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Psycho Quotes (1960)
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Famous Psycho Quotations
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Numerous critics had already sharpened their knives even before Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot color "re-creation" of the 1960 black-and-white Hitchcock classic was released, chiding the Good Will Hunting director for defiling hallowed ground. This intriguing cinematic curiosity, though, is hardly as sacrilegious as critics would lead you to believe. If anything, Van Sant doesn't take enough liberties with his almost slavish devotion to the material, now updated with modern references. At times, you wish Van Sant would cut loose with a little spontaneity, a little energy, a little something. Unfortunately, when he does venture outside Hitchcock's parameters, with inserted shots of storm clouds during the murder sequences, it's to little effect. Granted, he liberally splashes color throughout the film (especially in the case of the infamous shower scene), and this is a great-looking movie, but in his obsession with adding a new physical dimension to the film, there's little insight into these characters that Hitchcock hadn't already provided. Vince Vaughn, a robotic and giggly Norman, doesn't crawl under your skin the way boy-next-door Anthony Perkins did, and Anne Heche is admirable if not very sympathetic in the Janet Leigh role. Van Sant does score a minor coup, though, in his casting of the supporting roles: Julianne Moore provides a welcome shot of energy as Heche's irritable and curious sister, William H. Macy is a perfect small-time detective, Viggo Mortensen is studly enough to make you understand why Heche would want to run away with him, and James LeGros walks away with his one brief scene as a used car salesman. And Danny Elfman's gorgeous rerecording of Bernard Herrmann's score is a potent supporting character unto itself. Students and fans of the original film will get a kick out of the modern revisions, but don't expect anything of Hitchcockian caliber; watch it for the sum of its intriguing parts, but not the whole. --Mark Englehart
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- Charlie, hardware clerk: I'm in no mood for trouble.
Marion Crane: What?
Charlie, hardware clerk: There's an old saying, "First customer of the day is always the trouble!" But like I say, I'm in no mood for it so I'm gonna treat you so fair and square that you won't have one human reason to give me ...
Marion Crane: Can I trade my car in and take another?
Charlie, hardware clerk: Do anything you've a mind to. Bein' a woman, you will. That yours?
Marion Crane: Yes, it's just that - there's nothing wrong with it. I just ...
Charlie, hardware clerk: Sick of the sight of it! Well, why don't you have a look around here and see if there's somethin' that strikes your eyes and meanwhile I'll have my mechanic give yours the once over. You want some coffee? I was just about ...
Marion Crane: No, thank you. I'm in a hurry. I just want to make a change, and ...
Charlie, hardware clerk: One thing people never oughtta be when they're buyin' used cars and that's in a hurry. But like I said, it's too nice a day to argue. I'll uh - shoot your car in the garage here. »
- Deputy Sheriff Al Chambers: Your detective told you he couldn't come right back because he was goin' to question Norman Bates' mother. Right?
Lila Crane: Yes
Deputy Sheriff Al Chambers: Norman Bates' mother has been dead and buried in Greenlawn Cenetery for the past ten years!
Eliza Chambers: I helped Norman pick out the dress she was buried in. Periwinkle blue.
Deputy Sheriff Al Chambers: 'Tain't only local history, Sam. It's the only case of murder and suicide on Fairvale ledgers. »
- Detective Milton Arbogast: Oh, someone has seen her, all right. Someone always sees a girl with $40,000. »
- Detective Milton Arbogast: We're always quickest to doubt people who have a reputation for being honest. »
- Detective Milton Arbogast: Well, if it doesn't jell, it isn't aspic, and this ain't jellin'! »
- Dr. Fred Richmond: Like I said... the mother... Now to understand it the way I understood it, hearing it from the mother... that is, from the mother half of Norman's mind... you have to go back ten years, to the time when Norman murdered his mother and her lover. Now he was already dangerously disturbed, had been ever since his father died. His mother was a clinging, demanding woman, and for years the two of them lived as if there was no one else in the world. Then she met a man... and it seemed to Norman that she 'threw him over' for this man. Now that pushed him over the line and he killed 'em both. Matricide is probably the most unbearable crime of all... most unbearable to the son who commits it. So he had to erase the crime, at least in his own mind. He stole her corpse. A weighted coffin was buried. He hid the body in the fruit cellar. Even treated it to keep it as well as it would keep. And that still wasn't enough. She was there! But she was a corpse. So he began to think and speak for her, give her half his time, so to speak. At times he could be both personalities, carry on conversations. At other times, the mother half took over completely. Now he was never all Norman, but he was often only mother. And because he was so pathologically jealous of her, he assumed that she was jealous of him. Therefore, if he felt a strong attraction to any other woman, the mother side of him would go wild.
Dr. Fred Richmond: When he met your sister, he was touched by her... aroused by her. He wanted her. That set off the 'jealous mother' and 'mother killed the girl'! Now after the murder, Norman returned as if from a deep sleep. And like a dutiful son, covered up all traces of the crime he was convinced his mother had committed! »
- Dr. Fred Richmond: No. I got the whole story - but not from Norman. I got it - from his mother. Norman Bates no longer exists. He only half-existed to begin with. And now, the other half has taken over. Probably for all time.
Lila Crane: Did he kill my sister?
Dr. Fred Richmond: Yes, - and no. »
- Lila Crane: I can handle a sick old woman! »
- Lila Crane: Look, that old woman, whoever she is, she told Arbogast something. I want her to tell us the same thing.
Sam Loomis: Hold it, you can't go up there.
Lila Crane: Why not?
Sam Loomis: Bates.
Lila Crane: Then, let's find him. One of us can keep him occupied while the other gets to the old woman.
Sam Loomis: You'll never be able to hold him still even if he doesn't want to be held. And, I don't like you going into that house alone.
Lila Crane: I can handle a sick old woman! »
- Marion Crane: I'll lick the stamps. »
- Marion Crane: Oh, we can see each other. We can even have dinner but respectably in my house with my mother's picture on the mantel and my sister helping me broil a big steak for three.
Sam Loomis: And after the steak, do we send Sister to the movies? Turn mama's picture to the wall? »
- Marion Crane: Thank you.
Norman Bates: Thank you, Norman.
Marion Crane: Norman. »
- Norman Bates' Mother: No! I tell you no! I won't have you bringing some young girl in for supper! By candlelight, I suppose, in the cheap, erotic fashion of young men with cheap, erotic minds!
Norman Bates: Mother, please...!
Norman Bates' Mother: And then what? After supper? Music? Whispers?
Norman Bates: Mother, she's just a stranger. She's hungry, and it's raining out!
Norman Bates' Mother: "Mother, she's just a stranger"! As if men don't desire strangers! As if... ohh, I refuse to speak of disgusting things, because they disgust me! You understand, boy? Go on, go tell her she'll not be appeasing her ugly appetite with MY food... or my son! Or do I have tell her because you don't have the guts! Huh, boy? You have the guts, boy?
Norman Bates: Shut up! Shut up! »
- Norman Bates: A boy's best friend is his mother. »
- Norman Bates: A hobby should pass the time, not fill it. »
- Norman Bates: Are you sure you wouldn't like to stay just a little while longer? Just for talk? »
- Norman Bates: Dirty night. »
- Norman Bates: Hate the smell of dampness, don't you? It's such a, I don't know, creepy smell. »
- Norman Bates: I don't set a fancy table, but my kitchen's awful homey. »
- Norman Bates: I think I must have one of those faces you can't help believing. »
- Norman Bates: Mother! Oh God, mother! Blood! Blood! »
- Norman Bates: Now mother, I'm going to uh, bring something up...
Norman Bates' Mother: Haha... I am sorry, boy, but you do manage to look ludicrous when you give me orders.
Norman Bates: Please, mother.
Norman Bates' Mother: No! I will not hide in the fruit cellar! Ha! You think I'm fruity, huh? I'm staying right here. This is my room and noone will drag me out of it, least of all my big, bold son!
Norman Bates: They'll come now, mother! He came after the girl and now someone will come after him. Please mother, it's just for a few days, just for a few days so they won't find you!
Norman Bates' Mother: 'Just for a few days'? In that dark, dank fruit cellar? No! You hid me there once boy, and you'll not do it again, not ever again, now get out! I told you to get out, boy.
Norman Bates: I'll carry you, mother.
Norman Bates' Mother: Norman! What do you think you're doing? Don't you touch me, don't! NORMAN! Put me down, put me down, I can walk on my own... »
- Norman Bates: Oh, we have 12 vacancies. 12 cabins, 12 vacancies. »
- Norman Bates: She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you?
Marion Crane: Yes. Sometimes just one time can be enough. »
- Norman Bates: She might have fooled me, but she didn't fool my mother. »
- Norman Bates: Uh-uh, Mother-m-mother, uh, what is the phrase? She isn't quite herself today. »
- Norman Bates: Well I'm not a fool. And I'm not capable of being fooled! Not even by a woman. »
- Norman Bates: Well, a son is a poor substitute for a lover. »
- Norman Bates: You know what I think? I think that we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out. We scratch and we claw, but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch.
Marion Crane: Sometimes, we deliberately step into those traps.
Norman Bates: I was born into mine. I don't mind it anymore.
Marion Crane: Oh, but you should. You should mind it.
Norman Bates: Oh, I do
Norman Bates: but I say I don't.
Marion Crane: You know - if anyone ever talked to me the way I heard - the way she spoke to you...
Norman Bates: Sometimes - when she talks to me like that - I feel I'd like to go up there - and curse her - and-and-and leave her forever! Or at least defy her! But I know I can't. She's ill. »
- Sam Loomis: Bob! Run out and get yourself some lunch, will you?
Bob Summerfield: Oh, that's okay, Sam, I brought it with me.
Sam Loomis: Run out and eat it! »
- Sam Loomis: You never did eat your lunch, did you?
Marion Crane: I better get back to the office. These extended lunch hours give my boss excess acid.
Sam Loomis: Why don't you call your boss and tell him you're taking the rest of the afternoon off? Its Friday, anyway - and hot.
Marion Crane: What do I do with my free afternoon? Walk you to the airport? »
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