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Show 8E The Salt Lake Tribune Sunday, May 22, 1983 After 23 years, Norman Bates is being released to go home By Larry Kart Chicago tribune Movies make their strongest impact when the viewer is still in the age of innocence, capable of drinking in whatever the picture has to offer without any preconceived notions of art to line the emotional digestive tract. Of course you guzzle down a lot of cinematic rotgut that way. But when the real stuff comes along, well, all of us probably have a story about the time we saw a film that separated our innocent head from our shoulders, leaving us as devastated by pity, fear and terror as the audience that gathered in ancient Greece to catch the premiere performance of Oedipus Rex. Spontaneous Hit One movie that did that job as well as it can be done was Alfred Filmed Hitchcocks "Psycho. mind is whether Psycho II" will be true to the spirit of the original, and on that score Perkins is eager to offer reassurance. "Its definitely not a ripoff, he says. They havent just borrowed the obvious props and the obvious characteristics of the people from Psycho and spun out a story that has no validity to it. "What theyve done instead is make a kind of homage to the original, but without the dry, replicated quality that so many homages have. (Director Richard) Franklin has retained Hitchcocks light touch. He doesnt dwell on the violence. I suppose they could have said, Look, were going to have to go overboard and put lots of gore into Psycho II because horror films have gone so far since the original came out. Very Restrained But if thats what it takes to come up with a sequel to Psycho, they havent done it. By contemporary standards, it's very restrained. You're not dealing with a Night of the Living Dead or a 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre kind of picture. Besides, Psycho wasnt really based on the theme of evil. It was based on love, Normans love for his mother. That removes some of the relentless, leaden quality that material has. quickly and cheaply on the Universal Studios backlot and released in 1960 to reviews that ranged from tepid to hostile, Psycho was a sponthe most financially taneous hit successful movie Hitchcock ever made. That "Psycho also was a great movie was a conclusion some critics arrived at several years after the innofact, though the more-or-lecent victims who went to see Psycho the first time around certainly had no doubts. Well, yes, at one point in Psywas a movie that Psycho Norman does say, A boys cho, senses the and worked, assaulting is his mother. But subsefriend best the emotions with unprecedented events do not leave one with quent notorious was the There power. the feeling that normal human afshower scene, in which a fection wa3 what Hitchcock had in Janet harpy slaughtered mind. Leigh (the films apparent heroine) Instead, the role love plays in after only about 40 minutes of screen time had passed, leaving the Psycho" can be summed up by anaudience totally unsure of what was other Norman Bates bon mot, which occurs during that same preshower-scen- e going to happen next. chat, just after Marion has Scream Moment that Normans troublesuggested of an Then, after superbly some orgy parent might be better off in a orchestrated suspense, there was home. nursing the horrific, Oh, no, he replies. If you love moment when Vera Miles (playing Leighs sister, Lila someone, you dont do that to them. . . even if you hate them. Crane) met the mummified mother of Tony Perkins and then had to face Continuing Saga moms living and very angry looka-lik- e But so much for the original film, who was, of course, Perkins at least for the time being, and on to himself. the question of how the saga of NorIn case youve forgotten, the name man Bates is continued in Psycho of the character Perkins played in II. You might not have thought Psycho was Norman Bates, a rather repressed young man whose there was room for a sequel, Perkins says. I know I didnt have the hobby was, as he delicately explained to Leigh, "stuffing foresight to envision how it could be done. things. . .you know, taxidermy. Now, 23 years after the original Psycho does come to an end on film made it clear that Norman was a resounding major chord, with Nora taxidermist par excellence, Perman locked up in a hospital for the kins and Miles are back on the loose criminally Insane. So there certainly in Psycho II, a sequel to the Hitchcouldnt have been an immediate secock classic that will debut nationquel, unless Norman had escaped or wide on June 3. avoided incarceration through some The first question that comes to other melodramatic act. ss h it ' , guaranteed-to-make-you-screa- It o I (By the way, Psycho 11 the movie has nothing to do with Psycho II the book, a sequel to the Robert Bloch novel that inspired the original film. In Psycho II the book, also written by Bloch, all hell breaks loose when Norman wanders onto the set of a movie whose plot is based on his past crimes.) starred in the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock as Norman Bates in Psycho II. returns film, Psycho, Anthony Perkins, who But I dont think that would have been the proper way to do it. Youve got to wait the years out and pick up the story when Norman is released. That way it works very gracefully. In other words, this is a sequel that takes place in real time. Twenty-thre- e years have passed since Psycho was made. And in Psycho II the same period of time has elapsed since the original films in which our traumafinal scene tized hero sat there while a portentous psychiatrist intoned the followNorman Bates no ing epitaph: longer exists. He only half existed in n fho rV TADtCH RESTAURANT lie LUNCH, . FOR FORMATION r not i Steak (Petite Sirloin Cut) or Halibut (Breaded or Unbreaded) I USA; which is nationally televised) NOW Ages Send your name, address, phone number and birthdate to: MISS UTAH USA get the second Miss Utah USA, 1983 June 10, 1983 Present coupon JHMSo.700 PRESENTS: MEXI-TRAVE- L when ordering. Not good with any other discounts. E Regional Headquarters 3732 North 600 East Provo, Utah 84604 launa Lewis lunch of equal or less value for Vs price! Good Mon. through Sat. 1 1 am-- 4 pm. Expires 8 White Sandy Beaches SLC Swimming . 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It wasnt spooky at all. When I arrived on the set of Psycho II and saw that they had assembled a lot of the old props, it was just like coming home. And there was nothing spooky about making the original Psycho either. Most of the time, we were chewing on the insides of our lips just to keep from laughing. I didnt look at the old film just before I started this one because Id encountered it now and then over the years on TV and felt I remem Yes, 2181 So. 700 East featuring a variety of Fresh seafood DAILY, AND PRIME - the first place. And now the other half has taken over. . .probably for all time. But what does probably for all time mean, given the miracles of modern medicine and the overcrowded state of our mental wards? 11-- 9 Sun. thru Thurs., 0. Frt. & Sat. Coupon not good with other discount offers. at the door Student tickets available at Union Main Desk $8.50 tickets available at: Cosmic Aeroplane, Salt Lake Cougar Records, Provo Listen to FM 107, your new music station, for details 139 EAST SOUTH TEMPLE on his own, particu- en. Open Tickets $8.50, $7.50 for U. of U. students $9.00 , hes larly if there are some angry leftover characters from the old story who arent satisfied that he got off by being declared Insane, well, thats where the plot begins to thick- 1 BOW WOW WOW STEAKS, standably, she has resisted Normans release, so when he does get out, she begins to harass him and you can see the possibilities. "Now, Norman is truly rehabilitated. His cure is genuine, and his psychiatrist, played by Robert Loggia, is one of the principal characters in the film. Plot Thickens But Normans rehabilitation is genuine only as long as he is living an incarcerated life, with help. When ASUU Welcomes with special guest 004 Union Ballroom, University of Utah Tonite, 8:00 p.m. bered all I needed to remember. Anyway, Ive lived with the part of Norman for 22 years. In the eyes of many people, Ive never not been Norman. So that feeling kind of leaks out and inhabits you a bit. Does it bother me when people assume I am Norman Bates? Well, it was very uncomfortable for the first decade, until my wife (actress Berry Berenson) suggested that there was no point in living with the uncomfortableness of it because all that did was confirm peoples feeling that I was like Norman in the first place. Get Behind It She said, Why dont you just get behind it and enjoy it? which was an idea no one had ever mentioned to me before. It seemed like good advice, so I did what she suggested. And in the second decade, Ive enjoyed it very much. Besides, the people who come up to me in airports and hotel lobbies and restaurants and what have you theyve always enjoyed their Psycho I experiences. They all have their Psycho stories; everyones got one that they think I havent heard before, though of course I have by now. And they always relate them with a sense of genuine pleasure. They never sy, How could you make such a horrible, violent movie? Its always something like: You win. We were fooled. We were taken in and legitimately scared. Mass Scream (One Psycho story, for what its and it may be worth someworth thing because Perkins said he hadnt heard it before took place shortly after the film was released. A group including myself was waiting for the previous showing of Psycho to end when a mass scream erupted from at the point, inside the theater though we didnt know it at the time, when Vera Miles meets Normans Column 2 See Page E-- ... evil-soak- knife-wieldi- Miles is also in the picture, playing Lila, Marions sister. 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