Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Psycho (1960)
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It would have been the great Anthony Perkins' 85th birthday today. The actor was born in New York City; his father Osgood was a big star on Broadway and did lots of character work in Hollywood, but Tony barely knew him - he died of a heart attack when Tony was just five. Tony went to a bunch of fancy private schools before turning to acting in 1953 in George Cukor's film The Actress...

... which was based on an autobiographical play written by no less than Ruth Gordon! Jean Simmons (weird that I've brought her up twice this week already - she's not an actress I'm super familiar with) plays Ruth, Spencer Tracy plays her father, and Tony plays the boy who wants to marry her. I haven't seen the film (should I?) but this seems like an awfully big role for a debut - I wonder how he got it (cough George Cukor cough).

I'm just gonna put that picture of Tony and his good friend Paul Newman there, just because. Anyway I'm glad I got the opportunity to bring up Psycho today because Bates Motel is currently airing, as you might be aware of, and the new season has made it from prequel to present, aka they're dealing with the timeline of Hitch's actual film this year, and I really wanted to share a behind-the-scenes picture from last week's "Shower Scene" as it was... only it's tremendously spoilery and I was worried about how to do it. So I'll take us after the jump for that -- if you care about spoilers for this season of Bates Motel, do not click through!


That is Austin Nichols, otherwise known as "Jake Gyllenhaal's basketball buddy," who played Marion's illicit boyfriend Sam Loomis on the show and who, in a switcheraroo, turned out to be the victim that Norman (Freddie Highmore) murders in the shower.

In all honesty the show seemed eager as hell to get around everything actually having to do with the plot of Psycho itself, and the two episodes involving its characters have felt rushed as heck - I know I read in an interview with the show's director that they had an incredibly brief window of Rihanna's time (she played Marion) so that probably added to it. But they were clearly feeling skittish.

Anyway the show's always been as its best when it focuses in tight as a drum on the relationship between Norman and Norma and the acting between Freddie and Vera Farmiga - the two of them, when allowed to take over, are always riveting in the strangest, funniest ways, and they're doing some of their best work this year, even if the show continually and frustratingly insists on opening up its world to include other people. I suppose they've got me feeling like Norma & Norman feel - leave us alone, world! Just let them be!

I will say, since the whole subject of "Queer Creeps" is a subject near and dear to my heart, that I love the fact that the show turned hard into Norman's confused sexuality this year - having him go to gay bars and hook up with dudes while Norma, and having the victim in the shower be a male this time, it goes to the places that I am sure Alfred Hitchcock would have wanted to take the story if he'd been allowed to in 1960.
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