The casting of Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh in “Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho” means there’s a fair chance Johansson will be seen in a white Maidenform bra in a re-creation of the 1960 film’s scandalous opening scene, in which Marion Crane (Leigh) and her divorced boyfriend Sam Loomis (John Gavin) have a lunchtime tryst.
She may even be glimpsed in a black Maidenform bra if the movie shows the filming of the two scenes in which Marion wears one, the blackness signifying her “deviance” as an unmarried sexually active woman and the thief of $40,000.
But don’t bank on Johansson appearing naked in a shower as Norman Bates’s knife is plunged in and out of a Casaba melon to make the exact stabbing sounds required by Hitchcock (who will be played by Anthony Hopkins). Despite Leigh’s avowals that she appeared in all 45 seconds of the horrific murder sequence, a body double was used to show Marion's fleshiest parts.
Her name was Marli Renfro, a Playboy Bunny and Las Vegas stripper who was paid $500 for appearing in one of the most famous scenes in film history. She subsequently appeared in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1962 soft-porn comedy Western “Tonight for Sure.”
In 2001, it was reported that Renfro, who is still alive, had been raped and strangled in 1988, but the victim of the "Psycho"-obsessed killer was the 71-year-old Beverly Hills actress Myra Jones – real name Davis – who had been Leigh’s stand-in on "Psycho." “Zodiac” author Robert Graysmith, who had been infatuated from afar with Renfro as a youth, wrote a badly reviewed book hinging on the mistaken identity.
Inherited by Fox Searchlight from Paramount where it was four years in development, “Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho” will be directed by Sacha Gervasi (“Anvil! The Story of Anvil”). The screenplay is by “Black Swan” writer John McLaughlin, Tom Thayer, and Stephen Rebello, who adapted it from Rebello’s meticulously researched 1990 book about how Hitchcock forced the film into being.
In 1959, Hitchcock read Robert Bloch’s novelization of the grisly career of murderer and graverobber Ed Gein, recommended to him by his highly trusted personal assistant Peggy Robertson. When he brought the idea of filming it to Paramount, the studio responded with a fit of “executive apoplexy," so he set about self-financing it and producing it through Shamley, the company which made “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” for Universal TV and CBS.
He hired key crew members from the frugally filmed show, including cinematographer John L. Russell, who shot "Psycho" in black and white to keep the cost down and because Hitchcock knew that the redness of Marion Crane’s blood would be too much for audiences in 1969. In the event, chocolate syrup was used.
Paramount agree to distribute the film after Hitchcock deferred his $250,000 salary in exchange for 60 per cent ownership of the negative. Probably the first star of a Hollywood movie to be killed off at the end of the first act, Leigh was paid a quarter of her normal $100,000. “Psycho” returned $11.2 million on its cost of $806,950.
Garvasi’s movie will focus on the struggle to get the film made and Hitchcock’s strange, troubled relationship with his loyal wife and confidante, Alma Reville. Helen Mirren has been cast as Reville and James D’Arcy as Anthony Perkins, who played Norman Bates (and never escaped the iconic role).
Leigh, who died in 2004, maintained that her relationship with Hitchcock was thoroughly professional, contrasting with his Svengal–Trilby relationships with her “Psycho” co-star Vera Miles, Grace Kelly, and Tippi Hedren. This could help make “Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho” a pro-Hitchcock portrait compared with the anti-Hitchcock portrait “The Girl,” an upcoming BBC film depicting the director’s alleged sexual harassment of Hedren, his “Birds” and “Marnie” star.
“Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho” starts filming next month.
Previously: Sienna Miller to star in “The Girl”
Hitchcock’s “Rebecca” and “Suspicion” to be remade
"Psycho" trailer: