I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s, ‘The Psycho’(1960) movie recently. There might be plenty of reviews already. I am here to talk about the psychology behind couple of scenes. The movie is highly rated. Apart from breaking the few tropes of movie making, where the lead character (Marione Crane) is murdered at the very beginning. First she fleas from one state to another after embezzling 40000 USD from her work but is unfortunately caught by a patrol officer in her vehicle while she was on her way in terms of suspicion but not under arrest. Her answers look proper on paper and there is nothing suspicious, yet the police officer found something wrong. The police officer asks, why she has parked the vehicle along the driveway and she said she was taking a nap in the car in after a long drive, and she had parked aside and sleeping without hinderance to other vehicles yet the patrol officer suspected something suspicious. She had proper driving papers and she hid well the amount in a newspaper from the policeman’s view and the patrol officer didn’t search the vehicle, which might not have been custom back then. even though it might have looked suspicious. History might have repeated in various forms through various crimes across nations that now it might have become a custom to check the vehicles if there is a sound ground for suspicions(at least in Chennai, India). The patrol officer suggests to the lady that she should have taken a cottage for rest rather than having slept in the vehicle, for which Marion argues it is her choice and she has not violated any laws, which is perfect for argumentation but might be mostly unexpected or an aggressive defensive strategy without any real danger, which provokes the policeman to follow her vehicle. In spite of having shown some amount of grit while answering the police officer, Marion panics and then goes to a car dealer and sells her vehicle, purchasing another one at a loss, without any bargain which even puzzles the salesman at the shop, as it is he who should have tried to sell the car and not her who should show eagerness in trying to buying the vehicle. This incident happens within the purview of the police officer, who watches this from a distance and later meets the salesman in trying to know what had happened. Unfortunately he didn’t have enough sound grounds and proof to arrest Marion. The company in which Marion works had not filed a complaint for the missing amount as they had not realized it been stolen by a person who had been honest in her dealings for the past ten years. She goes to a motel and stays, where she begins to realize her mistake and decides to go back to the office rather than planned private island. So all looks good as it might have till this point for her, except for later untoward incidents, where she falls prey to the psycho. The talking point being, after a person embezzles the money, the person might travel interstate(which a person with a basic common sense could draw out among plenty of hiding places) and try to take shelter in a motel, police hunch(instinct, based on experience), in spite of everything proper in paper and the instinct could also sometimes be wrong, as some psychologists or humanitarians would argue could fall under ego trap (incidents from newspapers where wrong suspects been mistreated etc).
The next incident being how a criminal behaves when questioned by a proper questioning authority. The private investigator Arbogast questions Norman Bates and he answers coldly after committing the murder(in spite of split personality or alternate personality or whatever, he having no memories of that murder) that, he had not had any guests for the last two weeks. But still the investigator insists on checking the hotel records and finds Marion under pseudo-name with the last name of her boyfriend in the last two weeks. (These type of incidents have prompted the police authorities to have address proof as mandatory for hotel check-ins. But unfortunately not all identity proofs come with a clear picture. There are incidents recently based on personal experience where a person takes in an identity proof of another individual and could easily, confidently fool another person who might be under distress either physically, psychologically or financially or in a moment of relapse and also elderly people(incident is use of Aadhar xerox as a proof for house renting and asking a house owner to scan a QR-code for sending some money for military occupant in the home, which is as per military norms, threatening people of facing severe consequences(Yes, I can sing Yeh mera India and I love my India!). Parents asking not to file a criminal complaint, as police wouldn’t show interest in finding culprits(like many missing cellphones) and legal proceedings would take years and much more effort and money and even then culprits may not be brought to justice, as they could go in to hiding some interior and remote place in the country. Crimes happen in all countries and so, a few set of crimes shouldn’t make any country bad, but still when a person threatens with an unfortunately less-spoken Hindi language to a South Indian, it is a calculated assault on the integrity of the nation and an Indian citizen. I cannot make fun of the country, as it had given me whatever I had sought for and I may not be qualified to mock the soil in first place.). After Arbogast finds Marion name, he becomes suspicious but unfortunately at that time didn’t think of the possibility of a psychologically affected individual running the hotel and a murder(apart from few murders before) to have happened in the second place. When he revisits the hotel, after informing Marion’s sister Lila over phone of his suspicions, he is killed and buried in the same swamp as Marion. When Lila and Sam arrives after failing to hear from Arbogast, they too might have faced the same result, except for Sam having been well built to tackle Norman Bates. It is a suspense, slasher and first of a kind breaking many taboos, which have resulted in many more slasher and psychological thrillers. But