los Angeles and Stamford. A&E also airs in Canada and Latin America. Initially named the Arts & Entertainment Network, A&E launched...
would produce a television film or miniseries based on the book. Later, the motion picture feature rights were optioned by Focus Features.
On November 20, 2011 Sacha Gervasi
Sacha Gervasi
-Early life and career in screen-writing:Born Alexander Gervasi in London in 1966, Gervasi was educated at Westminster School, and then read modern history at King's College London...
was announced as being in negotiations to direct the dramatic motion picture for The Montecito Picture Company
The Montecito Picture Company
The Montecito Picture Company is a film production company owned by Ivan Reitman.-Filmography:*Road Trip *Evolution *Alienators: Evolution Continues *Killing Me Softly *Old School...
, owned by Ivan Reitman
Ivan Reitman
Ivan Reitman, OC is a Canadian film producer and director. He is known for the comedies he has directed and produced, especially in the 1980s and 1990s.He is the owner of The Montecito Picture Company, founded in 2000.-Early life:...
. Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
has been widely mentioned to star as Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
for producers Tom Thayer and Alan Barnette. John J. McLaughlin wrote early screenplay drafts. Stephen Rebello
Stephen Rebello
Stephen Rebello is an American writer, screenwriter and former clinical therapist.-Biography:Born to parents of third-generation Portuguese-American and French-Portuguese American extraction in Fall River, Massachusetts, Rebello was raised in Somerset, Massachusetts. He graduated from Somerset High...
wrote subsequent screenplay drafts.