Synopsis

After stealing money from her employer, Marion Crane flees Phoenix and stops at the isolated Bates Motel. Its anxious proprietor, Norman Bates, lives under the influence of his domineering mother. When Marion vanishes, her sister and a private investigator follow a trail of clues that exposes the motel's horrifying secret and the fractured identity behind a series of murders.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film was adapted from Robert Bloch's 1959 novel and was independently financed through Shamley Productions. Its budget was kept below $1 million, with much of the crew drawn from the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. It was also filmed in black and white to reduce costs and make the shower violence less graphically colorful.

• The shower sequence took seven days to film. The water was kept at a comfortable temperature, contrary to the long-standing story that cold water was used to provoke a more convincing scream.

• Chocolate syrup was used for the shower blood because it photographed convincingly as dark liquid in black and white.

• Saul Bass designed the title sequence and prepared storyboards for the shower scene, but accounts from the production identify Hitchcock as the person who directed the filmed sequence.

• The bathroom sequence attracted unusual censorship attention. The film is also commonly credited as the first American motion picture to show a toilet being flushed on screen.

• To protect the film's surprises, no press screenings were held before release, and theaters were instructed not to admit latecomers after the movie had started. Some theaters even used Pinkerton guards to enforce the policy.

• Psycho was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1992, recognizing its lasting cultural and cinematic importance.