By Zandra Wolfgram
Are you ready to be thrilled? We hope you join us Saturday, Oct. 23 at 7:30 p.m. at Mattie Kelly Cultural Arts Village in Destin. To set the stage for Sinfonia Gulf Coast’s spooky al fresco cinematic sensational concert, we unearthed some lore from the shadows of Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s, Psycho — one of the most famous thrillers in the American film canon.
- When the cast and crew began work on the first day, they had to raise their right hands and promise not to divulge one word of the story. Hitchcock also withheld the ending from his cast until he needed to shoot it.
- The score, composed by Bernard Herrmann, is played entirely by stringed instruments.
- Hitchcock was so pleased with the score written by Bernard Herrmann that he supposedly doubled the composer’s salary to $34,501. Hitchcock later said, “Thirty-three percent of the effect of Psycho was due to the music.”
- Hitchcock originally envisioned the shower sequence as completely silent, but Bernard Herrmann went ahead and scored it anyway; upon hearing it, Hitchcock immediately changed his mind.
- Marion Crane is wearing a white bra in the opening scene because Hitchcock wanted to show her as “angelic.” After taking the money, the following scene has her in a black bra because now she has done something “wrong and evil.”
- The shower scene was shot from December 17-23, 1959. It features 77 different camera angles and 50 cuts.
- The Bates house was largely modeled on an oil painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The canvas is called House by the Railroad and was painted in 1925 by the iconic American artist Edward Hopper.
- Hitchcock wanted to make this movie so much that he deferred his standard $250,000 salary in lieu of 60 percent of the movie’s gross. Believing it would do poorly at the box office, Paramount Pictures agreed. Adjusting for inflation, Hitchcock’s earnings amount to more than $120 million.
Purchase tickets for this spooktacular event online at SinfoniaGulfCoast.org.
