I defy you to find someone who was as influential to movie marketing quite like Alfred Hitchcock. Sure, you can go to modern examples like J.J. Abrams with his mystery box, but that pales in comparison to what The Master of Suspense™ achieved over his several decades as a filmmaker who reveled in thrillers that pushed boundaries, putting you on constant edge. If you had to ask me, he was also so aware of his capabilities that even the names of his movies had an attractive ring to them. Think of Suspicion (1941), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), or Dial M for Murder (1954). You don’t have to see them. You’re already wondering what those titles actually mean.
It also helps that his very being was itself iconic. Thanks to The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, you could recognize his silhouette, his droll reading of the phrase “Good evening.” The fact that Eminem even recently referenced him on the album “Music to Be Murdered By” shows his lasting impact, and his ability to mix dry British humor with a sinister subtext that may be a bit unpleasant. The thing that made Hitchcock essential wasn’t just his movies. Before there was the nerd, there was him, able to talk about film theory in such vivid details, making you understand what the frame means, and why certain compositions may look unnatural to the naked eye.
It’s the type of accomplishment that forces you to wonder if he was the most successful director who ever lived. Sure, Steven Spielberg may have done more obvious things with the blockbuster, but without Hitchcock, I’d argue that the very idea of fun marketing would be nonexistent, maybe a shell of what it could be. The man was so infatuated with his audience that he played with them every chance he could. He had this way of being smug while telling a joke without seeming awful about it. He was a genius at presence, and nowhere was that clearer than with Psycho (1960).
If you had to ask me, Psycho is one of the greatest films ever made. If I had to make up a shortlist of the best-directed films, this would be on there. Hitchcock has this great way of making every new scene a piece of misdirection, making you unable to guess what happens next. Sure, some of it may read a bit transphobic, but as one of the first successful serial killer movies, it did wonders in creating the standard for what audiences expected. Considering that it was a leftover set from The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, his attempt to make a B-Movie with limited resources paid off nicely. Even when he wanted to go cheap, he couldn’t. So much of this film continues to excite me, and I hope that you haven’t gone the past 60 years without seeing it at least once.
Then again, I don’t know why you wouldn’t have, if just for its status as a classic. However, if you have stopped here, you’re sorely missing out on why the film was a phenomenon. It wasn’t just what was packaged within the story. It was the perfect example of how Hitchcock was able to control his audience, making the concepts inside something juicy. You wanted to discover them for fear of missing out. Everything felt more urgent, and more than anything set the bar high for anyone who follows the “no spoilers” code with every new Marvel movie.
How much did Hitchcock want to keep things secret? Upon falling in love with the book, Hitchcock ordered every copy of Robert Bloch’s eponymous novel to be yanked from shelves, hoping to not let the secrets out. It’s unclear how many copies were sold before this action, though one can imagine that the scarcity played in their favor, allowing nobody to be better than Hitchcock at reveling in details. More than that, he refused to let his cast (notably Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins) actually promote the movie for fear of sharing any piece of information regarding the plot.
In anyone else’s hands, this would be suicide. For Hitchcock, he had a reputation to uphold as The Master of Suspense™. He had to control the narrative with every fiber of his being. This meant that he had to be creative when it came to marketing. In a very ingenious move, he created a six-minute trailer that was uncommon in the cinematic landscape. This behind the scenes trip through the backlot of Psycho was more common for TV series, allowing him to allude to ideas that would be in the film, even twice cheekily making references to “the bathroom.”
Anyone who knows Hitchcock will be able to find the humor right away. His first line, “Good afternoon,” is a play on his famous “Good evening” phrase. From there, he begins to walk around the set of The Bates Motel, where he lures inside the adjacent house, talking about a grisly murder. As he begins to describe the blood and people being pushed down the stairs, he cuts himself short. There are even times when he misdirects by starting one sentence about a pivotal scene only to change topics. He made the whole experience feel like a crime scene, and it was enjoyable. This wasn’t footage from the film, but something even more dastardly.
Not only that, but even the echoic score is absent at times. For most of the time, he’s borrowing music from his own comedy The Trouble With Harry (1955). It’s jaunty and upbeat, misleading viewers to the tone. It isn’t until he gets to the shower that the most unassuming thing imaginable happens. As he pulls back the curtain, the famous shower scene plays out with a woman yelling as the title, in block letters, flashes across the screen. This itself was a mislead. While this moment would be in the film, it was a reshoot featuring Vera Miles to make up for Leigh’s absence. It wasn’t until people could pause the trailer that anyone noticed what was different. For a trailer that showed 0% of footage from the film, it did an amazing job of capturing the tone nicely, placing the viewer in absolute mystery.
It ends with the message that launched the film into a phenomenon:
The picture you MUST see from the beginning…Or not at all!...for no one will be seated after the start of…PSYCHO!
That’s how you knew that Hitchcock meant business. While he had played with marketing before, he made his most twisted film yet into an event. In 1960, movie-going was much different than it is today. There wasn’t as much control over when a movie started and stopped, meaning that somebody could reasonably show up in the middle of a movie. This practice was commonplace, causing an interesting hurdle for Psycho to face, especially since they needed to control the appeal.
The most direct achievement of Psycho was that it lead to a change towards the more modern form of scheduling and blocking when movies would start and stop. There would be a need to buy tickets to the 10:30 or the 11 showings as opposed to just showing up randomly. As a result, there was also now time for theaters to be cleaned, ushering patrons out so that the next show could start on time. Even indirectly, Hitchcock was making theaters into someplace more focused, and to general acclaim with audiences lining around the block.
There would be a standee in the hallway with Hitchcock pointing to his watch with a message attached. There was always a focus on the starting time of the film, as he refused to let audiences in until the film started. The sign said:
"The manager of this theatre has been instructed at the risk of his life, not to admit to the theatre any persons after the picture starts. Any spurious attempts to enter by side doors, fire escapes or ventilating shafts will be met by force. The entire objective of this extraordinary policy, of course, is to help you enjoy PSYCHO more.”
It was signed “Alfred Hitchcock” and set the precedent for everything that followed. It was unprecedented to have theater managers sign off like that on a film for distribution. Still, it was the start of something grander. Not only that, but there was something fun and offbeat about it thanks to Hitchcock’s attitude about the whole thing. In one of the more clever pieces of advertising, he stated:” By the way, after you see the film, please do not give away the ending. It's the only one we have.”
I cannot personally speak to how successful this campaign was, but it definitely drew in audiences. There was a fear of missing out, and it made the film a necessary experience for audiences. You couldn’t appreciate Psycho unless you saw it firsthand. The director was so in tune with teasing the audience that he even had music cues that would play to describe how far they were until “Psycho Time.” I can only imagine that it was just to be in the lobby and take in the atmosphere, feeling like there was a magic to the movie-going experience.
Sure there would be so much about the film that just became part of pop culture. It must have been exciting to discover it without any awareness or cultural permanence. The film ended up being a major hit. With a budget of roughly $800,000, it ended up making $50 million, which was in large part thanks to the marketing, making the world interested in this story of a murder gone awry.
So while it has become one of the most beloved horror movies of all time, I think that it would be dangerous to praise the film without recognizing its marketing campaign. Without spoiling anything regarding the plot, Hitchcock managed to rely almost solely on his persuasive tone to make audiences see the potential in the project, forcing them to buy a ticket to get any clue of what was about to change their world. No filmmaker has as much control over their work like Hitchcock did with Psycho. The fact that a standee with his face could be used as successful marketing speaks volumes.
Before I go, I thought that I would share a certain tangent. Due to the film’s success, CBS bought the rights to broadcast the film on TV in 1966. However, due to the murder of 21-year-old Valerie Jeanne Percy in Chicago, IL the day before, they postponed it. The murder remains unsolved and was replaced with Kings Go Forth (1958). This lead to a whole debate as to whether CBS should air the film due to similarities in murders. It was eventually postponed so much that ABC bought the rights and aired it in 1967. Even then, the shower scene was cut from 12 motions to only three. The rating of the film was also in high contention throughout its release. Following the launch of the MPAA, its PG rating was changed to R in order to reflect how violent these films were.
With all of that said, there’s even another cut of the film that’s been making the rounds as of late. I don’t know much about it, but there’s evidence to suggest that Psycho will never lose most of its popularity. If nothing else, it remains one of Hitchcock’s most essential and familiar titles, serving as a great experience around October of every year. You can even see The Bates Motel on the Universal Studios backlot tour. So much of the film is just part of the culture now, and it’s all thanks to a level of confidence that few filmmakers before could’ve pulled off. Thankfully for us, Hitchcock understood the value of human curiosity and was able to profit off of it in the most masterful way possible. No film can even come close to achieving that level of success off of so little.
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