Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (16 November 2019)

A masterpiece, and for my money, one of the greatest films of all time. From the moment Hitchcock tells us it's 2:43 pm and Janet Leigh's character skipped even eating her sandwich to spend three hours in carnal bliss with John Gavin's, to that penultimate shot on Anthony Perkins with a twisted smile on his face, it's quite simply one five star scene after another.
The tension never lets up, there is that extraordinary shift from one main character to another mid-film, and there is more than one misdirection that keeps the first-time viewer guessing. The voyeur scene, the abrupt killing of a main character, and the entire concept of the mental condition were all very original in 1960.
The cast is fantastic, from Perkins (who should have gotten an Oscar) and Janet Leigh (easily my favorite Hitchcock lead actress) all the way down to that cop who stops for Leigh and then later stares at her so perfectly from across the street while she's with the used car dealer.
There are so many other little moments of tension: Leigh's employer seeing her in her car when he thought she was going home, the car that doesn't sink into the swamp all that easily, and the searches into the ominous old house. There are also those big moments too, a couple of which need to be included in any discussion of the greatest scenes in film history. The other aspects of the film keep up too - the score is brilliant, and Hitchcock gets plenty of great shots, including the one from the underside of Perkins's face while his jaw twitches nervously and many others. It's hard to imagine a better executed film, and this is one that I never get tired of watching.