Psycho

A closer look at the story

Marion Crane, who works at a real estate office, is handed $40,000 to deposit at the bank and instead drives out of town with it, hoping to start over with her lover Sam. The tension of that impulsive decision follows her down the highway. Forced off the main road by a downpour, she stops for the night at the Bates Motel, where the polite but oddly withdrawn young manager, Norman Bates, seems devoted to the mother who lives in the house on the hill. Based on Robert Bloch's novel, scripted by Joseph Stefano and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the 1960 film stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh and Vera Miles in one of the most discussed thrillers ever made.