Welcome back! Join me while I breakdown another movie plot Enjoy the memories and watch out for spoilers! “People always mean well!They cluck their thick tongues and shake their heads andsuggest, oh so very delicately!” On a late Friday afternoon inthe city of Phoenix, Arizona. A secretary named Marion Crane and her lover Sam have just finished eating out in a cheap hotel. The two plan to get married butSam still has a few years left.
Of signing alimony checks for his ex-wife. This upsets Marion who hasnever been married before and the two part ways as Samleaves for his business trip. Marion gets back to the real estate office that she's worked at for the past 10 yearsto be greeted by her coworker Caroline, and is soon followed in by her boss Mr. Loweryand his eccentric new client Mr Cassidy. He's just purchased a house for hisdaughter's wedding with 40,000 cash and flirts with Marion, telling her that he never carriesaround more than he can afford to lose.
Before she takes off for the weekend Lowery tasks Marion with depositing the largesum of cash at the bank until Monday morning. With all this talk of weddings and marriage, Marion decides to pack her bags and keep thecash for herself to pay off Sam’s alimony. She takes her car and plans todrive to Sam's home in California, but Mr Lowery notices her as he walks pasther at an intersection on her way out of town. Guilt and fear begin to fester inside herbut she continues to go through with it and drives well into the night. The next morning she'swoken by a highway patrolman.
Having pulled over in the middleof the night to take a nap. She acts nervous which makes him suspicious, but with no money reported stolen yet he simplytakes her registration number and lets her go. Knowing that it could give her away, she decides to trade her car intothe charismatic California Charlie. The patrolman's followed herthere and watches on intently as she slips away to the bathroom. She pulls 700 cash required for thetrade and hands it over to Charlie without even testing the car.
Due to the approaching officershe almost forgets her suitcase, as she nervously scrambles to getaway before he can ask anything else. Driving all Saturday until nightfall, Thoughts begin to run through her head of all the things that willbe said about her on Monday, as the rush sends a smile over her face. Unable to see the road due to heavy rain, she decides to pull over for thenight at the first sign of shelter, the Bates Motel.
She finds the office empty but awoman in the large house behind it, so she honks her horn to get her attention but is greeted by a soft-spokenyoung man named Norman. He tells her that no one ever staysthere ever since they move the highway, but she signs in under a fake name anyway asit seems the perfect place to remain hidden. After first contemplating which roomto put her in Norman chooses Cabin 1, claiming that it’s closershould she need anything. With Marion feeling hungry andthe nearest town 15 miles away, Norman invites the beautifullady to have dinner with him,.
Which she accepts. While he's up at the housefixing some supper for them Marion wraps the money in newspaperand hides it in plain sight. She begins to hear shouting from the house Norman's mother’s low opinion ofwomen and their exotic way of living. Mother demands that he stay away fromthem but Norman yells at her to shut up. Upon returning with sandwiches and milk Norman claims that mother isn't quite herself and invites Marion to eat inthe parlour behind the office.
Though Norman doesn’t partake and insteadjust sits there watching and talking. The parlour is filled with stuffed birds which Norman says is the only animal he enjoysworking on since they look passive anyway, though a hobby is meant to pass time, for Norman it fills it. When asked about friends he simply saysthat a boys best friend is his mother. Norman was only five when his father passedaway and he took over duties caring for her, but talks about being trapped. Soon after though she met a man whoconvinced her to build the motel with him.
Marion recognises that she fell rightinto one of life's little traps, but the animated Norman saysthat he was born into his. When the mention of puttingher in a home is brought up, Norman’s expression changesand he calls her uncaring “we all go a little mad sometimes.” Marion takes this as acautionary tale of what could be and decides to return the money in the morning, giving her real name of Crane on her way out. Norman sees she gave a false signature onthe ledger and goes back into the parlour.
He takes a picture down to reveal a peepholeinto Cabin 1 where he watches guests changing, then puts the picture backand rushes back up the hill. After figuring out on a piece of paperhow she's going to pay back the 700, Marion flushes the scraps down the toilet andsteps into the shower with a new lease on life. Norman sits down in the kitchen andgives a new look towards camera, before a shadowed figure of an oldwoman pulls back Marion’s shower curtain wielding a chefs knife and begins stabbing at her. She isn’t able to escape the attackerwho runs away after the slaying, as she slides down the bathroom walland slumps over dead on the floor.
“Mother! oh god mother! Blood! Blood!” Norman yells out in shockat mother covered in blood and comes running down the hill todiscover Marion’s lifeless body. Despite being obviously troubledby the sight of violence, he cleans up the murder scene. He wraps her in the shower curtainand places her in the trunk of her car along with all of her belongings, not realising there's 40grand inside the newspaper. After mopping up the bathroom,.
He drives to a swamp out back of the hotel and pushes her car into it beforewatching it slowly disappear. One week later and Sam's decidedhe wants to elope with Marion but is confronted by her sister Lilawho hasnt seen her since last friday. The in-your-face private investigatorMilton enters shortly after, having been hired to recover the stolen money. Since Lowery spotter her headingout of town on Friday after noon, Milton is convinced that Marion isjust hiding out somewhere in town close to her boyfriend.
After receiving nothing from them, he goes around town checking all the local hotelsuntil eventually coming to the Bates Motel, which he says feels likeit’s hiding from the world. Norman greets him outside but says that therehaven't been any guests at the motel in weeks. Looking into the registry Miltondiscovers Norman's first lie when he sees the fake name writtenin Marion's own handwriting. Stammering over his words, Norman claims to now remember her and says thatshe stayed the night but left early Sunday. Milton suspects that Marionis paying Bates for sanctuary.
And accompanies him to investigatethe motel's 12 empty rooms. Sitting at the window is Mother, so Milton asks to question her but Normanrefuses claiming that she is an invalid and won't be of any help. When suggesting that Marion is usingNorman like a white knight to protect her, Norman says that she may have fooledhim but she didn’t fool his mother. This makes him more determined to speak withher but Norman tells him to get a warrant. Milton goes to a payphoneand calls Lila to tell her about Marion staying at the Bates Motel's Cabin 1.
With something not feelingquite right about the place. he tells her that he's going backto speak with Norman's mother and that he will meet them in an hour. Norman's changing linen when Miltonarrives back and the two miss each other. He finds the Office empty and snoops around a bit before heading up to the houseand walking straight inside. Milton heads up the stairsand just reaches the top, when he is suddenly set upon fromMother's room and slashed in the face. He falls back onto the floor and isjumped on and swiftly finished off.
It's been three hours since Milton called Lila, so Sam tells her to wait for him whilehe goes to the motel to search for him. When he gets there he calls out for theinvestigator but he is nowhere to be found, while Norman hears him from the swamphaving just disposed of his remains. Having wanted to avoid gettingpolice involved due to the theft, Sam returns to Lila with the suggestionthat they finally speak with the sheriff. Sheriff Chambers and his wife hear the twoout and decide to phone the Bates Motel, but Norman just says that Miltononly visited and then left. They ask him to speak withNorman's Mother but is told.
That she's been dead andburied for the past ten years, having poisoned her lover andherself before being found by Norman. The two insist she is alive as Norman himself had told Miltonearlier that she was just ill. Despite the sheriff suspecting Marionis just on the run with the Cash, this makes Chambers curious as to whois really buried in Mrs Bate's grave. Back at the motel Norman goes up to Mothers room andthey begin to argue back and forth. Norman wants to hide her in the fruitcellar for a few days but she protests,.
So he picks her up and carries her down himself. The next morning outside of church, Chambers tells Lila and Sam thathe already spoke with Norman and searched the motel before service, but found nothing. He guesses that the detectivejust moved on without telling them and Marion ran away with the money. Unsatisfied with these conclusions, the two decide to investigatethe Bates Motel for themselves.
When greeted by Norman they pretendto be a couple just passing through and looking to rent a room. Norman is suspicious of thetwo as they have no luggage but assigns them to Cabin 10 anyway. While discussing what they're going to do next, Lila suggests that Norman has takenthe 40 grand to fund the failing hotel and plans to search Cabin 1 for any clues. After waiting until the coast is clear, they take the key from the emptyoffice and begin to search the room.
Sam notices that the shower curtain's missingwhile Lila finds a scrap of paper by the toilet with a number subtracted from 40 thousand. Assuming this means that Norman found the money, at the behest of Lila Samdistracts Norman down at the motel while she sneaks up to thehouse to question Mother, insisting to Sam that shecan handle a sick old lady. She enters and begins searching throughthe upstairs rooms starting with Mothers, a Victorian-styled room with adeep impression in the mattress. Her reflection in the mirror startles her,.
While Norman is shown to be getting frustratedwith Sam’s increasingly intrusive questions. Lila looks in another roomthat feels frozen in time, a bedroom containing Norman'schildhood toys and a small child’s bed. When Sam mentions Mother, Norman realises that he is being distractedso that his partner can speak to her, so he knocks Sam out. As Lila's just coming down from the second floor, she sees Norman running up the hill andhides on the cellar steps to avoid him. Norman heads upstairs while Lila decides tosearch the last unchecked room of the house,.
A fruit cellar situated atthe rear of the basement. In it sits an old woman notreplying to any of Lila's calls, so she taps her on the shoulder revealing it to be the propped-up remains of Norman’s dead Mother. Lila screams when suddenly a living Mother enters with her chefs knife blocking the escape. Sam shows up in the nick of time andrestrains the attacker as the wig falls off, revealing it to be an out-of-his-mind Norman. Later that night a psychiatrist gets to the bottom of the story but not from Norman.
From Mother After the death of Norman Father his Mother sheltered him away from the world as if no one else existed When she took a lover Norman felt he wasbeing thrown away so he poisoned them both. Consumed with guilt over the matricide, his mind erased the crime and split half of itself into the personality of Mother to keep her alive. He dug up her corpse and wore herclothes to further the illusion. Since Norman was jealous of her loverhe assumes she would be the same of his, and killed anyone the he found attractiveincluding Marion and two women before her.
At times he could be both personalities during other’s Mother would take over completely, meaning that he was never all Norman but was often only Mother. Norman would feel like he had just wokenup and was disposing of the corpses simply out of loyalty to family. Having now been completely consumed by Mother, the shell of Norman sits alone in a holding roomwhile the voice of Mother dominates his head. She feels bad about telling the policethat her son committed the murders.
But says that she needed tothrow them off her trail. A fly climbs across Norman's handas Mother sits perfectly still, hoping to fool the police into thinkingthat she wouldn't even harm a fly. And the movie ends. Thank you for watching Have a nice day 🙂
Repeatedly cherished Anthony Perkins portrayal of Norman.