PSYCHO UNCUT - exactly what is different? (1 Viewer)

[Chuck Pennington]

Hey y’all!

I made this comparison video to point out the differences between the newly restored PSYCHO on Ultra HD and Blu-ray. Odd that such a feature wasn’t produced for the discs themselves...

For this comparison I cut to the “uncut” source only when necessary, unlike the actual disc where an entire shot will be of slightly degraded quality so that the added footage seamlessly blends.

 

[AlexNH]

If anyone gets the standalone disc (May 25) can you let us know if Arbogast's scream still comes at the third stab? The current disc is ridiculous.

 

[TravisR]

I don't have the disc but I can guarantee it's the same.

 

[AlexNH]

This release has been a complete debacle. I guess we can blame COVID.

 

[Robert Crawford]

If anyone gets the standalone disc (May 25) can you let us know if Arbogast's scream still comes at the third stab? The current disc is ridiculous.

Does a scream suppose to be there?

 

[AlexNH]

He is supposed to scream on the first stab. It's correct on the Turbine disc. It's wrong on the other discs.

 

[AlexNH]

Psycho (Original Theatrical Cut) | Park Circus

The extended version of the movie as seen in theaters in 1960 is exactly as intended by Alfred Hitchcock and now available with additional footage for the first time ever. A Phoenix secretary steals $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young...

parkcircus.com

 

[Richard Kaufman]

Is this the same cut that was released in the big box set from Germany?

 

[cinemiracle]

The film was never cut in Australia or New Zealand upon it's original cinema release. It was shown as Hitchcock intended..I understand (correct me if I am wrong) that Australia was the first country to show the film completely uncut on television. That was many decades ago.

 

[haineshisway]

And it was never cut HERE in the US either. Not on its original release.

 

[moviebuff75]

So, the extra footage was there when the film was first released in the U.S. or was it cut before release?

 

[AlexNH]

And it was never cut HERE in the US either. Not on its original release.

So when was it cut?

 

[haineshisway]

There are so many threads here with this exact information. Once again - it was UNCUT when first shown here. The subsequent releases in the later 1960s were when those seconds were removed - may have been for TV or for ratings - and every home video release has used the internegative with the cuts. NOW, it's as it was when those of us who saw it when it came out, and I'm one of those people. The rest is utter bushwa - it was NOT cut prior to its theatrical release in the US to appease anyone. But someone somewhere made up a story and that story has become "truth" because it was never challenged. Now we know.

 

[Cineman]

There are so many threads here with this exact information. Once again - it was UNCUT when first shown here. The subsequent releases in the later 1960s were when those seconds were removed - may have been for TV or for ratings - and every home video release has used the internegative with the cuts. NOW, it's as it was when those of us who saw it when it came out, and I'm one of those people. The rest is utter bushwa - it was NOT cut prior to its theatrical release in the US to appease anyone. But someone somewhere made up a story and that story has become "truth" because it was never challenged. Now we know.

Yes. And to make matters worse and further confuse the issue, on the recent 60th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray disc that I have that does indeed include the Original Uncut Version of PSYCHO that we sat in U.S. theaters and watched many times in its original theatrical release from 1960 until the edited-for-television version was created in 1968 or so and for whatever reason became the go-to version seen on every home video and most theatrical revival screenings of it, there are at least two unfortunate bits of misinformation, "goofs" if you will, that will likely keep the confusion going for years to come:

1. When you select the Uncut Version to play, I'll be damned if the first onscreen message you get about it is "This film has been modified from its original version to contain additional material not seen in its original release"!

No. No. No. The Uncut Version of the film you are about to see IS the original version of it as seen in theaters. It is the version that does not have material edited out of it from the original theatrical release and there is no "additional" material by so much as a single frame added to it.

The outer box packaging info on this issue is mostly correct although I would argue that the phrase "additional footage for the first time ever" is also unnecessarily misleading when they could have said it is "restored footage" instead. However, the onscreen message about it is not correct in any way and totally misleading.

I fear there are bound to be first-time viewers of this great movie who are very much interested in their first viewing of it on their home theater to be as close as possible to what audiences saw when it became a box office sensation in 1960 and a cultural phenomenon who will pop the disc in, choose the Uncut Version to play, see that onscreen message and immediately shut it down and choose to play the watered down more family-friendly, less gripping version of it for their initial viewing instead. And that is too bad.

2. The 'Making of PSYCHO' documentary included in the Bonus Materials still has the interview of Peggy Roberston, Hitchcok's assistant on the movie, accurately stating that some footage of Janet Leigh "in her slip at the beginning" was cleaned up a bit to appease the cencors, clearly referring to a moment of slight but notably uncharacteristic clumsy editing during Leigh's opening scene with John Gavin (the "You didn't finish your lunch" moment) but the documentary filmmakers inaccurately accompany her comment with a shot of Janet Leigh removing her bra in the later peep-hole scene, falsely labelling it the "Censored Shot" as though that is the scene of Leigh in her slip that Hitchcock's assistant said was cleaned up a bit at Hitchcock's instructions prior to its original theatrical release in order to appease the censors.

Again, No. That shot was cencored/edited out of the movie in the late 1960s. But it was definitely there in its original U.S. theatrical release and not removed by Hitchcock prior to its theatrical release.

I assure you many of us sitting in the theater during its original theatrical release remember well just how close we came to within a few frames of seeing more of the beautiful Janet Leigh's body in that scene verses the later edited-for-television version.

 

[AlexNH]

There are so many threads here with this exact information. Once again - it was UNCUT when first shown here. The subsequent releases in the later 1960s were when those seconds were removed - may have been for TV or for ratings - and every home video release has used the internegative with the cuts. NOW, it's as it was when those of us who saw it when it came out, and I'm one of those people. The rest is utter bushwa - it was NOT cut prior to its theatrical release in the US to appease anyone. But someone somewhere made up a story and that story has become "truth" because it was never challenged. Now we know.

So when it was rereleased in 1969 and still owned by Hitch the cut version was shown in theaters then? It all seems very difficult to believe.

 

[haineshisway]

So when it was rereleased in 1969 and still owned by Hitch the cut version was shown in theaters then? It all seems very difficult to believe.

Psycho by that time was already with Universal

• After the film's release, Paramount transferred the film rights to Hitchcock, who later sold the distribution rights to Universal Pictures in 1962. Universal would in turn sublicense North American distribution rights to Paramount until 1968.

. And yes, the six-second shorter version is what's been shown since the cuts were first made - you may believe what you wish, but them's the facts.

 

[lark144]

So when it was rereleased in 1969 and still owned by Hitch the cut version was shown in theaters then? It all seems very difficult to believe.

I can confirm along with Bruce this is accurate. I saw it in 1960, and it was the same version that is now being advertised as uncut.

I saw it in a theater in 1969 and it was cut. It's possible I was more aware it was cut than most, not just because I had seen it 9 years before, but the Truffaut-Hitchcock book had just come out, which I read, and they discuss shots in PSYCHO, as well as show frame enlargements, which were missing from the film when it was re-released to theaters in 1969; specifically the shots of Perkins watching Janet Leigh undress and the extra knife stabs on the staircase. I read about them in the book, recalled seeing them in a theater in 1960, then went to a theater in 1969 and they were missing. Also, there was a hard matte on the bottom of the frame covering the edge of Janet Leigh's breasts which wasn't there in 1960.

 

[TravisR]

I know it happened but it's nearly unbelievable to me that Psycho was cut. Prior to the release of this disc, I chalked it up to people misremembering things as more 'graphic' than it actually was because it seemed literally impossible that a masterpiece from one of the most famed directors of all time had been cut for decades and no one ever bothered to correct it. Movies like Friday The 13th and My Bloody Valentine have been restored to their original form (though they were edited for the theaters) but Psycho just stayed edited with little to no mention of that? That's crazy.

 

[moviebuff75]

Did Arbogast originally scream on the third stab before the fade out...or on the first?

 

[AlexNH]

Psycho by that time was already with Universal

• After the film's release, Paramount transferred the film rights to Hitchcock, who later sold the distribution rights to Universal Pictures in 1962. Universal would in turn sublicense North American distribution rights to Paramount until 1968.

. And yes, the six-second shorter version is what's been shown since the cuts were first made - you may believe what you wish, but them's the facts.

If Universal would just explain the issue it would help solve the questions. I don't know what to believe.

Why was it cut after the original release? For TV? Thousands of movies must have been cut for TV at that time. And somehow the "cut version" of a movie as famous as Psycho became the only version for decades? It also became the version that was re-released in theaters? I'm not saying I don't believe you. I said it's difficult to believe.