Seminal director Alfred Hitchcock made Psycho, widely considered one of the best films of all time, at 60 years old and on a shoestring budget.
After a career already responsible for films that are the bread and butter of both scholars and students — Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, Vertigo, and North by Northwest – the meticulous master of suspense turned his exacting eye toward something new.
Hitchcock chose author Robert Bloch’s novel of the same name for his first full-tilt foray into the horror genre.
Both versions of Psycho are a fictional tale based upon the crimes of real life serial killer Ed Gein (who also inspired Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs).
But between the violent subject matter of Bloch’s book and Hitchcock’s inconsistent box office returns, Paramount Pictures wasn’t having it.
Ever the mercurial inventor, Hitchcock got crafty in the creation of his lowest-budget movie.
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