Psycho. Hitchcock chose to do his film in black and white to get around something called the hays code. When this film was made, movies were still being censored by the hays code. The hays code started during 1930s

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Psycho

 The film Psycho was made in the 1960’s by a director named Alfred Hitchcock.

     Alfred Hitchcock was an English man born in 1899. He worked in Hollywood during the 1970’s. Some of his famous films include: North by North West

                      The birds

                      Vertigo

                      Rear window

   Psycho which was released in 1960 was ground breaking in it’s time and it remains in the top 10 of great films today.

   Although colour TV was available in the 1960’s, Hitchcock chose to do his film in black and white to get around something called the hays code. When this film was made, movies were still being censored by the hays code. The hays code started during 1930’s. There were a set of rules films had to pass before being released.

  1. No scenes of undressing.
  2. No gratuitous violence.
  3. No one should profit from crime.
  4. No nudity

 Hitchcock found ways to get around these rules.

     For example, in the very first scene it shows two of the characters Marian Crane and her boyfriend Sam getting dressed. This gets around the undressing rule because they were already undressed and were getting dressed. Also in the scenes where murder took place, because the film was in black and white, the redness of the blood could not be seen; this couldn’t be classed as violence.

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     The plot is very simple. It is about a lady called Marian Crane played by Janet Leigh who works in an estate agent. She steals $40,000 from her employer and planned to elope to Fairvale, several hundred miles away from her home town, Phoenix. She planned to meet her boyfriend Sam who was unaware of her actions. She travels alone which is highly unusual for women in the 1960’s. This raises some suspicion about her.

      About 15 miles away from Fairvale she stops at a remote motel, called the Bates motel. She comes across the ...

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