The sex

Rating: 9/10 (28 May 2011)

Off course, this is an awesome movie. Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins, sadly, never were given better parts. Leigh lived to be nearly 80 years old, so this part must have been somewhat of a annoyance to her. It probably didn't help that she had one of the most famous ex-husbands and daughters in the world. We all know what fate had in store for Perkins.
Seen today, the movie is a bit tame and slow at times, but what it must have felt like for a 60s audience to see a film that was basically about sexual desires, although no explicit sex is shown. Look at one of the first scenes, where Marion is talking to an investor. He checks her out from top to bottom and makes an obvious play for her in full public. I can't recall I have ever seen such a scene from a movie that was made in the early sixties, and have rarely seen it in a movie made up and until 1966. The reaction from Hitchcock's daughter is also rare to see in a mainstream film from that time. She just treats it like it was something that happens every day. That was particularly unheard of during the rather strict 50s.
More talk about sex. Janet Leigh in the white and black bra. I still don't know how they got that past the censors at that time. Hitchcock must have had an enormous field day with those shots. Also, the shots of Leigh's stand-in, where you actually see a very quick shot of breasts. Unbelievable. It's funny to dwell on this today where you can see pornography every minute of the day but for a 60s audience? That took a lot of guts to put that in.
As for story, it is not the most original. Mamas boys were well depicted even to the point of insanity as way back as Jimmy Cagney's part in The Public Enemy. The execution, however, was of course something new. I do think my interest fell a little bit after Vera Miles comes on-screen. She is a good enough actress, but her part is thoroughly bland. So is John Gavin's, although he does match wits with Perkins in a rather smart scene at the end of the film. Martin Balsam as the private investigator is brilliant. In the scene with him and Perkins, you sense just how smart both of these people are. Perkins stumbles a bit in his testimony but doesn't really give the detective any conclusive evidence of guilt either. In a more mainstream film the detective would have been smarter than the crook.
You could analyze this movie to death and many have. What you cannot do is diminish it's importance. Many barriers were broken in entertainment in the 60s and Pcycho is directly responsible for breaking down those barriers.