This is a request for some horror movie icons by @MightyMorphinPower4 and we have Janet Leigh as Marion Crane from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. If this was the worst thing that happened to her at the Bate's Motel, she would call it a good day.
Janet Leigh was the only child of a couple who often moved from town to town. Living in apartments, Janet was a bright child who skipped several grades and finished high school when she was 15. A lonely child, she would spend much of her time at movie theaters. She was a student, studying music and psychology, at the University of the Pacific until she was "discovered" while visiting her parents in Northern California. Her father was working the desk at a ski resort where her mother worked as a maid. Retired MGM actress Norma Shearer saw a picture of Janet on the front desk and asked if she could borrow it. This led to a screen test at MGM and a starring role in The Romance of Rosy Ridge. (1947). MGM was looking for a young naive country girl and Janet filled the bill perfectly. She would play the young ingénue in a number of films and work with such stars as Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper, James Stewart, Orson Welles and Judy Garland. She appeared in a number of successful films, including Little Women (1949), Angels in the Outfield (1951), Scaramouche (1952),Houdini (1953) and The Black Shield of Falworth (1954), among others. Janet would appear in a variety of films, from comedies to westerns to musicals to dramas. Of her more than 50 movies, she would be remembered for the 45 minutes that she was on the screen in the small-budget thriller Pyscho (1960). Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, this 1960 classic would include the shower scene that would become a film landmark. Even though her character is killed off early in the picture, she would be nominated for an Academy Award and receive a Golden Globe. Her next film would be The Manchurian Candidate (1962), in which she starred with Frank Sinatra. For the rest of the decade, her appearances in films would be rare, but she worked with Paul Newman in Harper (1966). In the 1970s she appeared on the small screen in a number of made-for-TV movies. In 1980, she appeared alongside her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis in The Fog (1980) and later, in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998). Janet Leigh died at age 77 in her home in Beverly Hills, California on October 3, 2004.
Marion Crane is a lead character in Psycho (1960) and was played by actress Janet Leigh.
The character of Mary Crane was originally created by author Robert Bloch for his 1959 novel, Psycho. During the early stages of the film's production, the studio's research department found there were two people with that name in the Phoenix area and Hitchcock was asked to select from a list of alternative first names from which he chose "Marion,"
Marion Crane is in her late 20s and living in Phoenix Arizona, along with her younger sister Lila. Marion's father died after being struck by a car when she was a teenager and she later nursed her dying mother through a long illness. Unable to attend college herself, she undertook a short business course and then began working for a real estate office whilst supporting Lila through college.
After her mother's death, and at the insistence of Lila, Marion took a short Caribbean cruise where she met and fell in love with divorcee Sam Loomis. Although keen to marry, Sam insisted that he must first clear off the debts he inherited when his father died. He now runs his father's hardware store in Fairvale, California and hopes to clear his debts within a few years.
Frustrated at her dead-end life in Phoenix and with Sam's insistence on waiting before they can marry, she seizes an opportunity to steal $40,000 from her employer and leaves Phoenix on the afternoon of Friday December 11th, 1959, to drive to Fairvale. En route, she tries to rationalize her actions and to decide what to tell Sam.
After sleeping overnight in her car by the side of the road, she is awoken by a passing highway patrolman who checks to see if she is alright. Increasingly consumed by guilt and fear over the theft, and spooked by the sudden appearance of the patrolman, Marion begins acting suspiciously. In the next town, she trades in her car and hastily buys a replacement from a used car salesman.
Continuing on, Marion is caught in an evening rain storm and accidentally turns off the main highway onto an old and unfamiliar road to Fairvale. Unaware of how close she actually is to the town, she pulls off at the Bates to get some rest with the aim of reaching the town the following day. Keen to cover her tracks, she checks into the empty motel under a false name.
After a small meal with the shy and socially awkward owner of the motel, a young man named Norman Bates who seems to be dominated by his elderly mother, Marion realizes her folly and decides to return to Phoenix the next day, before the loss of the $40,000 will be noticed by her employer on the Monday morning. With the guilt of the theft lifting from her shoulders, she takes a cleansing shower in her motel cabin bathroom. However, whilst she is still in shower, she is brutally attacked and murdered — the assailant seemingly Norman's deranged mother.
After Norman discovers the murder, he disposes of Marion's body and her possessions — including the stolen money which he fails to notice — by sinking her car into a nearby swamp.
Marion's body is eventually recovered after Lila and Sam expose Norman Bates as the actual murderer.
No comments:
Post a Comment