Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho is a non-fiction book by Stephen Rebello. It details every aspect of the creation of director Alfred Hitchcock's famous thriller Psycho released to theaters in 1960.
The book was first published in April 15, 1990 by Dembner Books and distributed by W. W. Norton and Company. Stephen Rebello researched the film thoroughly through Hitchcock's personal records and archives and he interviewed virtually every surviving cast and crew member. Prior to the book's publication, Rebello's initial research appeared as a 22-page article in the April 1986 issue of Cinefantastique magazine entitled "Psycho: The Making of Alfred Hitchcock's Masterpiece". That research was expanded for the book version.
Synopsis
From Hitchcock's acquisition of the original novel by Robert Bloch to his work with two different screenwriters, casting, filming, editing, scoring, and promotion, the book takes readers into the day-to-day lives of moviemakers who believed they were making a modestly budgeted, black-and-white shocker that represented a radical departure from the elegant, suspenseful films that had made director Hitchcock's reputation, including Rope, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Man Who Knew Too Much and North by Northwest.
The project Hitchcock tackled in part as an experiment to compete with financially successful, low-budget, youth-oriented horror movies went on to astound many by becoming a cultural watershed, an international box-office success, a film classic, and a forerunner of the violent, disorienting films and real-events of the turbulent Sixties.
Publication history
Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho was initially distributed in hardcover print by W.W. Norton for Dembner Books on April 15, 1990 in the United States. A trade paperback edition was released in the United States in 1998 by St. Martin's Griffin. Subsequently, the book has been published in hardcover and paperback by Marion Boyars Limited in Great Britain and Australia. It has also been published in translated international editions in Japan by Byakuya Shobo, France, Germany, and in Italy by Il Castoro. The book has since become a standard and continues to be used in film studies classes on director Alfred Hitchcock.
In 2010, Open Road Media launched the first ebook version of the book, which in 2013 was re-published in a motion picture tie-in edition in the U.S.. The book has been re-published in early 2013 in the England, Italy and Japan, as well as published for the first time in Brazil, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Russia, Korea, and China. Blackstone Audio in 2013 released an unabridged audiobook narrated by Paul Michael Garcia.
Film adaptation
Production commenced on April 13, 2012 of a film based upon the book. The film is directed by Sacha Gervasi and stars Anthony Hopkins as director Alfred Hitchcock, Helen Mirren as his wife Alma Reville, Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, Jessica Biel as Vera Miles, and James D'Arcy as Anthony Perkins. Produced by The Montecito Picture Company and distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures, the film was released in 17 U.S. cities on November 23, 2012.
