Wrong Place, Wrong Time

I was thinking about the time it took to get to Norman Bates. About the first 30 minutes is all Marion Crane's story. I know that Psycho (1960) was about different characters besides just Norman Bates, though, even the diehard fans like me admit he's a lot of the retained value of the film's popularity and pop culture status. Her story is quite important...until it's not. That is the fleeting nature of life. You impulsively flee with money that doesn't belong to you, just thinking about a future with this man in debt due to his late father's store and ex-wife's alimony payments and a rainy interruption of a trip from Phoenix to Fairvale, California, sends you on a direct course with a tragic life cut short. With the cop waking her up and the subsequent trip to the auto dealership for a new car, I do wonder how Marian expected to ever pull this off. As the film built to the famous shower scene, I guess we have to wonder, once Marian saw her boss walking across the sidewalk in Phoenix, how she ever continued on to hopefully arrive at Fairvale. It was enough of a trip to convince herself that taking the money was not a very good idea. Desperation to be with Sam seemed to be the push Marian needed to take off with the money, but if she had only changed her mind...that trip to Phoenix averted, her life protected from ever meeting Norman Bates. But the film alternating its route from Marian carrying the money back home and facing the consequences of her actions to her lover and sister trying to find her, focus shifts to Norman and those "out to get his mother". I always just love how Hitchcock pulled that off...his camera on the money in the newspaper, indicating how important it is to Marian's future, only for that to become so less valued as Norman "protecting mother at all costs".

The film opening overlooking Phoenix, with the camera panning into the window of the rented hotel room strictly hired for a sexual rendezvous, and the introduction of the two lovers...it does feel like a melodrama. But that detour once Marian decides to flee with the money leaves behind the drama for something far more sinister is pure Hitchcock.