This week, we will focus on dramatic tension, suspense and the opening scene of Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Psycho, as well as the screenplay by Joseph Stefano. As you read the below opening scene in the script, notice how much attention is given to setting, tone and atmosphere. This is going to be your focus this week for your own script.
"PSYCHO"
By
Joseph Stefano
Based on the novel by Robert Bloch
REVISED December 1, 1959
FADE IN:
EXT. PHOENIX, ARIZONA - (DAY) - HELICOPTER SHOT
Above Midtown section of the city. It is early afternoon, a
hot mid-summer day. The city is sun-sunblanched white and
its drifted-up noises are muted in blanched their own echoes.
We fly low, heading in a downtown direction, passing over
traffic-clogged streets, parking lots, white business
buildings, neatly patterned residential districts. As we
approach downtown section, the character of the city begins
to change. It is darker and shabby with age and industry. We
see railroad tracks, smokestacks, wholesale fruit-and-
vegetable markets, old municipal buildings, empty lots.
vegetable The very geography seems to give us a climate of
nefariousness, of back-doorness, dark and shadowy. And secret.
We fly lower and faster now, as if seeking out a specific
location. A skinny, high old hotel comes into view. On its
exposed brick side great painted letters advertise "Transients-
Low Weekly Rates-Radio in Every Room." We pause long enough
to establish the shoddy character of this hotel. Its open,
curtainless windows, its silent resigned look so
characteristic of such hole-and-corner hotels. We move forward
with purposefulness and-toward a certain window. The sash is
raised as high as it can go, but the shade is pulled down to
three or four inches of the inside sill, as if the occupants
of the room within wanted privacy but needed air. We are
close now, so that only the lower half of the window frame
is in shot. No sounds come from within the room.
Suddenly, we tip downward, go to the narrow space between
shade and sill, peep into the room.
A young woman is stretched out on the mussed bed. She wears
a full slip, stockings, no shoes. She lies in and attitude
of physical relaxation, but her face, seen in the dimness of
the room, betrays a certain inner-tension, worrisome
conflicts. She is MARY CRANE, an tension, attractive girl
nearing the end of her twenties and her rope.
A man stands beside the bed, only the lower half of his figure
visible. We hold on this tableau for a long moment, then
start forward. As we pass under the window shade,
CUT TO:
INT. THE HOTEL ROOM - (DAY)
A small room, a slow fan buzzing on a shelf above the narrow
bed. A card of hotel rules is pasted on the mirror above the
bureau. An unopened suitcase and a woman's large, straw open-
top handbag are on the bureau.
On the table beside the bed there are a container of Coco-
Cola and an unwrapped, untouched egg-salad sandwich. There
is no radio.
The man standing by the bed, wearing only trousers, T-shirt
and sox, is SAM LOOMIS, a good-looking, sensual shirt man
with warm humorous eyes and a compelling smile. He is blotting
his neck and face with a thin towel, and is staring down at
Mary, a small sweet smile playing about his mouth. Mary keeps
her face turned away from him.
After a moment, Sam drops the towel, sits on the bed, leans
over and takes Mary into his arms, kisses her long and warmly,
holds her with a firm possessiveness. The kiss is disturbed
and finally interrupted by the buzzing closeness of an
inconsiderate fly. Sam smiles, pulls away enough to allow
Mary to relax again against the pillow. He studies her, frowns
at her unresponsiveness, then speaks in a low, intimate,
playful voice.
SAM
Never did eat your lunch, did you.
Mary looks at his smile, has to respond, pulls him to her,
kisses him. Then, and without breaking the kiss, she swings
her legs over the side of the bed, toe-searches around, finds
her shoes, slips her feet into searches them. And finally
pulls away and sits up.
MARY
I better get back to the office.
These extended lunch hours give my
boss excess acid.
She rises, goes to the bureau, takes a pair of small earrings
out of her bag, begins putting them on, not bothering or
perhaps not wanting to look at herself in the mirror. Sam
watches her, concerned but unable to inhibit his cheery,
humorous good mood. Throughout remainder of this scene, they
occupy themselves with dressing, hair-combing, etc.
SAM
Call your boss and tell him you're
taking the rest of the afternoon
off. It's Friday anyway... and hot.
MARY
(soft sarcasm)
What do I do with my free afternoon,
walk you to the airport?
SAM
(meaningfully)
We could laze around here a while
longer.
MARY
Checking out time is three P.M. Hotels
of this sort aren't interested in
you when you come in, but when your
time's up...
(a small anguish)
Sam, I hate having to be with you in
a place like this.
SAM
I've heard of married couples who
deliberately spend occasional nights
in cheap hotels. They say it...
MARY
(interrupting)
When you're married you can do a lot
of things deliberately.
SAM
You sure talk like a girl who's been
married.
MARY
Sam!
SAM
I'm sorry, Mary.
(after a moment)
My old Dad used to say 'when you
can't change a situation, laugh at
it.' Nothing ridicules a thing like
laughing at it.
MARY
I've lost my girlish laughter.
SAM
(observing)
The only girlish thing you have lost.
MARY
(a meaningful quiet,
then, with difficulty:)
Sam. This is the last time.
SAM
For what?
MARY
This! Meeting you in secret so we
can be... secretive! You come down
here on business trips and we steal
lunch hours and... I wish you wouldn't
even come.
SAM
Okay. What do we do instead, write
each other lurid love letters?
MARY
(about to argue, then
turning away)
I haven't time to argue. I'm a working
girl.
SAM
And I'm a working man! We're a regular
working-class tragedy!
(he laughs)
MARY
It is tragic! Or it will be... if we
go on meeting in shabby hotels
whenever you can find a tax-deductible
excuse for flying down deductible
here...
SAM
(interrupting,
seriously)
You can't laugh at it, huh?
MARY
Can you?
SAM
Sure. It's like laughing through a
broken jaw, but...
He breaks off, his cheeriness dissolved, goes to the window,
tries to raise the shade. It sticks. He pulls at it.
It comes down entirely, and the hot sun glares into the room,
revealing it in all its shabbiness and sordidness as if
corroborating Mary's words and attitude. Sam kicks at the
fallen shade, laughs in frustration, grabs on to his humor
again.
SAM
And besides, when you say I make tax-
deductible excuses you make me out a
criminal.
MARY
(having to smile)
You couldn't be a criminal if you
committed a major crime.
SAM
I wish I were. Not an active criminal
but... a nice guy with the conscience
of a criminal.
(goes close to mary,
touches her)
Next best thing to no conscience at
all.
MARY
(pulling away)
I have to go, Sam.
SAM
I can come down next week.
MARY
No.
SAM
Not even just to see you, to have
lunch... in public?
MARY
We can see each other, we can even
have dinner... but respectably, in
my house with my mother's picture on
the mantel and my sister helping me
broil a big steak for three!
SAM
And after the steak... do we send
Sister to the movies and turn Mama's
picture to the wall?
MARY
Sam! No!
SAM
(after a pause, simply)
All right.
She stares at him, surprised at his willingness to continue
the affair on her terms, as girls are so often surprised
when they discover men will continue to want them even after
the sexual bait has been pulled in. Sam smiles reassuringly,
places his hands gently on her arms, speaks with gentle and
simple sincerity.
SAM
Mary, whenever it's possible, tax-
deductible or not, I want to see
deductible you. And under any
conditions.
(a smile)
Even respectability.
MARY
You make respectability sound...
disrespectful.
SAM
(brightly)
I'm all for it! It requires patience
and temperance and a lot of sweating-
out... otherwise, though, it's only
hard work.
(a pause)
But if I can see you, touch you even
as simply as this... I won't mind.
He moves away and again the weight of his pain and problems
crushes away his good humor. There is a quiet moment.
SAM
I'm fed up with sweating for people
who aren't there. I sweat to pay off
my father's debts... and he's in his
grave... I sweat to pay my ex-wife
alimony, and she's living on the
other side of the world somewhere.
MARY
(a smile)
I pay, too. They also pay who meet
in hotel rooms.
SAM
A couple of years and the debts will
be paid off. And if she ever re-
marries, the alimony stops... and
then...
MARY
I haven't even been married once
yet!
SAM
Yeah, but when you do... you'll swing.
MARY
(smiling, then with a
terrible urgency)
Sam, let's go get married.
SAM
And live with me in a storeroom behind
a hardware store in Fairvale. We'll
have a lot of laughs. When I send my
ex-wife her money, you can lick the
stamps.
MARY
(a deep desperation)
I'll lick the stamps.
He looks at her, long, pulls her close, kisses her lightly,
looks out the window and stares at the wide sky.
SAM
You know what I'd like? A clear,
empty sky... and a plane, and us in
it... and somewhere a private island
for sale, where we can run around
without our... shoes on. And the
wherewithal to buy what I'd like.
(he moves away,
suddenly serious)
Mary, you want to cut this off, go
out and find yourself someone
available.
MARY
I'm thinking of it.
SAM
(a cheerful shout)
How can you even think a thing like
that!
MARY
(picking up handbag,
starting for door)
Don't miss your plane.
SAM
Hey, we can leave together can't we?
MARY
(at door)
I'm late... and you have to put your
shoes on.
Mary goes out quickly, closing door behind her. As Sam stares
down at his shoeless feet,
Psycho | Film Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Writing Exercise: Opening with Dramatic Tension & Suspense
Using last week’s screenplay, create an opening setting paragraph or two that are ripe with dramatic tension and suspense. Use Psycho as a model of study for this. In Psycho, we open with “geography [that] seems to give us a climate of nefariousness, of back-doorness, dark and shadowy. And secret.” What is going to happen? Hitchcock earned his nomenclature as the “master of suspense.” He knew how to use suspense to drive emotion and how suspense was a far better attention grabber than gore itself. The anticipation of danger is the key. Now, do it.
The son of a snowplow truck driver and a nurse, Kevin Del Principe grew up in Buffalo, New York. He first cut his teeth working as a schoolteacher while also producing plays and publishing poetry. He later moved to Los Angeles to pursue writing for film and to earn his MFA in Screenwriting at the University of Southern California. During his time at USC, Kevin was a finalist for Script Pipeline’s Student Screenwriting Competition. Since graduation, he continues to write, direct, produce, and teach. Kevin currently teaches screenwriting at Loyola Marymount University. He specializes in short screenplay writing, creating online content, feature writing, and rewriting.