Could Psycho Have Been A Hitchcock Episode?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Psycho
telegonus — 8 years ago(August 23, 2017 07:22 AM)
Just to see if anyone has thoughts about this, as MeTV is rerunning the half-hour Hitchcock shows (very good) weeknights, and occasionally hour long ones at ungodly hours of the morning; here and there mostly.
There's no was
Psycho
could have been made as a half-hour unless it was a two part entry, but as an hour long (alternate universe style, as the hour long series began two years after
Psycho
's release), maybe.
They'd have to cut out the murders, of course, and any hint of real sex. Some of the suspenseful scenes would have to be eliminated to fit the hour long format, especially those of cars driving back and forth.
Some of the very early stuff would have to go, and that wouldn't be a bad thing. Less Cassidy and Lowrey, more cut to the chase, a much shorter scene with Sam, fully clothed, and it's off to the races with Marion.
Alas, some of the stuff with the highway cop and California Charlie would need pruning, yet I think it could be done artfully. Something would be lost,–but then
a lot would be lost anyway
in a TV version, but it could work well. I think of how splendidly
An Unlocked Window
worked as an hour long, and most of it set in the
Psycho
house, too. -
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DrakeStraw — 8 years ago(August 23, 2017 05:51 PM)
I believe the time involved in Norman Bates' character development called for more than a one-hour episode. A half-hour three-parter? That one with John Williams was a dud, IMO.
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telegonus — 8 years ago(August 24, 2017 07:29 AM)
Good to see you here, Amy
As you can see this place has legs,–I mean boards about people as much as films–and I'm hoping more ex-IMDB folk will migrate here.
For
Psycho
fans it would be near heartbreaking (paging ECarle!) to see a smaller scale (not that the film itself is big scale) version of the picture.
Somewhere along the line some of one's favorite bits would have to go: some of the Norman/Arbogast banter
; much or most of the dialogue in the meeting with deputy sheriff Chambers and his wife 
; some of the dialogue in the car as Sam and Lila drive to the motel 
; the scene with the shrink, which I love and even many ardent
Psych
philes despise
; and probably large chunks of dialogue in the mother's voice narration of Norman sitting in his cell alone 
.
It wouldn't be easy, and there's no way it could be done in such as way as to satisfy all or even most of the movie's fans, but it would be interesting seeing them try… -
amyghost — 8 years ago(August 24, 2017 05:08 PM)
A possible idea—that would require a bit of radical revision of the script—would be to have the action taking place from Norman’s POV: that is, from inside his head. Anyone recall the AH episode that featured Jo Cotton as the victim of a car crash, trapped in the wreckage and unable to move or speak?—which made for a pretty compelling story, all of the action taking place as interior monologue, with only a couple of ‘outside’ scenes to move the minimal action along. However, the story never felt static or boring, and I could see a script somewhat along those lines seeing all the outside action from Norman’s eyes, with only a few cutaways to an objective action shot. Doing it that way would immediately remove a lot of extraneous material and cut down on the time to fit the story into an hour’s length.
Of course Simon Oakland’s convolute explanation of how Norman got to be that way would have to go; maybe not so much of a loss, as the scene is often cited as the film’s weakest point; I tend to agree it boils down to a good bit of ‘yadda-yadda’ filler, though the filler is necessary to some degree. But on television it used to not be unacceptable to distill a complicated psychiatric diagnosis down to a few terse sentences, so I think that could be gotten away with in a television adaptation of the script.
Good to talk to you here, Tel!–I hope to get the word around to some of the old users I have contact info for, in hopes they might find their way over here. -
telegonus — 8 years ago(August 24, 2017 06:54 PM)
Yup. That's one way to go, Amy. Also, with a Norman voiceover,–no, not in Mother's voice, though adding that might work, too–would make an interesting episode. I'm thinking alone the lines of famous radio shows that became movies or were done on television. Lucile Fletcher's
Sorry, Wrong Number
is one such, as her
The Hitch-Hiker
was very well done on
The Twilight Zone
. I actually prefer that version. The movie
Sorry, Wrong Number
is, in my opinion, a vast improvement on the radio play, which was maybe ruined for me by my having seen the film first. It's very
Noir
, features some beautiful, Edward Hopperish location shots, such as the abandoned (or is it
) house on the beach, all boarded up. Good use of sound, of subway noise and the like; the sympathetic character of Waldo Evans. Even after multiple viewings it still gets to me every time. -
ecarle2 — 2 years ago(June 10, 2023 07:35 PM)
For Psycho fans it would be near heartbreaking (paging ECarle!) to see a smaller scale (not that the film itself is big scale) version of the picture
—
Ecarle here, but under ecarle2 so as to keep things separate for this site.
Shall I try this, telegonus?
Here goes:
Psycho composer Bernard Herrmann told Brian DePalma that Hitchcock was so discouraged by his rough cut of Psycho(less the MUSIC) that Hitchcock said "I think I'm just going to cut my losses and cut this down for my TV series."
So this WAS on the table at one point. Hitchcock knew that the black and white film was filmed using the facilities and much of his TV crew; production wise, Psycho would "fit right in" on the TV show.
But not as one episode. Recall that when Psycho came out in June of 1960, Hitchcock's series was STILL "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" so Psycho would likely have to become a THREE-PART episode of the series(there was at least one three-parter broadcast, something about "The Count"?)
If Hitchcock had given the world THAT Psycho, I think all of the edits (cutting OUT and cutting DOWN) you and others note above COULD have been done, leaving just the connective tissue of the movie. As for the murders? End the shower murder at a commercial with Mother pulling the shower curtain back?(Even THAT might have been too terrifying for TV) End the staircase murder with the door opening at the top of the stairs? Do-able…but we would have lost the first great jump scare in movies.
The opening scene in the hotel room would have to be cut way down(until Sam and Marion are dressed) most of the shrink scene at the end cut down.
…and I'll bet that Psycho would STILL be considered "the scariest Hitchcock episode ever made."