Hitchcock the master salesman

Rating: 9/10 (29 November 2013)

Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) steals $40k from work, and runs away. In a stormy night, she stops at the isolated Bates Motel where she meets creepy Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins).
This one has Alfred Hitchcock as the master salesman. It's the biggest show in show business, and he's the master of ceremony. He pulls out all the stops like the secrecy and the refusal of entry to late arrivals. It helps to have the most iconic movie scene of all times.
Janet Leigh isn't just a damsel in distress or a shrinking violet. She is a woman with a dark side. The fact that she's an A-list star used to mean that she'll last until the end of the movie. When the super creepy Anthony Perkins joins her, it was set up for a prolong creepfest. Then comes the most well made important scene in history. The second half does have a little struggle to reclimb that peak, and I didn't like all the pontificating at the end. But those are tiny problems in a great movie.