Interesting Facts About Alfred Hitchcock and the Movie Psycho

In the 50 years since the film, Psycho has been released it has become on of the most popular and iconic films of all time. The infamous "shower scene" is probably the most recognizable and well known scene in film history. Even those of us who haven't seen the movie can recall the music, the rapid cuts that all made this scene feel so real. There was no nudity and tame violence by today's standards but it really did the illusion of these elements. There has been a lot of secrecy surrounding this particular scene of the film and the whole film in general really.

Supposedly Hitchcock instructed the theaters not to admit anyone after the film had started. He wanted everyone in their seats and watching once the lights dimmed to add to the cinematic experience. Hitchcock also bought up all of the copies of the original novel that the film is based to prevent anyone from learning how the story ended and did not grant the press advanced screenings. But it isn't the twist ending that lead to most of the films controversy. It was the famous shower scene. The rapid cutting and iconic music really made the audience think that the star Janet Leigh was actually in the shower being stabbed. The actress herself even stated how real the whole thing felt whilst filming it.

After the films release both Hitchcock and Janet Leigh maintained that it really was the actress filming the scene, but in reality it wasn't. There was a body double used for the scene. Every time you see Leigh's body but not her face, it was the double. The body was that of model Marli Renfro who was only in one other film after this.

The story gets stranger in 2001 when a 34 year old man was sentenced for murdering her in 1988. Upon investigation the report claimed that the man had killed two women, one being an actress named Marli Renfro whose real name was Myra Davis. Further investigation revealed that Marli Renfro and Myra Davis were two different people. Renfro was Janet Leigh's body double and Davis was Janet Leigh's stand in. Marli Renfro wasn't dead at all, the reports had wrongly reported the body double had been murdered when it was the stand in. The man who killed Myra Davis was so obsessed with that scene and wanted to kill Leigh's body double but because of the confusion and secrecy around the scene, mistakenly killed the wrong person. It is sort of fitting that this iconic, frightening scene has such a macabre true story behind it.

Janet Leigh used to claim how embarrassed she was to shoot the scene and Hitchcock even propagated the lie for her. Supposedly, Janet Leigh was so distraught over people asking her about this one scene that it fueled her drinking habit and ruined her marriage. Had the two been more forthright about the truth of the scene perhaps there would be less of a fascination with it.

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