1. ""He Wanted To Give Us ALL Bathrooms..""
Posted by star angelo on Aug-28th-03 at 7:02 AM

Hi Guys!  May your pear tree bear fruit!  I was having one of my Lizzie Borden moments last night and decided to watch my original copy of "The Legend..." with Elizabeth Montgomery and-- I must say this is so cool that I can get answers from cyberspace!-- there was a scene in which she was imprisoned and beinb interviewed by a journalist (MR Julian Ralph of the Sun?).  He points out that the Bordens could have afforded more than a "basement latrine" and wonders why they didnt have a bathroom. To this Lizzie replies, "He wanted to give us ALL bathrooms. We begged him not to.  We had intended to move very shortly to a more fashionable location on the hill, etc..."  I was always under the impression that the film used verbatum script when re-enacting anything that had been documented, like the inquest for example.  But is this newspaper interview factual?  I find it so amusing and bizaare how she gives such a ludicrous answer to it. If the Bordens and their patriarch were well known, anyone reading this answer would know she was full of it, in a very gob-smacking way.  Do any of you guys know the answer?

ps: I didnt realize that currently aired versions of this film edited out some of the hacking moments... this being a tv film from the beginning, I find that odd...  

It's sad but true that censorship standards change from decade to decade, and not always for the better.  I've heard people who work for TV talk about various TV-movies such as LEGEND and say "They'd never get away with THAT today!"  As I'm fond of repeating, several ABC Texas affiliates refused to show the film for the original airing in '75.

Star, I don't have access to any of the newspaper articles, so, I can't help you there.  It does sound like something that was elaborated on, but, it does sound familiar, perhaps the part about the move to a more fashionable location.

Really, they cut the whacking scenes?  Theres not much to see, Lizzie with a hatchet lifting it, the victims reaction to that, and then close-up of Lizzie whacking with blood on her.  You never see the hatchet penetrate the heads like you would in a modern horror-type movie.  I think if anyone ever does a new Lizzie movie, they need to show that for people to understand the atrocity of the murders. 

I'm sure the whacking was simulate like that famous shower scene in Hitchcock's "Psycho". But hearing those knife whacks always gives me a shudder; just stab a piece of meat and you'll know why.

Perhaps its more of good taste than censorship?
What would the TV's liability be if many of their viewers became sick after watching? Or sued because they said they were?

"I'm sure the whacking was simulate(d) like that famous shower scene in Hitchcock's "Psycho"."

Well, GEEZ, I hope they didn't really butcher Fritz Weaver and Helen Craig!

Actually, even though Hitchcock was reported as saying the violence of the shower-murder in PSYCHO was an editing illusion, and that "you never see the knife touch the flesh," he was being less-than-truthful.  In one shot, the knife definitely appears to piece the victim's torso.  The sound effects were a knife being plunged into a melon!

I don't think any network which runs a disclaimer, as ABC did before its initial broadcasts of LEGEND, can be legally challenged - and maybe not even if they don't.   

Now lookie here, Bob, be not misinformed ma friend! Do you have a visual reference? The PSYCHO shower scene-- including the particular clip you are referring to-- has absolutely no image of flesh penetration, but Alfred did get as close as he could, the kooky genius. I can narrow down the exact edit indexes in LEGEND also...
1. A zoom in close-up of Andrew's body on the sofa, as seen by Adelaide Churchill right before the intro credits.
2. The first whack Lizzie gives Andrew-- there is a quick clip of something (the axe, of course, but it was obscured to the point of a shadow image) hitting him and his head falling to the sofa armrest. The soundtrack never had the slightest implication of how this murder would have actually sounded, it was all orchestrated- well done though!
I love the concave mirror shots... they add a certain creepiness to the moment that requires no gore.. ya think? I would love to see an updated film production of our notorious Lizzie and company. Especially since William Bast's interpretation is just one of what seems to be a gazillion! Besides, Miss Montgomery's (bless her) zombie-like rendition could use a little sprucing up. But I can never get enough of the scene where she turns all psycho-looking during a family argument in which her hatred for Abby is chillingly obvious. Abby: Oh, we know all about you and your way, Princess Lizzie. We know how you twist arms and throw tantrums just to get your way.
Lizzie: ......If  I  were  not..  a  lady..... I should twist YOUR arm MRS Borden- right out of its' socket!

Yikes!

Not to start WWIII, but, I know which part Bob refers to, there is a close-up of Vivian Leigh's stomach or her stand-in.  The knife comes down from the top of the frame and to me too, appears to go into her stomach just below the navel.  Lets see if these pictures post, if they do, its the lower, right hand pic.

War? What is it with the American obsession over this word? There is far too much sadness in every direction to ever want to add to it, I feel. Bob rocks! Peace bro! And Susan, well, eye candy in a reply only serves to engross (no pun intended) one all the more... way ta go, sweet cheeks!  However, my next reverse psychology manoeuvre involves great thanks for reinforcing the facts in this matter. As you can see from exhibit A, presented by the ever-lovely Susan, the knife does not penetrate the flesh- but comes as close as possible. Thanks guys! Now where was I at the start of all this? weeee     

After Andrew Borden's death there was an article we call: *Lizzie's Jailhouse Interview*. The article claims some information comes from a real estate agent.
The *Interview* with Lizzie preceeds all that comes next here which is part of the article, but not necessarily part of the interview.  The person who wrote it is called Mrs. M'Guirk, and claims, "I was anxious to see if this girl, with whom I was associated several years ago in the work of the Fall River Fruit and Flower Mission, had changed her character and become a monster since the days when she used to load up the plates of vigorous young newsboys and poor children at the annual turkey dinner provided during the holidays for them and take delight in their healthy appetites."
She then goes on to specify "extra chairs had been secured for the two visitors."

Casebook of Family and Crime, Joyce Williams, et.al., eds, pg. 133, from the NEW YORK RECORDER, September 20, 1892:
Article titled:
"IN A NEW LIGHT
Lizzie Borden in Jail Awaiting Trial
How She Appeared to a Recent Visitor in Her Cell
Feels Badly Over the Talk that She Shows no Grief"

" ...The reason the house was without such conveniences was that the girls desired Mr. Borden not to make improvements, because he was talking of moving up 'on the hill.'  Fall River's aristocracy live 'on the hill,' and Mr. Borden had declared to real estate agents that he was looking for a house in that section and that, although he would just as soon live in the old house, the girls desired to move and he wanted to gratify them."

This is a quote from a Question I posed to Mr. Rebello and which he kindly answered with his opinion based on his research in the July/August double issue of the Newzletter.  There was more to the question and his answer encompasses that.  But here is the citation for you.

[Edit Here]
--There is more to the "Interview" article as well:

"Naturally anyone who contemplated buying a new house and removing to it would not fix up his old house, which was in a district of tenements, as he would if he intended to remain in it.

When Mr. Borden wanted to put in modern improvements, the wife and daughters said they preferred to stand it rather than have the house torn up for piping."

[Edit Here]
From Casebook, Intro to Interview, pg. 129:
"Lizzie was in jail for ten months, from the day of her arrest until the end of the trial.  Little evidence exists of her thoughts during this period.  Our only insight may come from an article that appeared in the New York Recorder on September 20, 1892, reporting on an interview between Lizzie Borden and the author, a Mrs. M'Guirk.  Edwin Porter, in The Fall River Tragedy, maintains that this news story was a 'magnificent fake'.  Others have taken the report at face value.  If the account is true, it does indeed present Lizzie 'in a new light'.  We may see in this report the portrait of a suffering woman -- or a consummate actress."

(Message last edited Aug-29th-03  12:38 AM.)

Fall River Evening News, June 28, 1893 :8

"Have Not Purchased A House

There was a rumor about today that Misses Emma and Lizzie Borden had purchased the house on Underwood Street formerly owned by Rv. Dr. Mix and now owned by Mrs. Peabody of Salem.  This rumor has been denied on good authority.  It was proposed by the Borden family before the tragedy to purchase a house in some other part of the city, probably on the Hill, and the sisters may not give up the project, but they have not as yet purchased a house."

What American obsession with war are you talking about? 

I think we do a DAMN hell of a job saving millions of lives in this world.  There would be a lot more dead without us.

If that's obsession, the rest of the world better hope we don't recover.

Uhm, Harry, is providing a gaping hole for heated debate and simplifying what would appear to be our/your "knowledge" on a subject far too covert, frightening and impossible to condense into two  sentences repleat with "McDonald's-style" CNN propoganda a joke? Are you really serious about those remarks? War creates far too much sadness in my heart. Not to mention the fact that belligerent self-defence in itself creates suspicion and doubt. You and I, as individual human beings, are in an amazingly comfortable position on this planet compared to countless others.  Let's just be thankful about that and hope for the best. The juxtaposition of war with "saving millions in this world" is a concept I fail to grasp.  Now where is my third pear?  Oh there it is, right beside my sinker.. what a productive day this has been for me....

Uhm, star, I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. My remarks are quite clear, at least to me.

I have no intention of discussing politics on this forum nor should you. That is not what it is for.

I also had a great day. Hope you have another one.

I love "The Legend..." movie.  Julian Ralph never interviewed Lizzie Borden in her jail cell.  Julian Ralph - who was played in the movie by the guy who played Dr. Bellows in "I Dream of Jeannie" - was a very famous writer in his day.  He did cover the trial.  But in the movie they kind of condensed the two things:  The Interview and Julian Ralph.  There's a possibility that Mary Rice Livermore, who was a friend of Lizzie's biological mother, a strong Lizzie supporter, and well known in the day, wrote The Interview.  And there's a possibility it didn't take place at all.

I think "The Legend..." was very accurate in spots.  But they had to fill in the blanks somehow.  As usual, Abby was painted as the evil step-mother.  I wish it would be remade, too.  I'd do Abby differently.  Maybe a mix of good and not-so-good, since we don't know how she really was.  But there is enough out there to know that she had a bit of good in her.  And I'd have Emma despise Abby, as she did.

I'd have Bridget saying some good swear word when she's trying to open the front door for Andrew.  That's what made Lizzie laugh.  They used to say just about everything we do now back then.  I really doubt she just said "Pshaw".

Definitely show the blows, then later show the bare skulls to illustrate how horrible the acts (axe?) were.  The first time I saw the photos of the skulls was in the FRHS - they had these photos of them.  It was incredible and shocked me to actually SEE what was done to them.

And continue the story up until Lizzie dies.  A lot of people don't know what happened to her after the murders.  

Susan, your pictures from "Psycho" are great!  Thanks for posting those.  I think you meant to say "Janet Leigh", tho.  Vivien played Scarlett O'Hara in GWTW. 

Susan, thanks for the PSYCHO pix - that lower right shot is EXACTLY what I'm referring to!  Watch it again (and LORD knows, maybe this is both a matter of millimeters and perspective) and the shot, which I believe I read was taken in reverse, does show the side of the knife appear to JUST slide into the skin.  It is punctuated by Janet Leigh's offscreen "Ooh!" or "Oh!"

Star A., PSYCHO's actually either my favorite film, or one of two or three favorites.  I've been to the PSYCHO house recreation in Orlando, and the PSYCHO show there, and I own the film on VHS, LD and DVD formats.  I've got ther pre-video Richard Anobile frame-by-frame picture book...and I've got a little Norman-as-Mother figures, a Christmas gift from one of my sisters.  Oh, and I recently bought a plastic scale-model hobby kit of the Bates Mansion, and I can't decide whether to buy all the different colored paints (I did monster models as a child) and do it realistically, or to paint the whole thing black, stick a light in it, and glue the itsy-bitsy "Mother" up inside her window and stick it up on top of  the bookshelf.  Let's not go into my Bernard Herrmann collection!

But this doesn't mean I couldn't be mistaken or prejudiced about a point of the production!  While we're talking about wounds, though, isn't it odd (not given censorship, however), that Marion appears to be virtually untouched when she dies?  It's almost as if Mother scared her to death.  A very graphic, bleeding wound was digitally painted onto Anne Heche's back in the remake, but she was also lacking the numerous slices that should be present.

I recommend Stephen Rebello's fine book ALFRED HITCHCOCK & THE MAKING OF PSYCHO.  

(Message last edited Aug-29th-03  2:26 PM.)

I like the movie as well. Not terribly accurate (How could they leave out Morse?) but entertaining.

Your right, Emma should have been played up more and not such a wimp.  And Abby was played too harshly.  If she was that bad she probably would have been whacked long before that. 

The costumes and some of the scenery were quite good.

Harry, isn't it funny?  I don't think LEGEND's Abby is nearly as much of an ogre as she is in, for example, the ballet FALL RIVER LEGEND or the opera and musical both entitled LIZZIE BORDEN.

Helen Craig's Abby certainly isn't very pleasant, and not much of a duster (!), but I like to think she's got to be a bit of a bitch* just to hold her own in that house, what with her pompous, grotesque husband and her hostile step-daughters - well, Lizzie, anyway.  The look of shock and disgust turning to horror as she realizes her nude attacker is about to strike her down in the guest room is truly unsettling.

I have no doubt she'd be afraid that Lizzie would turn her out into the cold if Andrew checked out first, and therefore I'm not unsympathetic to her nagging Andrew to change the will.

*As Stephen King has Vera tell Dolores Claiborne in that Kathy Bates (our future Abby?) movie, "Sometimes, being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto!"   

Bob G. - That's true.  Janet Leigh looks unslashed in "Psycho".  Interesting point.  Any chance you can post a picture of your Norman/Mother figure?  Have you read the book by Robert Bloch?  It's very good - quite true to the movie.

In the "Legend" movie, they did show Andrew having a loving side toward Lizzie, which was probably accurate.  I think both victims have been getting a raw deal with their stereotyped characterizations for years.  I wish we could find more little tidbits about their personalities. 

Kathy Bates as Abby.  Soitenly! 

Yes Bob, I think Abby would have had to have had some spunk to survive that family.  Lizzie in the movie (as well as in real life) was a formidable presence and someone to be reckoned with.

Emma held her own during her trial testimonies so I think she may have been stronger than the legend leads us to believe.

'Where there's a "will", there's a way' doesn't quite fit the Borden saga, does it?

Augusta (great name)!  I think the changes from the original novel to the screenplay are fascinating, none moreso than the recharacterization of Norman as doe-like, pretty, sympathetic Tony Perkins.  In the book, he's much more like Rod Steiger, and there's some nattering on about his interest in the occult.  The wonderful Mr. Bloch, of course, wrote a short-story incorporating the Borden murders (SPOILER), apparently committed by an evil spirit inhabiting Lizzie's body after she'd fallen asleep in the barn (if I'm remembering it correctly). 

Harry, I loved the stuff we've gotten to hear about Abby in the last few years, some of it from Bill Pavao, such as Abby's complaining to Bridget about John Morse's not having a wife to take care of him and keep him at home!

There's also Phebe Bowen's devastation at her learning of Abby's death.

Makes "Mrs. Borden" extremely human in my eyes, if neither a saint nor a devil. 

"War is the continuation of (business rivalry) through non-diplomatic means." Business is also part of everyday human life. Primitives war over stealing cattle, etc. To get rid of war, you must get rid of humans. But nobody wants to do that.

Simply. Leave out Morse because he adds nothing to the drama. Why pay for another actor to stand around in the background. Business sense!!!

I won't comment on the sexual symbolism of that shot.

This sounds like a made-up story to put the "loathsome miser" in a good light by an obedient daughter: "yes, we didn't have a bathtub but we wanted it that way". Horsesheet!!!

  Yes, you are right, Augusta, Janet Leigh, pardon me, my Freudian slip is showing!

Bob, I recall reading the same thing that Star is talking about, that the knife never actually touchs her body, but, when I saw that scene, I thought, wait it minute, that looks like it touched her!  And that was my exact thought, they shot that scene in reverse and pulled the knife away.

Did your tour guide make the joke that I heard in Universal Studios, CA, that the trail leading up to the Bates' house is refered to as "Psycho Path"?

Heres another little tidbit for ya'!  Though it wasn't designed after the Psycho house, it was actually modeled after a school building in the west; Disneyland Paris' Haunted Mansion could give ol' Norman's house a run for its money!  Heres a pic:


(Message last edited Aug-29th-03  10:49 PM.)

A Simply simple adaptation of the Borden murders? The imaginative leeway and supposition available to any creative writer contracted to present a version of this crime could most definitely provide slick Uncle Johnzy with an intriguing characterization and involvement.  The words "unsolved crime" -- particularly one of such noteriety; repleet with broken family psychology, and at a time when a crudely-enforced male-dominated society was slowly reaching a turning point -- offer countless possibilities.
Simply. Isn't that why it is still fascinating to discuss?          

Do the quotations imply a dictionary definition or another source?  What's with the brackets around business rivalry? Grammatically, the word that structure the sentence to allow brackets is "business", and I can certainly understand why.  Business operations are hardly synonomous with armed combat. As much as I'd like to toss a hand grenade at a work associate every now and then --Not!-- I believe I would be violating a code of conduct. Mind you, I haven't read the fine print yet. Business senseless!

A truly eye-opening response. Not about Hitchcock, though. As many times as I have viewed and analyzed this scene with industry associates, not once has a sexual reference been inferred. From a visual perspective of subconscious relations, I still don't find it to be sexual in nature. I won't comment on the psychological implications of anyone that would.

I'm not an industry insider and I'm not a Hitchcock afficianado, tho I have met the man, but I'd say that a scene with a beautiful naked woman (maybe that's why she was put in a shower because she was needing to be naked for a killing scene)whose flesh is being repeatedly violated by a long, wide instrument, surely mimicks the sex act or rape at least.  The use of a knife, by a man to kill a woman who is a stranger, in real life, supposedly means the same thing.

Isn't that the whole point of the murder?  Because of mommy (he thinks), Norman cannot have a normal physical relationship with a woman and so he is reduced to imaginning the sex act as he slashes and knifes the beautiful woman-it's a fantasy and a release.  Symbolic.
In the later slasher movies the *bad* girls get killed, and this movie is a sort of precursor because Janet Leigh was also a *bad girl*.

BTW:  whether you agree or not with this theory of the shower scene, I did answer your original question, which you asked twice, but you seem to not have noticed.  It took about an hour to collect the remnants of the newsarticle for you.

http://www.filmsite.org/psyc.html

[In the next scene, the classic, brutal shower murder scene, an unexplainable, unpremeditated, and irrational murder, the major star of the film - Marion - is shockingly stabbed to death after the first 47 minutes of the film's start. It is the most famous murder scene ever filmed and one of the most jarring. It took a full week to complete, using fast-cut editing of 78 pieces of film, 70 camera setups, and a naked stand-in model (Marli Renfro) in a 45-second impressionistic montage sequence, and inter-cutting slow-motion and regular speed footage. The audience's imagination fills in the illusion of complete nudity and fourteen violent stabbings. Actually, she never really appears nude (although the audience is teased) and there is only implied violence - at no time does the knife ever penetrate her body, but in one split instant, it touches her waist just below her belly button.]

The infamous scene begins peacefully enough. She opens up a bar of soap, and turns on the overhead shower water - from a prominent shower head nozzle (diagonally placed in the upper left) that sends arched needles of spray over her like rain water. There in the vulnerable privacy of her bathroom, she begins to bathe, visibly enjoying the luxurious and therapeutic feel of the cleansing water on her skin. Marion is relieved as the water washes away her guilt and brings energizing, reborn life back into her. Large closeups of the shower head, that resembles a large eye, are shot from her point-of-view - they reveal that the water bursts from its head and pours down on her - and the audience. She soaps her neck and arms while smiling in her own private world (or "private island") - oblivious for the moment to the problems surrounding her life.

With her back to the shower curtain, the bathroom door opens and a shadowy, grey tall figure enters the bathroom. Just as the shower curtain completely fills the screen - with the camera positioned just inside the tub, the silhouetted figure whips aside the barrier. The outline of the figure's dark face, the whites of its eyes, and tight hair bun are all that is visible - 'she' wields a menacing butcher knife high in the air - at first, it appears to be stab, stab, stabbing us - the victimized viewer! The piercing, shrieking, and screaming of the violin strings of Bernard Herrmann's shrill music play a large part in creating sheer terror during the horrific scene - they start 'screaming' before Marion's own shrieks. [The sound track resembles the sounds of a carnivorous bird-like creature 'scratching and clawing' at its prey.] Marion turns, screams (her wide-open mouth in gigantic close-up), and resists as she shields her breasts, while the knife repeatedly rises and falls in a machine-like fashion.

The murderer appears to stab and penetrate into her, shattering her sense of security and salvation. The savage killing is kinetically viewed from many angles and views. She is standing in water mixed with ejaculatory spurts of blood dripping down her legs from various gashes - symbolic of a deadly and violent rape. She turns and falls against the bathtub tiles, her hand 'clawing and grasping' the back shower wall for the last shred of her own life as the murderer (resembling a grey-haired woman wearing an old-fashioned dress) quickly turns and leaves. With an unbloodied face and neck/shoulder area, she leans into the wall and slides, slides, and slides down the wet wall while looking outward with a fixed stare - the camera follows her slow descent.

In a closeup, Marion outstretches her hand (toward the viewer), clutches onto the shower curtain and pulls it down from its hooks (one by one) upon herself as she collapses over the edge of the bathtub - her face pitches forward and is awkwardly pressed to the white bathroom floor in front of the toilet. She lies bleeding on the cold, naked floor, with the shower nozzle still spraying her body with water [the soundtrack resembles soft rainfall]. The camera slowly tracks the blood and water that flows and swirls together counter-clockwise down into the deep blackness of the bathtub drain - Marion's life has literally gone down the drain. The drain dissolves into a memorable closeup of Marion's dead-still, iris-contracted [a dead person's iris is not contracted but dilated], fish-like right eye with one tear drop (or drop of water). The camera pulls back up from the lifeless, staring eye (freeze-framed and frozen at the start of the pull back), spiraling in an opposite clockwise direction - signifying release from the drain. [The association of the eye within the bottomless darkness of the drain is deliberate.]

(Message last edited Aug-30th-03  7:18 PM.)

Wow, Kimberly!
I was hoping you would respond.   I knew you would understand this basic symbolism.

Yes, thank you, Kimberly, wonderful find!  When my parents were still newlyweds, my dad took my mom to see Psycho.  Later when she went to take a shower, he snuck in the bathroom and ripped back the shower curtain scaring the living hell out of her!  Needless to say, from then on, whenever she took a shower, that bathroom door was locked!!! 

Has anyone read Helter Skelter lately? Susan Atkins (I've
quoted her here before) called life one big "intercourse"
everything was in & out -- eating, smoking, STABBING. I
think stabbing can be seen as rape -- in addition to the
in & out it is used to control & cause pain & make the
lives of others miserable. Why do some killers choose knives?
It seems so much more personal that shooting someone -- if
you shoot them you don't have to touch them or get their blood
on you, you don't have to invade their bodies. Stabbing seems
like the killer was enjoying the pain they were causing -- they
have quicker methods, but, they don't want quicker. They want
up-close & personal.

That site is great -- the movie reviews are so
in-depth, after reading them it seems like you've
just watched the movie.

They had a Psycho movie marathon the other night on
TV -- it is amazing what violence they will show & then
edit out bare flesh.

I was thinking more in depth of the symbolism of the shower scene murder after reading the synopsis.
It deals mainly with the victim, but I've been thinking about the murderer.  Not only is this the only way he can have a woman, he is dressed as his mother and at times thinks he's his mother.  So it's unclear if it was Norman's mother (in his mind) killing this woman or whether Norman is trying to invade, violate his own mother.  I think he already has invaded his own mother by taking over her identity and in her persona he *rapes* Leigh.  It is very confusing at this point, but apparently he is already a paranoid schizophrenic, so his ultimate motive is bound up in his personal fantasy.
This is Hitchcock, man.
Remember the tame little scene in North by Northwest when the train goes into the tunnel...?

Ed Gein was the model for Norman Bates -- Norman was wearing
his mother's dress probably because he couldn't be seen in
the movies in her peeled off skin, he was wanting to become
her because she had power over him -- like Gein is said to
have wanted to be a woman because women have power over men.
Norman, the pussy-whipped little boy, had to become his
bossy, aggressive old momma to be able to control women,
but, being a "woman" he couldn't "invade" a woman like a man --
he had to do it like a woman -- with a foreign object, in
this case with a knife, choosing if someone lives or dies
is about as controlling/powerful as you can get.



"It was from the obituaries that Eddie would learn of the recent deaths of local women. Having never enjoyed the company of the opposite sex, he would quench his lust by visiting graves at night. Although he later swore to police that he never had sexual intercourse with any of the dead women he had exhumed ("they smelled too bad"), he did take a particular pleasure in peeling their skin from their bodies and wearing it. He was curious to know what it was like to have breasts and a vagina and he often dreamed of being a woman. He was fascinated with women because of the power and hold they had over men."

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notorious/gein/bill_1.html



(Message last edited Sep-1st-03  1:37 PM.)

Well, maybe yes, maybe no.  We really only have Norman/Mother's account of Mother being a grasping harpy, as he embodies her.  Maybe she was just a nice lady with a seriously nutty son - after all, when Norman describes the madhouse to Marion as she eats, how does he know so much about "the cruel eyes studying you" UNLESS HE'S BEEN IN ONE?

There's an ongoing discussion among Hitchcock writers/fans/scholars as to Norman's sexuality, and whether Norman as Mother is righteously eliminating the sluts who have aroused her little boy, or whether "she's" murdering the object Norman know he should desire, but can't, due to his incestous desires for his mother, or possibly his homosexuality.

Great works of art are open to many interpretations, and inspire endless conversations!  

(Message last edited Sep-2nd-03  11:34 AM.)

They say serial killers kill the sex they are attracted to --
Ted Bundy even had a "type" he was going after. I think I would
have been his type, maybe I do need a haircut after all......

That looks like some designer's  or architect's inside joke!!!
How many of the French have seen Hitchcock's "Psycho"? Was it even subtitled? Could it have appeal to a European audience?

I think England and the Continent have their share of killers, like Bela Kiss (the origin of the name for a rock band?).

Yes, the story of an unsolved murder is intriguing to some. The question was summarized in one book as: she couldn't have done it, but who else could have? AR Brown's book answered that question.

But the political unsolved murders are much more important.

The quote is from Clausewitz' "On War": War is the continuation of diplomacy using non-diplomatic means. But diplomacy IS the strife between businesses. A tariff pact? Tolls on imports? Subsidies for exports?

Ever hear of the Stamp Act (business!) and other such laws? Mike Wright's "Everything They Didn't Teach You" about the Revolution is a good and interesting book to read.

That's what I've read too. Except we all know that stabbings go back to the Stone Age, and involve men as well. It's what you want to read into this scene. Putting a pointed object over that part of a woman's anatomy is certainly suggestive.

The short story was based on a real sicko murderer who lived in central Wisconsin circa 1957; found insane, jailed for life.
Fiction oftne "improves" on reality since they can make the "facts" fit the point they are trying to make.
Example: the fictional works by Hunter, etc. on the Borden murders.

Actually, this follows the classic moral conventions that "bad things happen to bad people" (as often in real life: look at the part of town where drug dealing goes on). Or the ENRON offices?

To convince people to stay moral?

I understand that this highly edited series of shots was a classic to tell a story w/o sound. Hitchcock learned his trade in the 1920s Germany, when silent films ruled. (It also avoids the costs of translation. See "The Birds" for another example: gas station fire.)

I once read a book on the real murderer who inspired this book.
One reason it was in B&W was to keep costs down, in case it flopped. It was a monster hit and made Hitchcock a millionaire.

Could it have been made in the 1940s or early 1950s? I think not.

This actual murderer (Gein rhymes w/ fiend) was also the inspiration for "Silence of the Lambs", another shocker exploitation movie.

Ray, the French not only worship Hitchcock, the first deification of him was done by French writers in the film magazine CAHIERS DU CINEMA.  Francois Truffaut's classic book-length interview of Hitch is a must-have for every Hitchcockian's shelf (especially the revised and expanded version).

And this is a matter of opinion, but I would hardly call the Academy-award winning, sensitively acted and written, and superlatively acted SILENCE OF THE LAMBS "another shocker exploitation movie!"  

(Message last edited Sep-3rd-03  2:13 PM.)

I saw it on TV a few years ago. It seemed like a shocker (slasher?) movie. It was exploitative because it seemed like "shock for shock's sake" (or is that shlock for shlock's sake?).

What are the definitions of "exploitative"?

By the way, you still haven't given the sources for your claim of discrediting P Cornwell's book on Jack. Will you ever do so?

Pardon me if I missed it; being busy the last 2 weeks.

I saw it on TV a few years ago. It seemed like a shocker (slasher?) movie. It was exploitative because it seemed like "shock for shock's sake" (or is that shlock for shlock's sake?).

What are the definitions of "exploitative"?

By the way, you still haven't given the sources for your claim of discrediting P Cornwell's book on Jack. Will you ever do so?

Pardon me if I missed it; being busy the last 2 weeks.

Hitchcock was popular by the early 1940s, long before any exports, IMO.

"Hitchcock was popular by the early 1940s, long before any exports, IMO."

Explain, please?  Hitchcock was very popular in his native England before the '40s, and his earlier stint at Germany's UFA studios certainly enriched his ability to tell a story in pictures. 


*******

For those of you who are still following this, as you know, I've verified that there was an article about Cornwell's Ripper theory in the Dec. '02 VANITY FAIR.  If, indeed, this is not the article that dissed the crime writer, I read something in either THE NEW YORKER or THE NY TIMES SUNDAY MAGAZINE that did so, and I confused the pieces when I first mentioned them.  I won't be mailing you xeroxes of any of these, Ray, as this is a peripheral issue you have grabbed ahold of in an effort to make my posts look as specious as most of yours.

What is the definition of "specious?"  According to Webster's Desk Dictionary, "apparently true, right, or attractive but lacking real merit."

(Message last edited Sep-3rd-03  4:16 PM.)

Bob G., please don't worry about your reputation here or in Borden studies.  You are the *Prince* of Bordenia, and have the length of tenure to prove it.
Seems I recall someone backing up your memory on here, Vanity Fair article.

BTW:  Remember the old 'Bob & Ray Show?' 

Rays:  I found the following on www.casebook.org...
joe

Without a doubt the most highly-publicized Ripper book to come out in recent years has been Patricia Cornwell’s Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper – Case Closed. Cornwell claims to have found DNA evidence linking Walter Sickert to a small number of Ripper letters. Her book rapidly climbed the best-seller lists and was the subject of numerous radio and television programmes around the world.

Unfortunately, as we mentioned above, the Ripper correspondence is almost certainly not from Jack the Ripper. Although a handful of letters – the “Dear Boss” and “From Hell” letters, for example – are believed by some researchers to have been real, no DNA matches were found to these items. Instead, DNA “matches” – or, more appropriately, similar mtDNA sequences – were found on lesser-known Ripper letters which were never considered by the police to be from the true killer.

In the end, Cornwell may have found evidence to suggest that Walter Sickert hoaxed one or more Ripper letters – but the fact remains that Sickert was in France on the nights of at least four of the five canonical Ripper murders. He was not Jack the Ripper.

Oh, how funny, Kat!  I loved those guys when I was a kid, and I'm also a fan of the very odd Chris Elliot, Bob's son.  Thanks for the encomium, too!

Joe, thanks for the backup excerpt regarding the shortcomings in Cornwell's research.

Oh, and if you haven't read it elsewhere, I've won the eBay copy of VICTORIAN VISTAS 1886-1900! 

I almost started to bid on the Vista's book Bob, but I saw your name. Congratulations!

The dishonest claim of Bob was that P Cornwell was an "idiot" and that 'Vanity Fair' refuted her claims. THIS NEVER HAPPENED!!!

And Bob NEVER could admit whether he made this up, or made a mistake from faulty memory, or tried to make his quote look good.
Can we ever trust any other of his quotes?

I am discussing Alf's films in the USA, of course. I was not living in 1930s Britain. I did see some of his 1930s films on PBS, but thought they were so-so (constrained by budgets?).

After he died, one magazine article said hundreds of British writers & such were on a Gestapo blacklist, to be immediately put in a concentration camp after the invasion. THAT is one good reason to migrate to America. (They didn't say if he worked with English intelligence during his years in 1920s Germany.)

So who is today's Hitchcock? Anyone? Or are the times different?

You're going a bit far out on your limb Ray.
You might end up sawing it off, yourself.
We don't make accusations like those you have made, around here, Thanks.

Hitchcock really was one of a kind, and much of his work exists in a highly artificial world that doesn't really exsist anymore - a return to this kind of filmmaking was, for example, FAR FROM HEAVEN (which was, of course, riffing on the films of Douglas Sirk and Ross Hunter).  For Hitchcockian work by modern directors using (rather than abusing) digital technology, see Robert Zemeckis' WHAT LIES BENEATH and David Fincher's PANIC ROOM.

(Ray, I won't retype my answer to your "charges" yet again.  Even though you behave like an adolescent, I'm sure you're not from many of the things you've written.

Therefore, why don't you act your age?)

Obviously, you cannot provide any reference to a review that discredited P Cornwell's book. And never will?

Just why anybody would call her an "idiot"? She certainly seems like a smart woman who enriched herself by her fiction.

The 1972 "Frenzy" certainly tested the bounds in films. But so much has come out since then just on TV (?) as to make it appear old-fashioned. I am not familiar with any of those films or directors; I just don't pay any attention anymore. Because of old age?

The 1944 film about the serial murderer (forgot the name) was certainly one of the best, and low-keyed. The more shocking a film, the smaller the paying audience. And its all about money.

"North by Northwest" was the first film I saw, but forget most of it. Seeing on TV a few years ago, I realized what I now saw in it. Particularly the comments about Government secrecy and power; probably missed by 95% of the audience. What do you say?

One of the "tricks" of Hitchcock was to let the audience in on the secret. Unlike some films ("The Thin Man") where everything was settled in the last 5-10 minutes. This flattered the audience into thinking they were smarter than the actors on the screen. A technique still used widely in today's police shows. With some exceptions.

But I like to be the one who can climb the highest on the tree, and go the furthest out on the limb. You can analyze this, and you will.

(Message last edited Sep-4th-03  6:12 PM.)

There is a modern director who copies the style of Hitchcock. I don't remember his name. One film was "Blow Out"?, the other about a murdered wife around 1984? Both have references to other films.

The essence of Hitchcock was an innocent man who is being sought by the police for a crime he didn't do. Certainly a Nightmare! One that can happen to anyone of us. The 1958? film about a musician charged with a robbery was based on a True Crime; it was a failure. But the 1959 "Psycho" made him very rich; and he deserved it. Could someone do a film about J Dahmer (?) today? Or are we too blaze? People won't pay to see what is often in today's newspapers and magazines. THAT is what is different from 40-50 years ago. (You may dispute this.)

The "Merry Widow Killer" is certainly not from an artificial world. "The 39 Steps" is from a John Buchan novel, more or less based on his WW I intelligence activities (?). Hitchcock was a great engineer in translating stories to film

Any comments about "The Birds", a film where Nature rebels against Man?

My analysis is that if you continue to impugn a reputation, people will stop reading you and then you will end up unread.

(Message last edited Sep-4th-03  7:09 PM.)

Well done, Kimberly! Talk about an ace in the (bathtub) hole!  I must confess, however, that I fully understood the sexual violation/rape inference of the shower scene but I wanted to see who could come up with the most detailed reply, and Kimberly makes me weak with that one! You guys rock!  But I had a feeling Ray(s) would tip over the deep end.  I'm sure he can swim well, though. 

(Message last edited Sep-4th-03  7:47 PM.)

Is this some kind of prank?
We are to believe you now?
You are ignoring my input, where I challenged your take on Psycho, And answered your question.

Would you like to introduce yourself?

I didn't write that. It was the review from that site.

You're talking about Brian DePalma and his Hitchcock "tributes" such as SISTERS, DRESSED TO KILL, and BODY DOUBLE.

(There is a low-budget film about Dahmer, available on DVD, actually, as well as one called GACY.)

Hitchcock often explained suspense by saying that the audience is given information the characters onscreen don't have.  His favorite example was "the bomb under the table."  Shock is when you watched a scene, and a bomb exploded.  Suspense is when you watched two characters chat on and on while, unbeknownst to them, a bomb ticked away nearby...

Part of Hitchcock's genius, as supplemented by his various writers and his brilliant wife's input, was to show that the veneer we call society can be very thin indeed, and thus a fragile, artificial construct, falsely comforting.  This is demonstrated in the films you've mentioned, THE 39 STEPS, THE WRONG MAN, and NORTH BY NORTHWEST, where those innocent men are forced to either run for their lives or endure mental and/or physical tortures.  I also mean artificial as in impossibly and impeccably coiffed and dressed, like Madeleine in VERTIGO, Eve in N BY NW, and especially Melanie in THE BIRDS; that very 50's & 60's "every hair in place, no loose threads" look.  THE BIRDS is, on one level, a study in how VERY "peccable (peckable?)" Melanie becomes, from the first blow of the gull which disturbs her hair, to her wholesale rape, if you will, by the birds in the attack on the top floor of the house.

Well, that's enough outta me! 

i'm coming in on the end of this hitchcock discussion, but i can tell you what is so outstanding about hitchcock as a director/artist is his awareness that watching a film, the fascination with it, ,etc. -- is that it is a form of voyeurism.  in my judgement, "vertigo" is his crowning achievement.  i once wrote a paper on it in a film class.  obviously psycho and rear window reference the subject.  once you analyze vertigo, you have to confront the possibility that "falling in love" is a selfish delusional experience.  anyway, i do digress from lizzie.  BTW, any ingmar bergman fans?

"the talented mr. ripley" had a lot of hitchcock in it.  i can't recall the director at the moment.  i don't know what you're getting at anyway.

so much about hitchcock!  how did this topic come about here?  how interesting.  hitchcock is one of the greats because he understood the medium.  psycho is a good example of a director taking an inferior book and making a great film.  did someone actually say that hitchcock or "psycho" was trash?  if so, that's stupid.  people need to stick to what they know if they are of a mind to critique.  the subjects we veer into never cease to amaze me.

That is so weird you wrote that about *Love*.
I was contemplating the very thing last night.
I had seen a bit of Dr. Phil where men wanted to know flat out what women wanted of them.
It didn't imply lack of communication, it implied the men wanted to know the minimum required to keep a woman happy and off their back.  The women wanted way more than the men could ever deliver.  I felt like the women were being unreasonable.  What they seemed to require were traits we might associate more with the Feminine.
That's when I realized a woman's expectations sound like unrealty, or fantasy; and it sounded selfish, because it was all about what they wanted.
I started to think about *in love* and it did seem like something a person believes in, like faith, where it's not anything tangible.  I think "delusion" is an apt description.

(Message last edited Sep-7th-03  1:01 AM.)

Interesting re the topic of "love".  I just spent time in England with my parents (who have been married over 40 years), & my bro & sis-in-law, who just celebrated their 33rd anniversary on Sept 4.

I'm always amazed @ Michael & Sandra, as they've been together since they were both around 19!  Now they're in their early 50s.  My brother still compliments her all the time & they're both very happy.  They sort of grew up together, having changed lifestyles a number of times, had their children very young, lived in different parts of the world, then both went back to school late & both got Ph Ds.

My parents have gone thru hell & back over the years.  Their marriage was saved in the early 90s by therapy...but they lasted & grew old together & likely to stay together until they die.  They bicker constantly, but it's more amusing then anything else.  I laughed @ them & said, "Gawd, you two are just like an old married couple!"  They're quite happy with their little routines & now closer than they were when I was growing up.

It seems to me lasting love is more about a true friendship, being a "team" & accepting one another as family (ie warts & all).  Our culture puts a lot of emphasis on the romance/sex part of relationships, to the point where that is all that's supposed to be "worked on" or kept alive.  Those things are only part of the whole picture.  People nowadays seem to go into marriage expecting some sort of ideal.  With that POV, inevitably there'll be disappointment.

I guess I'm lucky to have seen the reality of marriages that work.  Romance & sex are kept alive, maybe not as hot & passionate as at the start of a love affair (which it seems we've been conditioned to want) but as a part of an integrated whole that is a lot deeper & lasting.

That is well put.
The idea of love is in the mind.  It's created like a fantasy, nurtured with dreams, and allowed to prosper and then become.
It's weird how it's all in the mind, and a body's response.
Something that important, you'd think you could *see*.
The friendship aspect I hear is important, but in my flaming youth it wasn't that.

yeah, i think there is a "type" of love or "in love" where one is literally "under a spell."  it's bad when it's not mutual because you cannot control it; it just has to run its course.

In an interview by Rex Reed for the NY DAILY NEWS some years ago, Hitch mentioned that among other historical figures he'd love to dine with, Lizzie was right up there.

I once read that a great movie come from a bad or so-so book. A great book results in a poor or so-so movie. Its in the translation.
Maybe it also reflects the budgeting process. A great book gets a small budget for scripting; a bad book MUST get good writers. IMO

I swim like a seal; but I haven't gotten wet for years.
How many old ocean swimmers do you know?

That is an interesting thought Bob, dining with Lizzie.  Just imagine if we could indeed do that. We probably wouldn't get anything out of her but we would get a better sense of the person she was.  She did have that reputation as a good conversationalist.

I wonder if she ever made an "appearance" on the old Steve Allen TV show where he gathered famous historical figures around a table for dinner. Anybody know?

Yes, I remember reading that about Hitchcock too!  That would be one interesting dinner, let me tell you!  I guess if we couldn't get anything out of her then we could always try a little sodium pentathol (truth serum) injection? 

Harry, I think that show only had what Allen considered the "great brains" of their respective times, like Galileo and Cleopatra.

Cleopatra was, of course, portrayed by Jayne Meadows (Mrs. Allen)!

Thanks Bob.  I guess our Lizzie wouldn't quite qualify.    She'd make the most infamous show though.

Again an oddity that you all are discussing Lizzie in our real world.
The last several nights, in the dark, I've tried to imagine Lizzie as a real 3 dimensional person, looking as she does in the world now.
Walking around.  In her era clothes.  With that hairdo.
I only know what her front looks like!

If Lizzie was wealthy heiress, what would she be like? Yuppie or airhead? Devoted to charity work? Married to a young MBA in Daddie's empire?
I suspect the latter; the old prejudices against nouveau rich are mostly gone today. Or am I wrong?

Lizzie would probably be the way she was then -- doing as she
pleased, with whoever she wanted to do it with. She was single,
and having affairs with actresses & her servants -- she didn't
need a man to support her -- she had more money than she could
spend. Living today she would fit right in, living as she did,
and not be shocking at all.