"Psycho" - classic movies and the short story writers who deserve our thanks

Robert Bloch

I’ve loved the Hitchcock movie, Psycho, ever since I saw it at the Globe, Putney, when I was 12 (I wrote about that experience here). But for many years now, I’ve been annoyed whenever cinephiles waxing lyrical about the film cite the fact that the heroine gets bumped off a third of the way through as an example of Hitchock’s originality. Of course, they're not wrong about the Great Man – but the plain fact is that the heroine gets bumped off a third of the way through the book the film is based on.

I was surprised, when I eventually read veteran horror writer Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel, Psycho, to discover that the film is pretty faithful to the book. The story of a psychotic motel owner who dresses up in his dead Mom’s clothes and gets caught after butchering a female guest who has absconded with a stack of her firm’s money – well, none of that was thought up by Hitchcock. Of course, the director and his screenwriter made some notable changes to the original story (for instance, Bloch's Norman Bates is a fat, middle-aged alcoholic) – but, compared to the wholesale butchery usually visited on an author’s original conception, the changes to Psycho represent tweaks. 

Nevertheless, as Hitchcock was a highly respected film director (albeit in the middle of a relatively lean patch), rather than a grubby horror scribbler, guess who got all the credit?

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying an intriguing short story collection, No, But I Saw the Movie: The Best Short Stories Ever Made into Film, edited by David Wheeler, which was published in paperback in 1989. One of the featured stories is Robert Bloch's “The Real Bad Friend” - which has nothing whatsoever to do with the movie, Psycho. But here’s what Wheeler has to say about it:

“Certainly Hitchcock’s most famous work, Psycho, was loosely based on the real-life story of Ed Gein, the Wisconsin murderer whose grisly activities included dressing up in “suits” made from the skins of his female victims. But according to Bloch, the original basis for the thriller came from the following story.”

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

It was Bloch who based his novel Psycho - published two years after "The Real Bad Friend" - on the doings of Ed Gein, another mother-dominated cross-dresser. Hitchcock based Psycho on Bloch’s novel of the same name, not on the featured short story (which, by the way, is also excellent).

Poor old Robert Bloch. Is he to be forever denied the credit he's due? (By the way, Bloch, who started out as a follower of H.P. Lovecraft,  was the originator of a quote often misattributed to Stephen King: “Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.")

Despite Wheeler's howler, his collection is fascinating. I’ve always known that 2001:A Space Odyssey, Rear Window, Guys and Dolls, The Fly and Don’t Look Now were based on short stories - who doesn't? - but I didn’t know that the following were:

High Noon                            “The Tin Star” by John M. Cunningham

Stagecoach                           “Stage to Lordsburg” by Ernest Haycox

It Happened One Night          “Night Bus” by Samuel Hopkins Adams

Bad Day at Black Rock            “Bad Time at Honda” by Howard Breslin

It’s a Wonderful Life             “The Greatest Gift” by Philip Van Doren Stern

While some of the stories have been considerably altered and bulked out by moviemakers, It Happened One Night is remarkably faithful to Investigative reporter Samuel Hopkins Adams' 53-page novella "Night Bus" - including both of the famous  "Walls of Jericho" sequences. 

They’re all terrific stories in their own right, brilliantly and concisely told (I've often tried to write short stories - all I can say is that they make my novels look good) – and the pleasure we’ve all derived from the classic films they were turned into is incalculable. Just look at the above list! I hope the writers were all paid top dollar for the rights to their tales, and that they experienced a thrill of satisfaction from seeing their names up there on the screen and from hearing the laughter, sobs, gasps and applause of audiences spellbound by films that wouldn't have existed without them. Thanks, chaps. 

I'm pleased to report that when Hollywood decided to do a sequel to Psycho in 1982, Robert Bloch - who was no mean writer, and no fool, commercially - rushed out a novel entitled Psycho II, which had nothing whatsoever to do with the film, but which sold well on the back of it. Good for him!