DIRECTED BY Alfred Hitchcock
YEAR 1960

ALSO STARRING
Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, Martin Balsam, John Gavin

BEST QUOTE
Absolutely every line.

BEST MOMENT
The superbly acted and tense interrogation by Martin Balsam.

WORST MOMENT
ABSOLUTELY NO BAD MOMENTS, it's pure magic on film.

MY REVIEW
Well, what can I say about this movie that hasn't already been said? The very first film of Tony's I had ever seen was definitely the best film experience of my life. It has remained on my number one spot ever since I saw it in June/July of 2000. I had never even HEARD of him before this!

When I sat down and watched this, just get into your mind the exact moment when Marion arrives at the motel and he says "Oh we have twelve vacancies. Twelve cabins, twelve vacancies!". And it was right there that I thought "I wouldn't mind spending the night at THAT motel!". You know what I mean. I swear on my entire DVD collection, I thought Norman was innocent the whole way through that movie. I was completely fooled.

When Vera Miles goes down to the cellar and I saw the old woman herself sitting in the chair I was close to collapsing point- I was actually rocking backward and forwards yelling from anxiety and panic. It swings round to reveal a wrinkly prune and the reaction is just silence, followed by a gasp, and then I see ANOTHER old woman standing in the doorway holding a massive knife and then ... you know what happens next. The penny drops - loud and clear. How naive I was! I wish I could go back and relive the experience of seeing it for the first time - be totally oblivious again, and FEEL the overwhelming shock of it all. Absolutely unmissable- just make damn sure you don't see the remake first.

At the end of the movie my heart was still in overdrive, no wonder people back in 1960 went so wild over it. The look... yes, THE look in his eyes, staring right at you, will jolt you deeply (the audience always has the screen as a protective barrier from these horrors being played out, until Perkins pierces right through), it makes you feel ashamed that you were backing a murderer, believing faithfully. The superimposed skull which lasts for only a couple of frames had me thinking my mind was playing tricks, it's so subtle, but a masterful final blow.

Imagine fangirls going to see Keanu Reeves in a film of that sort today, thinking "Oh yeah I LOVE Keanu, he's SO hot, he's going to save the girl and be the good romantic guy as usual" and getting THIS. That is just what it was like then for Tony Perkins! Except this whole kind of film was so new to them, so unusual and unexpected, that it just stayed with the audience ever since. Sometimes when I see Tony's later films, I would think "What happened?". But he was just so perfect, people wouldn't see a great actor, they would see Norman Bates, and that makes me very sad. Imagining having to answer the same questions about it over and over again, enduring the frustration of not getting the jobs you wanted, and having every single film that you did, nomatter what genre, compared to Norman Bates for forty years of your life. You just can't. But that's what Tony did, and he never said a word. He described it as the biggest blessing and curse of his career- without it he wouldn't have become so internationally famous, but with it his choice of comedic and romantic roles was drastically cut down. That's Hollywood.

SEE THIS IF YOU LIKE:
Just SEE THIS.