PSYCHO UNCUT - exactly what is different? (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

Anyone who saw this in 1960, as I did on its opening day, had it seared into memory. Period. Especially the multiple stabs of Martin Balsam. To regurgitate the endless point, the little trims were made years after the theatrical release.

So did Balsam groan on the first or third stabbing?

 

[Cineman]

"...the tidy cuts had mostly gone unnoticed during that unique window between theatrical distribution of it and home video versions of it." - yes, no one ever talked about Psycho being edited. None of my teachers in film school or in books. Psycho was never TOUCH OF EVIL where the only version shown was an acknowledged compromised version. this is an odd head scratching one but your explanation makes sense. Hitchcock was not thinking that there would be a robust home video market where people could sit at home and do frame by frame comparisons.

To be fair it was a perfect storm of conditions that allowed many if not most of us who had seen it in its orginal years of theatrical release to miss that something had been cut.

In addition to that convenient few years' gap/window between its major commercial theater showings and the first home video versions and later revival theatrical showings, there is the fact that the one scene everyone thought would have been cut/edited in order to water it down would be the shower scene.

But it turns out the shower scene hadn't been cut for those tv/home video versions. So most of us breathed a sigh of relief on the assumption that, well, if that wasn't cut then whatever might have been cut couldn't be all that "lurid, bloody and violent", maybe not even all that important, so no big deal, right?

We were wrong, imo. Every shot in a Hitchcock masterpiece movie is important. lol.

Likening him to a world champion billiard player, it isn't just the shot that sinks a ball that demonstrates his mastery, put that ball in a pocket and won him the game. It was also where he placed the cueball to line up the shot that put that ball in a pocket. And where he made that ball go after that one fell in beautfully.

I submit that the "strip tease" element of the peephole scene where Hitchcock figuratively whisks a fan over Marion's breasts by cutting away from it at the very instant we are hoping to see something we know damn well is a violation of her privacy and we are wrong to see and then keeps our eyes locked open for the following shower scene in hopes of being treated to more sexy skin is a critical contributing factor in how impactful and horrible that shower murder was for us in its original theatrical release.

I could also make a case for important plot details and emotional elements being planted in that longer shot of Norman's bloody hands in the clean up scene and the multiple stabbings of Arbogast.

So you can't just cut those shots out and the emotional response to them or any other shots in his masterpiece movies that is the hallmark signature of his particular style of "cinema" and expect it not to matter all that much.

Then we add other elements of this perfect storm I alluded to earlier; we had certainly seen more nudity and gore in movies between 1960 and the early 1970s. Maybe that was why our response to PSYCHO was so much less. Yes, it likely would be for any movie. But the difference in PSYCHO was particularly notable.

Which leads me to the next element of that perfect storm. Those of us who were still obsessively heading to our nearest revival theaters in the 1970s and 1980s to watch movies with an audience would be most accutely aware of a much reduced audience reaction to PSYCHO. Those of us who were sitting alone or with one other person in a living room watching it on home video would not notice it so much. Moreover, in the years since there are very few revival theaters and almost none that would find packed houses for a showing of PSYCHO or any of the other great movies.

I was one of those obsessive revival theater goers of the 1970s and 1980s. So when I sat in a theater with a few hundred people, many of whom were too young to have seen PSYCHO in its original theatrical release, I waited for that audience-wide gasp followed by a giggle at our own reaction to that peephole scene moment. From age 7 to 12, every time I saw that movie in a theater, the audience reaction to that shot and cut away cracked me up. I waited for it in those 1970s revival theater screenings too. But it never came anymore.

The reason it didn't happen then was because we only saw Marion reach for the waistband of her black slip before the new edit cut away from her and back to Norman. We never got close to seeing what Hitchcock most certainly wanted to tease his audience into thinking they are about to see any second now as long as they don't blink or turn to chat with their seat neighbor. lol.

Which is exactly the undivided attention he wanted from every single member of the audience sitting in that darkened theater for the next few historic cinematic and cultural bomb moments he had coming.

 

[Bryan Tuck]

I still maintain one of the reasons the far less lurid, bloody and violent elements of the peephole scene, Norman's hands in the clean up scene and the stabbing of Arboghast were left out as they had been edited out for the more family-friendly late 1960s TV version is because PSYCHO and the Bates Mansion and Motel from PSYCHO were then becoming high profile iconic images and selling points for what was by the early 1970s emerging as a hugely profitable...family-friendly...major amusement park attraction and ongoing synergistic promotional platform for their movies and the park known as the Universal Studio Tours.

Hitchcock, being the owner of a sizeable percentage of Universal stock, promoted that amusement park himself in promos, trailers and commercial ads. Which, imo, also explains why he did not demand that those more lurid, bloody and violent shots be restored and asap.

It would not then have been in Hitchcock's or any Universal executive's interest, financial or career, to march into a Universal board meeting and propose or demand that the shots where we almost see Marion Crane's nipples, more blood and for a longer time on Norman's hands and those 2-3 extra butcher knife plunges headed for Arboghast's dying body in one of their key movies featured as a major attraction in their family amusement park be restored.

Why rile up the "decency" brigade? Why rock the boat? For the sake of artistic integrity with all that amusement park expansion and additional locations on the planning board? Not at that time anyway. Not yet.

Especially since the tidy cuts had mostly gone unnoticed during that unique window between theatrical distribution of it and home video versions of it.

Videos of it were selling anyway. Oh, and with references and ads to encourage the buyer to take the whole family to the Universal Studios Tour and Park.

There was a similar situation going on at another family-friendly amusement park down the 5 Freeway in Orange County. A movie that served as the basis and theme for a ride and then an entire section of Disneyland was not merely edited to remove (to Disney stock holders) unnecessarily controversial shots. The entire movie, SONG OF THE SOUTH, was taken out of theatrical and possible home video circulation in order to avoid potential synergistic profit risks.

Sorry; you're really losing me now. I'm willing to accept that you have memories of seeing that footage, even if I think they might be false ones. But I don't buy any of the above for a second.

Again, short of someone with a time machine taking me back to the late-60s to watch an actual broadcast, I refuse to believe PSYCHO aired on American TV at that time with only those three small cuts. And even if by some miracle it did, those cuts would not have been made to the negative or any master 35mm printing materials intended for theatrical distribution going forward.

All of this begs the question, when were the cuts made, and by who? The shorter scene of Norman's bloody hands has an alternate take of the closeup of his face (or possibly a different part of the take from the longer version) as he walks into the bathroom. In a time when most footage that didn't make it into final conformed negatives was junked, did Hitchcock just happen to save that piece of film and turn it over to Universal when he sold the finished movie to them?

The sound editing in the peephole and bloody hands scenes is pretty straightforward and probably could have been done with just the final mixed track, but the Arbogast scene is a little trickier. Between the circulating video of the German TV broadcast, Turbine's Blu-ray, and Universal's bungled UHD, the music is looped differently on all three, so who knows which is "correct?" (I'm pretty sure the scream was supposed to come after the first stab, though.)

At any rate, I'm sorry to dispute anyone's memories here. But the available information just doesn't add up to me. It simply doesn't make sense for Paramount and Hitchcock to have ignored the Legion of Decency in 1960 (who then proceeded to give the film a "B" rating anyway), only for Universal to go ahead and make those three specific trims several years later for no apparent reason, even going so far as to dig through the vaults to find that one alternate take of Norman, and then claim the film was "uncut" in its re-release marketing.

 

[haineshisway]

Friend, they're not false memories. We're not like you - we didn't first see it on home video or TV.

 

[Douglas R]

Friend, they're not false memories. We're not like you - we didn't first see it on home video or TV.

It's remarkable how memories can indeed survive for so long although some people never want to accept that they can. In the UK no cuts were made to the peephole sequence and I was always conscious of the fact that the scene had been trimmed when subsequently seeing the film on TV and home video. The UK theatrical version did have other cuts to violence though.

 

[moviebuff75]

The Arbogast knife shot included in the cut version is from the third stab. Supposedly, there were four stabs originally. I still think the groan should have come from the last stab.
And yes, Arbogast does make an additional sound in German when he is falling down the stairs.

 

[AlexNH]

We've had this discussion before, and I know this probably won't convince anyone any more than it did then, but here is some info from the AFI about the movie:

https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/53260

The relevant paragraph:
------
The Hitchcock papers reveal that the National Catholic Legion of Decency demanded three cuts before giving the picture a “B,” or “morally objectionable in part for all” rating. The Legion required that scenes of Marion removing her bra be deleted, that the shots showing Norman washing his hands of blood be shortened and that the number of times Arbogast is stabbed be reduced from four to two. Psycho was eventually issued the “B” rating by the Legion, which announced: “The sensational use of sex and the excessive violence, which partially mar the development of the story, are considered to be entirely lacking in dramatic justification and to be highly objectionable.”
------

Since the film was given a "B" rating, this suggests to me that the US theatrical release was in fact the standard version that we've seen all these decades. The speculation I've heard and tend to agree with is that materials for the film may have already gone out for international dubbing, and the slightly longer version may have been released in some countries.

I wasn't there, so I can't say anything for certain. And yes, Truffaut's book contained a still from one of the censored shots, so it was apparently out there in some form. Maybe the uncut version played in France as well as in Germany.

But I just can't see Universal suddenly deciding to acquiesce to the Legion of Decency years after the film had already been out, and after things like ROSEMARY'S BABY had been released. (All the while advertising it as "uncut.")

And the idea that this was a TV cut is absurd. There is no way PSYCHO would have played on broadcast TV in the 1960s with only those three cuts. Indeed, according to that AFI info page, the New York Times reported that nine minutes of the film had been cut for the intended network debut on CBS in 1966, which of course never happened.

So, that's where I'm still at.

The Arbogast knife shot included in the cut version is from the third stab. Supposedly, there were four stabs originally. I still think the groan should have come from the last stab.
And yes, Arbogast does make an additional sound in German when he is falling down the stairs.

He does not make any sounds on the Turbine english track as he falls down the stairs and yes I own the disc.

 

[moviebuff75]

The Arbogast knife shot included in the cut version is from the third stab. Supposedly, there were four stabs originally. I still think the groan should have come from the last stab.
And yes, Arbogast does make an additional sound in German when he is talking down the stairs.

He does not make any sounds on the Turbine english track as he falls down the stairs and yes I own the disc.

I am speaking of the German tv print. Arbogast doesn't scream when his face is slashed. Why would he during the first stab? Aren't the shrieking violins supposed to represent screaming anyway? I think the groan is a death gurgle. It is more disturbing at the fade.

 

[TravisR]

Why would he during the first stab?

Because he's getting stabbed. You may be 100% right and the original version of the movie had him scream at the end but to me, the scream at the end is weird and out of place.

 

[moviebuff75]

I don't think the scream is just pain. It is a death groan. He doesn't scream during the face slash or hitting the floor. I think it just represents the death blow.

 

[TravisR]

I don't think the scream is just pain. It is a death groan. He doesn't scream during the face slash or hitting the floor. I think it just represents the death blow.

That may be the intent of the scene but I don't see it that way at all. It would make more sense to me if he didn't scream at all rather than have it that after a couple of stabs, he decides that it hurts and screams. Again, that's just me and your take on what the filmmakers wanted may be correct.

 

[AlexNH]

Maybe some of the people who remember how long Norman's bloody hands were visible in cabin 1 can tell us when he screamed when they saw it 52 years ago.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Maybe some of the people who remember how long Norman's bloody hands were visible in cabin 1 can tell us when he screamed when they saw it 52 years ago.

I already asked the question, but so far, nobody has answered it.

 

[moviebuff75]

They also selected the last stab for the cut version. That would be easier for the fade. However, they would've had to find the separate effect of the scream to move. If the scream was after the first stab, and they selected that one for the cut version, they needed to find the separate effect, move the music, and create a new fade.
Also, does anyone else hear an extra stab as Norman is kneeling over Arbogast? That could have been the original stab when there were four.
I wonder if Universal looked at the cutting continuity script when piecing this back together?

 

[arbogast]

Is there any source for reliable records from the Legion of Decency, particularly involving the dating of their ratings?

On the web, I am seeing Psycho listed as being rated both "C" (Condemned) and "B" (Morally objectionable in part). Is it possible that the LofD rated the film prior to its initial release as "C", but then re-rated the film when it was being prepared for network showing, and it was the edited cut that was given a "B"? Might the network have demanded the film be cut for a "B" from
the LoD before it could be shown on the Network and it is those discussions that the AFI is refering to?

 

[Bryan Tuck]

They also selected the last stab for the cut version. That would be easier for the fade. However, they would've had to find the separate effect of the scream to move. If the scream was after the first stab, and they selected that one for the cut version, they needed to find the separate effect, move the music, and create a new fade.

The fade is likely why they picked the last stab. It was probably already baked into the conformed negative. That way they just snip out the first two, and there you go. Sure was trickier when you had to do physical lab work to do a simple dissolve or fade.

Sound editing would have been easy with the separate music and effects track. But it sounds like Universal tried to reverse-engineer it for the UHD with the already stereoized music track for the shorter version by looping those octave drops. And for whatever reason, they seem to have kept the scream in its place instead of moving it back to where it was supposed to go in the longer version.

For what it's worth, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra's re-recording of the PSYCHO score ends that cue with a descending scale instead of the same note repeated, which suggests Herrmann originally scored it that way and all the versions we currently have are looped. And that's another reason I think this cut was made prior to the original release.

All of this is total speculation, of course.

 

[moviebuff75]

Unless this was to keep the film in sync for seamless branching, I don't know why they would go against Hitch's wishes for the audio. Do they have these bits of extra audio? Or did they have to recreate them? Maybe the German print was prepared before final mixing was completed. I just feel uneasy citing a dubbed version as totally correct. Lots of things could change.

 

[AlexNH]

Unless this was to keep the film in sync for seamless branching, I don't know why they would go against Hitch's wishes for the audio. Do they have these bits of extra audio? Or did they have to recreate them? Maybe the German print was prepared before final mixing was completed. I just feel uneasy citing a dubbed version as totally correct. Lots of things could change.

Again, the english language and non dubbed Turbine blu ray disc has the scream on the first stab.

 

[mskaye]

Again, the english language and non dubbed Turbine blu ray disc has the scream on the first stab.

F it. I'm buying the new 4k of Psycho. There's no consensus and now I agree w the poster who pointed out the music being screams on the 1st stab. I'm going to watch it with my parents and they won't notice a damn thing but will love the picture quality.

 

[AlexNH]

“I spoke at length with Universal reps when they contacted me several times about the original print version of Psycho. They’re recycling my old recorded commentary on the new [release] (when they should have asked me to do a new recording specifically on the hows-and-whys of the original version and subsequent cuts).” –Stephen Rebello, September 2020