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The Times (01/Jul/2004) - Who killed Janet Leigh

(c) The Times (01/Jul/2004)

Who killed Janet Leigh?

A legend has evolved that it was Saul Bass rather than Alfred Hitchcock who directed the infamous shower sequence in Psycho (1960) with Janet Leigh.

According to Bass: “I was on the set the day the scene was scheduled to be shot. Hitchcock had me set up the first shot. When it came time to film, Hitchcock told me, ‘You know what to do, go ahead.’ I swallowed hard and said ‘Roll camera.’ Hitch sat back in the director’s chair, nodded his head occasionally and encouraged me.”

Bass was credited for the film’s titles as well as a “pictorial consultant”, but it seems unlikely that a perfectionist with an ego like Hitchcock’s would let someone else direct such a scene.

“I was in that shower for seven days,” recalls Leigh, “and, believe you me, Alfred Hitchcock was right next to his camera for every one of those 70-odd shots.” As for Hilton Green, the assistant director: “There is not a shot in that movie that I didn’t roll the camera for. And I can tell you I never rolled the camera for Mr Bass.”

What’s not in doubt is that Bass helped to lay out the storyboards for the film. Stephen Rebello, the author of Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, points out that the challenge in 1960 was how to suggest violence and nudity: “Saul Bass came up with the brilliant suggestion of using bits and pieces of film.”

Bass’s participation may be one of those urban legends, but the sadness is that he and Hitchcock never worked together again.

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