What's in the Box?

Film: Die Buchse der Pandora (Pandora’s Box)
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.


According to Greek myth, the gods created a woman named Pandora who had all the gifts the gods could give a woman. The one fault she had was burning curiosity. The gods also gave Pandora a box and instructions to never open the box because something terrible would happen should the box be opened. Since she could not control her curiosity, Pandora eventually did open the box, and in so doing, released all evils upon the world.

Die Buchse der Pandora (Pandora’s Box) is a very loose interpretation of this myth. Here, the box is not a literal box, but the woman herself. The woman here is Lulu (Louise Brooks). She is a kept woman, who lives at the behest of Dr. Schon (Fritz Kortner), who finds Lulu irresistible, knowing that his relationship with her is destroying his own reputation.

To save himself, Schon agrees to marry another woman, hoping to separate himself from Lulu as best he can. In reaction, Lulu returns to a life on the stage, specifically in the production of Schon’s son, Alwa (Franz Lederer). However, when Schon shows up backstage with his fiancée, Lulu refuses to perform, instead seducing the doctor anew, forcing him to marry her.

But Lulu is, for lack of a better way to put it, the epitome of desire—she is the contents of Pandora’s box rather than Pandora herself. In many ways, Lulu is an innocent unaware of her power. At other times, she is the ultimate manipulator, demanding male attention and unable to be happy if another woman is getting any attention at all. This is best demonstrated in the marriage scene, where her old mentor Schigolch (Carl Goetz) speaks with her and sparks a jealous rage in Schon. Knowing that he will forever be subjected to this mindless jealousy, Schon hands Lulu a gun, demanding that she kill herself. Instead, she shoots him. It is unclear whether or not this is accidental.

Regardless, Lulu is placed on trial, where she receives a sentence of five years for manslaughter. Before the sentence can be carried out, she is whisked out of the courtroom and she returns to the home of Dr. Schon, seemingly unaffected by the trial and results of the same. Alwa confronts her, but rather than turning his father’s killer in to the police, she seduces him as she did his father, and they plan to run off together.

This is complicated by the fact that, due to the publicity of the trial, Lulu is easily recognizable. She is spotted on the train, specifically by Marquis Casti-Piani (Michael von Newlinsky), who threatens to turn her in. Another theatrical acquaintance named Rodrigo Quast (Krafft-Raschig) demands that she fund his next show or he will also turn her in. Essentially, the lust and fascination Lulu has caused throughout the film has been supplanted by greed. Lulu is no longer a figure of desire, but a commodity to be traded.

Eventually, Lulu, Alwa, and Schigolch escape to London where Lulu encounters the last man she will ever meet: Jack the Ripper (Gustav Diessl). This proves to be a fatal meeting for Lulu because in London, the only way for her to earn a living is to sell herself on the street. She has returned to being a figure of lust, but of a much pettier, uglier lust. Additionally, as a woman selling her body as a prostitute, Lulu is also a figure of commodity just as she was in earlier scenes. Her role as prostitute essentially is the culmination of everything she has been in the film to this point. Essentially, the only way to close Pandora’s box is to destroy it.

This is a difficult film, and deals with sexuality in a very open, surprising way. This is evident not only in the very open sexuality of Lulu’s persona—especially in the end—but also in the Oedipal conflict between Dr. Schon and Alwa that dominates the first half of the film. Perhaps the most shocking is the character of Countess Geschwitz (Alice Roberts), who is Lulu’s friend. Dressing almost exclusively in men’s clothing, the Countess is depicted very much as a lesbian, a fact confirmed by her interest in Lulu.

Ultimately, this is a tough film to watch. Louise Brooks is a true wonder, though. She is, for a film made in 1929, surprisingly modern in appearance and in action. Lulu is unabashed in her own sexuality, and is unencumbered by the mores of the time. This is probably the reason the film failed to gain much entrance in the United States.

Did I like it? I’m not sure. I am glad I’ve seen it though, even if I never watch it again.

Why to watch Die Buchse der Pandora: Perhaps the ultimate film of Weimar-era German expressionism.
Why not to watch: It’s hard to follow and understand.

Month Nine Status Report

Nothing really to discuss this month. Just still plugging away. I did break the 20% complete mark, so I suppose that's noteworthy.

Can I hit 300 by the end of the year? I don't know. That's a little less than one movie a day, and I think that might be a stretch. We'll see.

Goodbye, Tony

Film: Some Like it Hot
Format: DVD from personal collection on laptop


Tony Curtis is dead. I heard the news today, and knew instinctively that I’d be watching Some Like it Hot, the best film Curtis was ever a part of. This is a film that no other comedies should be judged against. The reason for this is simple: if other comedies needed to be as good as Some Like it Hot to be worth seeing, no one would ever watch any other comedies. It’s been tagged as the greatest comedy ever made, and while that might be stretching a little, it’s not stretching by much.

We start with two down-and-out musicians named Joe (Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon). The pair are willing to take just about any job out there. This is because they’ve lost their job playing in a mob-run speakeasy, which was raided on payday. In the process of looking for work, they stumble onto the crime of the decade—the cinematic equivalent of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

The good news is that one of their agents has a job that requires a saxophone and a bass player for a three-week gig in Florida. The bad news is that the job is with an all-girl band. Desperate to get out of Chicago so that they won’t be identified to testify at the trial of the mob boss responsible for the slayings (also their former boss at the speakeasy) or identified by the mob and rubbed out, the pair dress themselves up in drag, take the gig, and head off to Florida as Josephine (Curtis) and Daphne (Lemmon).

The running joke here is that the pair are able to pull it off in close quarters with a large group of women without anyone managing to suspect. This is especially ridiculous because Daphne/Jerry is a complete horn dog chasing anything in a skirt and is suddenly around dozens of attractive ones who spend the evening in their underwear. They also run into the band’s singer, Sugar Kane Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe). Jerry is taken with her initially, but it’s Joe who eventually falls for her, particularly because she has a thing for tenor sax players.

On the trip down, Joe manages to discover what Sugar is really looking for in a man—young and rich. She’d prefer one wearing glasses because they’re “more sensitive” and if nothing would be better than if he had a yacht. Naturally, when the band gets down to Florida, Joe steals the band manager’s suitcase for the resort clothes and his glasses to complete the look. He manages to meet her on the beach, fakes a Cary Grant-esque accent, and claims to be the heir to the Shell Oil fortune.

In the meantime, Jerry has his own problems in the form of Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown), a wolfish millionaire who evidently has a thing for guys in drag. He’s completely taken with “Daphne” and pursues her relentlessly, claiming to have a fascination with show business, or at least with show girls, having married at least seven of them in the past.

This sets up the middle of the film in which Jerry is pursued by Osgood and Joe pursues Sugar. Jerry leads Osgood on, allowing Joe to use the trappings of Osgood’s wealth, like his yacht, to further impress Sugar with the millions she thinks he has. It’s all in good fun until the gangsters, headed by lead mob boss Spats Colombo (George Raft) turn up at the same resort in a Shakespearean comedy twist. Now, the pair are forced to stay in character even though both desperately want out—Jerry to get away from Osgood and Joe so he can continue to woo Sugar as the pretend millionaire.

Naturally, the whole thing is played for laughs. This is not a film that attempts believability, and who cares that it doesn’t? The whole point of the film is to be madcap and silly—to put these two guys into this ridiculous situation and see what happens. And if there are a couple of Marilyn Monroe songs along the way (and there are, including the classic “I Wanna Be Loved By You”), so much the better.

Films don’t get better than this and only rarely get this good. It’s just as joyfully fun today as it was fifty years ago, and it hasn’t aged a day.

Vaya con Dios, Tony. Thanks for this one.

Why to watch Some Like it Hot: Billy Wilder’s best comedy, and that’s saying quite a lot.
Why not to watch: You’re a complete, blithering idiot.

Sweet, Delicious Manna

Film: The Ten Commandments
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.


Not all epics are the same. When it comes to epics on film, there are two names that stand out above the rest: David Lean and Cecil B. DeMille. Perhaps no one is more famous when it comes to creating a true epic than the great DeMille, who seemed to film nothing else. Of his epics, none are so well known, acclaimed, or loved as The Ten Commandments.

Of course, the version that everyone knows, and the version spoken of here, is actually the remake. DeMille made an earlier, silent version of this story. While that version was undoubtedly epic, it pales in comparison to the color, talkie version DeMille made in 1956. A good (or great) epic should not only be epic in length, but be sweeping in terms of story. The freeing of the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt fills the second bill, and the close-to-four-hour running time fills the first.

The film is the story of Moses (Charleton Heston), beginning with his birth and the basket in the reeds, and then fast-forwarding to about his 30th birthday or so and his life in the palace as a member of Pharaoh’s household. Here he battles with Rameses (Yul Brynner) to be the next in line for Sethi’s (Cedric Hardwicke) throne. The two also battle for the love of Nefretiri (Anne Baxter), because she is destined to marry the next Pharaoh. Whosoever weds her gains the throne (or vice versa).

Moses is the more successful of the two, successfully conquering Ethiopia and making them allies as well as building a city where Rameses could not, and capturing the love and attention of Nefretiri. However, the palace slave Memnet (Judith Anderson) knows of his Hebraic birth, and threatens to expose him as a slave. In a fit of rage, Nefretiri kills her to protect Moses, but Moses discovers the truth of his birth nonetheless, and demotes himself to the rank of a slave because of the truth of his nature. Eventually, he is exposed to Rameses by Dathan (Edward G. Robinson), the Hebrew slavemaster, and is banished, forcing Nefretiri to marry Rameses.

In his exile, Moses learns of his destiny to lead his people out of Egypt. He returns to Egypt and through him, God brings the plagues against Egypt up to and including the death of the firstborn of Egypt when Rameses finally kicks the Hebrews out of Egypt. Rameses, of course, pursues, and then there’s that whole Red Sea thing and the wandering in the desert until the Hebrews finally walk out of the desert. Really, if you want to know the full story, consult your closest Bible. DeMille takes a few cinematic liberties, but the general story is all there.

Really, the movie is an excuse for tons of extras and spectacle and a few fun special effects like the turning of sticks into snakes. And that’s okay; that’s really what an epic should be.

The film, made as it was in the 1950s, is very Hollywood-y, which means it contains the sort of coincidences that would make Charles Dickens blush. When Moses takes over building the city, he saves the life of an old woman, who naturally turns out to be his real mother. We also see frequent visits by Joshua (John Derek) and his love Lilia (Debra Paget), who is eventually taken into the house of Dathan. It’s Joshua who causes Moses to kill the master builder Baka (Vincent Price). It’s Joshua who brings Moses back to Egypt. It’s Joshua who helps lead the people out of Egypt. It’s almost as if DeMille didn’t mind having tons of extras, but was limited in the number of characters he could actually name.

What strikes me as funniest is that when Moses demotes himself to slave, no one recognizes him. Lilia, who he rescued from terrible punishment, brings him water, but can’t place the guy who was in charge of the slaves for a few months. None of the Egyptians recognize him, either—including Baka, who worked directly under him. Okay, he’s a little (or a lot) dirtier, but it’s not like my kids come inside from playing and I don’t recognize them until they’ve taken a bath. It just seems so silly.

In short, this is not a movie that could be made today, at least not without significant changes. So much of it just seems so goofy that it simply wouldn’t work. The parting of the Red Sea is still pretty cool, even if the effect is fairly obvious to modern eyes, and it appears that the Red Sea is only about 50 feet deep.

Despite all of this, The Ten Commandments is still a great film and still worth watching. It’s undoubtedly easier to stomach for true believers, but even us heathens can enjoy some spectacle in our ordinary lives.

Why to watch The Ten Commandments: An epic the way an epic should be.
Why not to watch: It can’t help but be preachy.

Quid Pro Quo, Clarice

Film: The Silence of the Lambs
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.


Certain movie scenes are iconic. Chief Brody telling Quint that they need a bigger boat. Nigel Tufnel saying that his amplifiers go to 11. Rhett Butler not giving a damn. Another of these iconic scenes is Hannibal Lecter telling Clarice Starling about what he ate with his fava beans and Chianti.

The Silence of the Lambs is actually the second film featuring Hannibal Lector, but Manhunter (reviewed a few months ago here) sadly flopped. In that film, the cannibalistic Lector (spelled “Lecktor”) was played by the great Brian Cox. Here, of course, is the Lector that everyone knows and loves—the Anthony Hopkins version.

Lector is the one who makes the film what it is, and anyone who has seen this film will agree. However, he is not the focus of the film. He is almost entirely tangential to the actual plot of the film. He shows up a few times and is more of a red herring than anything else, albeit an incredibly fascinating and disturbing red herring.

The plot centers around FBI academy student Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) and a serial killer who has been dubbed Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) by the press. She is sent by the head of the Behavioral Science unit, Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) to interview the noted serial killer and cannibal, psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lector (Hopkins). The goal of this interview, at least initially, is a simple personality profile of the doctor, but in reality, Crawford is looking for insight into Buffalo Bill, something Lector picks up on right away.

Clarice’s first visit to Lector is a startling one. He has significant insight into her as well as her reasons for being there. Additionally, Clarice encounters the doctor who runs the facility that houses Lector. This is Dr. Frederick Chilton (Anthony Heald), who is a careerist, smarmy, and rather unpleasant. Lector and Chilton despise each other, which becomes evident quite quickly.

Meanwhile, Buffalo Bill kidnaps the daughter of a U.S. Senator, planning on adding her to his collection of murder victims. We learn that he evidently keeps his victims for a couple of days before killing them, and, once they are dead, he partially skins them for a trophy (hence his nom de press). Lector keeps himself relevant here by claiming to know the identity of the killer, but actually sending the FBI on something of a wild goose chase that only hints at the truth. Instead, he gives his real clues to Clarice, demanding that for each piece of information and each hint he gives her that she give him something of herself back.

Lector forces Clarice to relate the most terrible moments of her childhood, specifically the death of her father and her subsequent move to a horse and sheep ranch in Montana. She ran away from the ranch when she discovered the fate of the spring lambs (a moment that also gives us the title of the film). Lector tells her that everything she needs to find Buffalo Bill is contained in the case file.

The Silence of the Lambs really trades on specific key scenes that are disturbing and horrifying. Each of the scenes with Buffalo Bill, for instance, are exceedingly creepy, as they were no doubt intended to be. Bill’s victims, relegated to a deep well in his basement, are forced to lotion themselves at his command to keep their skin soft for his later skinning. We also learn that Bill is not merely skinning his victims, but is using the pieces he takes to fashion a suit of clothing for himself—a woman suit made from the skins of his victims. Bill refers to his victims as “it,” refusing to recognize their humanity. This is the source of one of the film’s more famous quotes: “It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.”

Another of these shock sequences is the escape of Lector from his prison cell. Using a piece of a ballpoint pen he stole from Dr. Chilton, Lector picks the lock on his handcuffs and then brutally kills his two guards. One of these he disembowels and strings up. The other, we think initially, is horribly disfigured but left alive. We learn later that Lector—echoing the crimes of Buffalo Bill—has removed the man’s face and is masquerading as him in the ambulance, which he uses to complete his escape. Truly, the reveal as he pulls the “mask” off in the back of the ambulance is one of filmdom’s greatest and most terrifying reveals.

The ending is perhaps a little to Hollywood climax, but still effective. Clarice, naturally, is the one who stumbles upon the true location of Buffalo Bill, and plays cat-and-mouse with him in his darkened basement while he pursues her, armed with both a large pistol and night vision goggles.

The strength of this film rests on those shock scenes listed above as well as others—Buffalo Bill’s naked dance, for instance, cannot be unseen. But had the film merely had these shocking scenes, this film would not be noteworthy. The extreme natures of the crimes depicted as well as the extreme nature of the Lector character would have made any number of slasher film fans and gorehounds want to see it.

It’s the portrayals of these characters—Buffalo Bill, Clarice Starling, and Dr. Hannibal Lector in particular—that make this movie something to seek out by those interested in more than just shock and gore. There’s plenty of that, but with just that, it would be a good shock film. Instead, Clarice Starling is made incredibly human throughout. She is strong, tough, and tenacious, but also terribly vulnerable and disturbed by the events she sees unfolding in front of her. Lector is vicious, evil, and psychotic, but also strangely charming; he’s a character director Jonathan Demme described as being a good man trapped in the mind of psychotic, and that’s what Hopkins gives us. And Buffalo Bill is truly terrifying. In many ways, Ted Levine is the forgotten man in this film. So much attention (deservedly) went to Hopkins that it’s easy to forget the daring and in many ways brave performance of Levine.

Almost twenty years after being filmed, this film has not lost a step and has not aged.

Why to watch The Silence of the Lambs: It rises far above shock value and gore to be a real film that simply happens to be about horrifying topics.
Why not to watch: If you’re squeamish, you won’t make it halfway through.

Do Not Forsake Me

Films: Rio Bravo, High Noon
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library (Rio Bravo), DVD from DeKalb Public Library (High Noon) on laptop.


There is a real charm to a good western movie, particularly an old-school one from more than 40 years ago. There’s a simplicity to them that is refreshing. After watching films where the protagonist is evil, or insane, or conflicted, or more an anti-hero than a true hero, a classic western brings back that sense of comfort. There are good guys, there are bad guys, and the two never mix. Anyone who has fallen and wants to be redeemed can be, and the bad guys will eventually fall to their own wicked ways in the end.

Regardless, Rio Bravo is that simple, straightforward picture mentioned above. There’s a heroic sheriff named John T. Chance (John Wayne) who arrests Joe Burdette (Claude Akins) for murder after Chance witnesses a bar fight. Also in the bar is “Dude” (Dean Martin) ex-deputy of the sheriff who has since crawled into a bottle. In fact, it’s Dude who starts the fight. As the town drunk, he’s frequently made sport of. Burdette knows Dude is desperate for a drink, and tosses a dollar into the bar’s spittoon. A fight ensues, and when he’s prevented from striking Dude again by a bystander, Burdette shoots the interloper, only to be thrown into jail to await justice.

Unfortunately, things get complicated immediately. A wagon train pulls in led by Pat Wheeler (Ward Bond), but is laid up for a day due to the situation. It seems that Joe Burdette is the no-good brother of Nathan Burdette (John Russell), who is the wealthiest man in the area. He’s hiring anyone he can get his hands on to help spring his brother from jail, with the fate of Sheriff Chance unimportant. Dead, alive, whatever.

Also showing up in town are two important players: Colorado (Ricky Nelson) and Feathers (Angie Dickinson). Colorado is running guard on Wheeler’s wagon train. Feathers is the widow of a crooked gambler, and there’s a warrant out for her, making her a prime target for Chance’s attention. Wheeler wants to help out his old friend the sheriff, who refuses the assistance. Colorado refuses to help, too. Feathers, on the other hand, is somewhat attracted to the lawman, but he’s not having it from her. For his desire to help his friend, Wheeler is gunned down in the street by a paid killer, sparking a new desire for revenge in Chance.

We also have some comic relief, as any classic western had. Working with Chance and the attempting-to-clean-up Dude is Stumpy (Walter Brennan), a lame old man who complains endlessly, but is dependable and guards the jail. Running the hotel where Chance lives is Carlos Robante (Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez), who frequently mangles the language and is mangled in turn by his wife.

And that’s the set-up here. Chance, Dude, and Stumpy need to hold off Burdette and his gang of hired men until the marshal shows up to take Joe Burdette into custody. There are attempts on everyone’s life and attempts to break into the jail. Through it all, Chance refuses the help of everyone, convinced instead that anyone who tries to help him will end up on the wrong end of a bullet courtesy of Burdette. The death of Pat Wheeler more than anything tells him that he should keep everyone else safe by keeping them out of the situation.

Of course, this is a traditional, old-school western, which means that it’s going to turn out the way you want it to. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad. Anyone worthy of being redeemed (Dude, Feathers) is redeemable, and anyone who isn’t will eventually get what’s coming to them. Even our comic relief (Carlos and Stumpy) shows up at critical moments to provide real assistance, even if Chance didn’t want their help.


On the opposite end of the spectrum is High Noon, which is similar in terms of plot and action but completely different in terms of how the characters approach their situation. As with Rio Bravo (actually the other way ‘round because High Noon came first), we have a lawman facing off virtually alone against a gang of thugs.

Will Kane (Gary Cooper) has just gotten married to the beautiful and much younger Amy Fowler (Grace Kelly). In addition to being a sweet young thing, Amy is also a Quaker, and she objects heavily to Will’s occupation as a town marshal. Consequently, he also has decided to hang up his badge and head off for a much quieter, less gun-filled life.

It’s at this moment, though, that Will is given very distressing news. Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald), a man he sent to prison a year earlier, has been released. Miller is coming into town on the noon train (hence the name of the movie), looking for revenge, and he’s bringing his entire gang with him.

This leaves Will in a predicament. He knows that Miller will want his revenge whether Kane stays the lawman or not, and having the power of that star on his chest should make things a little easier for him, at least in theory. He takes back the badge, knowing that a fight is coming in a little more than an hour.

Amy objects, unable to resolve her religious differences with the idea of the violence her new husband simply cannot avoid. While she seems to understand that he can in no way avoid the coming fight, she still pleads with him to leave and try to make a getaway from the Miller gang. When he says that he will or cannot, she threatens to leave on the noon train without him, so strong is her conviction for non-violence.

The film unfolds in front of us in real time. Will spends the bulk of the time up until noon looking for anyone in town to come to his assistance and finding no one. Even his own deputy (Lloyd Bridges, looking about 12 years old) deserts him, leaving him alone to face the Miller gang. Those who want to help him back out at the last minute when they see that they are the only ones who have come to his aid. Everyone is willing to help as long as everyone else is, but no one is willing to take the first step to stand beside Will.

And thus we have the main difference between these two films. In Rio Bravo, Chance won’t ask anyone for help, believing instead that it is a man’s duty to stand on his own and face the dangers without putting anyone else at risk. However, right-thinking people (Colorado and Feathers especially) come to his aid again and again. In High Noon, Will Kane asks for the help he knows he needs and is refused at every turn. When noon finally strikes, he is forced to stand alone against terrible odds, and fight on as best he can.

Which way is better? I like the philosophy of High Noon better, personally. I think there’s something to be said for the idea that people can ask for help, even if it’s refused. Rio Bravo seems to work on the philosophy that asking for help is a sign of weakness. In my experience, it’s more a sign of impending failure. That no one comes to Will Kane’s aid is not a failure of his asking, but a failure of their own courage and character.

Both films were remade a few times. Rio Bravo was turned into El Dorado and then Assault on Precinct 13. High Noon has been remade as High Noon twice and also seems to be a pretty strong influence on the sci-fi film Outland.

Both films are great. High Noon is tighter, grittier, and more nihilistic, and therefore makes (I think) a stronger statement.

Why to watch Rio Bravo: For a straight western, it’s hard to find a better one.
Why not to watch: Ricky Nelson is a lightweight compared with the rest of the cast.

Why to watch High Noon: Every reason you or I can think of.
Why not to watch: There is no reason not to watch this film.

Oedipus Wrecks

Films: Psycho, Peeping Tom
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop (Psycho); DVD from personal collection on middlin’-sized living room television (Peeping Tom).


So now that I’ve reached 20% done on this cinematic expedition, it’s come time for me to finally watch something by the great master of suspense cinema, Alfred Hitchcock. I’m generally a fan of the maxim “Go big or go home,” so Psycho it is. There’s no question that Psycho is one of the great films in suspense/horror history. It’s been spoofed, made homage to, copied, and parodied, but it’s never been duplicated. It is certainly Hitchcock’s most famous film, although not anywhere near his best in my opinion. Regardless, it’s a landmark cinematic event, and a first viewing of this film is always something special. It’s also a film that really trades on its shock ending. Consider the rest of this entry under a spoiler warning—if you’ve never seen Psycho, you should stop reading now, because the shock ending is worth it.

Now that we’ve gotten rid of those who haven’t seen this movie, we can talk a bit more freely. If you think for a minute about what you can recall from Psycho, you’ll probably think of two to four scenes—the money scenes, as it were. These are the shower scene, the death of the detective on the stairs, the reveal at the end, and the final sequence in the asylum. Because of this, it’s easy to overlook just how damn good this film is everywhere else. There’s a lot to notice here, and a lot that’s worth considering even without those four critical sequences, and the fact that there is so much here worth seeing shows just how good a filmmaker Hitchcock really was.

The film starts like typical Hitchcock. A young woman named Marion (Janet Leigh) embezzles $40,000 from her employer. It may not sound like much, but this is 40 grand in 1960 dollars—roughly a quarter million in today’s money. She takes the money so that she can pay off the debts of her boyfriend Sam (John Gavin). She drives out of Phoenix on her way to California to share the new wealth and (she hopes) start a new life with him. Along the way, she trades in her car for a new vehicle, and eventually stops at the Bates Motel for the night.

Here she meets Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), who is quiet, awkward, and under the thumb of his domineering, disturbed mother. Norman displays his collection of taxidermy birds to Marion, and he’s obviously taken with her. But then, while she is taking a shower, Marion is brutally slain by Mrs. Bates in one of the most famous sequences ever filmed. The rest of the film is the search for the missing Miss Crane, lead by her sister (Vera Miles), the boyfriend, and private investigator Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam), who also meets the knife point of Mrs. Bates in another, not-quite-as-famous-but-just-as-great scene on the staircase.

Of course, the biggest moment in Psycho beyond the shower sequence is the reveal—Mrs. Bates is long dead, and is another of Norman’s taxidermy projects. Norman himself is the killer, dressed up as mother and wielding a massive kitchen knife. It’s a great shock moment, one that is memorable permanently after being seen only once, and it’s what really makes the film.

The genius of this film, though, is that throughout, up until the very end when we discover precisely why the film is called what it is, our sympathies rest almost entirely with Norman. When he ditches Marion’s body by sinking her car into a nearby mudhole, there’s a tense moment when it stops sinking. The first time I saw the film, I can remember wanting the car to sink to protect Norman; he seems like such a nice guy.

The ending, though, pulls the rug out from under us. Norman isn’t a nice guy—he’s massively disturbed and scary, and the trick that Hitchcock has managed is to get us to sympathize with a complete lunatic.

There are subtle things at work here. Marion, in the opening scene where she is getting dressed after a little afternoon horizontal boogie with her boyfriend, is wearing a white bra and carries a white purse. Later, after she has stolen the money (and is thus bad), her bra is black, as is her purse; her actions dictate the color of her wardrobe. The misdirection is also brilliant. Marion Crane is the focus of every scene up to that point in the film. The few times she isn’t on camera, we’re seeing things from her point of view (the first shots of the Bates house in the rain, for instance), or she is the focus of the scene (Norman spying on her through the hole in the wall). To have her ripped from the film less than halfway through is a risky move, but it’s also startling and brilliant.

I can’t imagine this film in color. The black and white is so good and so moody that it’s really the only way the film should be viewed. The music is also perfect for the film, consisting entire of stringed instruments throughout, especially in that critical shower scene.

That scene is worth an extra look, incidentally. It shows nothing and implies everything. There is no noticeable nudity, and we never seen the knife actually enter flesh. We see no wounds, and the only real blood is running down the drain or on Marion’s hands. And yet, it is so well done that we feel like we’ve seen everything. This scene is a dissertation on direction, style, and editing.


While Psycho is a great film, I’m a bigger fan of Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom. That seems strange to say, but it’s absolutely true. While Hitchcock makes his audience sympathize with a deranged, homicidal maniac, Powell takes it one step further. In Peeping Tom, we know in the first ten minutes that the character Mark (Karlheinz Bohm) is the killer. We watch through the lens of Mark’s camera as he kills a prostitute, films it, and then we watch with him as he looks at the tape.

We learn a little bit about him from here. He works as a focus puller for a film studio and does some cheesecake photography on the side. He also owns the building he lives in, and takes in boarders. Specifically, he rents to young Helen Stevens (Anna Massey) and her blind mother (Maxine Audley). Mark avoids them pretty assiduously until Helen’s birthday when she introduces herself to him.

Mark is immediately taken with her, and she with him, in no small part because he is so shy and awkward. Helen asks to see some of Mark's films as a birthday present, and he lets her in on one of his terrible secrets. His father, who left him the house he owns, was a psychologist whose main research was on the subject of fear. To investigate fear, he experimented on Mark, doing everything he could to terrify the boy and test his reactions. He shows her some of his home movies, including his mother’s funeral and the best gift his father ever gave him: his movie camera.

Helen, it turns out, has written a children’s book about a magical camera and wants Mark to take the photographs for her. He doesn’t want to, because everything he photographs he eventually kills, and he has started to care very much for her. In one very telling scene, he plans to go out with Helen, but first must deal with setting aside his camera, almost as if he is being unfaithful to his mechanical eye.

There are a couple more murders, including one of a young woman (Moira Shearer, from Powell/Pressburger classic The Red Shoes) who is acting on the movie Mark is working on. We learn a little more about Mark’s method of killing when he threatens Helen’s mother, and ultimately, we learn the entire truth at film’s end. The reality of his murder method is so fascinating and so bizarre, that I don’t even want to put it under a spoiler warning—it needs to be experienced.

The genius of this film is that, like Psycho from the same year, we are made to sympathize with a serial murderer. In Psycho, though, we are misled. Here, we know from the very beginning that Mark is the killer. However, Bohm plays Mark so sympathetically that the audience can’t help but feel something for him and, like Helen, want everything to come out well for him eventually.

Even more, all of the murders are filmed from Mark’s perspective. Essentially, the audience is made complicit in the killings, since we experience them voyeuristically through the eye of Mark’s camera. These murders are made to look like we have committed them as much as Mark has. While we may not approve, we are, in terms of the way the camera is used, just as guilty as he is.

It is this fact, the sympathetic killer who makes us a part of his killings, that caused the universally unfavorable reaction to the film upon its release. Actually, that’s understated. The outcry against Peeping Tom was so great that it destroyed Powell’s career and he eventually emigrated to Australia, giving up the film business almost entirely. It wasn’t until a good 20 years later when other filmmakers like Martin Scorsese cited the film as a major influence that it was given another chance.

As it turns out, Powell was simply ahead of his time by a dozen years or so. Had he produced the film in 1970, it would have been hailed as visionary, and by 1976, it would have been tame and almost trite.

It’s hardly a perfect film. It’s never explained, for instance, why Mark, who claims to have been born in the house he lives in, has a German accent. But this is a detail that can be overlooked. It’s a strong, powerful film that can still manage a shock, particularly at the ending. Bohm’s portrayal of Mark is tremendous, and Anna Massey is great. She’s oddly attractive—there’s nothing about her that screams beauty queen, but she’s perky and cute, and impossible not to like here.

Anyway, I like this film more than I like Psycho only because Powell went further than Hitchcock did. Both deal with mild-mannered killers with Oedipal issues (Norman with his mother, Mark with his father). Hitch went far afield and was applauded; Powell went further and it cost him everything. Damn shame. More people should know this movie.

Why to watch Psycho: Hitchcock’s first real foray into horror.
Why not to watch: Bad sequel, worse sequel, unmentionable prequel, stupid remake.

Why to watch Peeping Tom: You owe it to Michael Powell’s reputation.
Why not to watch: Mark’s unexplainable accent.