No other word for this - it's just a classic...

Rating: 8/10 (25 February 2020)

Janet Leigh is glorious as a put-upon secretary who decides - pretty much on the spur of the moment - to pinch rather a lot of cash from her employer and go on the run. She alights at a quiet roadside motel run by a slightly creepy Anthony Perkins and makes the terminal mistake of taking a shower. "Det. Arbogast" (a doggedly determined Martin Balsam) is soon on her trail and Hitchcock now takes us on truly suspenseful ride in this superior thriller. Perkins is simply fantastic as the menacing, psychotic hotelier with "mummy" issues; the direction is frenetic and yet steady - and Bernard Herrmann complements the whole thing with a superbly evocative score. The story is now the stuff of cinema legend, but each time I watch this, I seem to get something more.