Ideas

Atomic notes. One observation, claim or connection each — the raw material everything else is built from.

• Herrmann scored the shower against orders Hitchcock asked for the murder to play unscored. Herrmann wrote the strings anyway, and Hitchcock conceded on the spot.
• Killing the protagonist at minute 47 Psycho spends its first act building a protagonist by the book, then murders her at the mid-point of act two.
• Norman among the birds The parlour's taxidermy is the film's thesis statement in set decoration: predators, prey, and a man already stuffed.
• The $85,000 backdrop The Alice prologue set cost $85,000 of a $1.8M budget and shot for one day — five per cent of the film spent on announcing what the film is about.
• The first flushing toilet Psycho is generally credited with the first toilet flushed on screen in a mainstream American film — and the flush is a plot point.
• The money dies with Marion The $40,000 sinks into the swamp wrapped in newspaper, and no surviving character ever learns it was there.
• The shower scene is built from 78 setups Commonly cited: about 78 camera setups and 52 cuts in roughly 3 minutes — and the knife never enters flesh on screen.
• You'll Never Know, then Mott the Hoople Two songs across one cut: 1943 crooning smashed into 1974 glam — the whole backstory of a life told in an audio transition.