Considered for the role of Marion were: Angie Dickinson, Piper Laurie, Martha Hyer, Hope Lange, Shirley Jones, and Lana Turner.
Contrary to a widely told tale, Alfred Hitchcock did *not* arrange for the water to suddenly go ice-cold during the shower scene to elicit an effective scream from Janet Leigh. This urban legend appears to have originated with Universal tour guides making up an interesting thing to tell tourists as they passed the "Psycho" house, one of the most popular attractions on the lot. Janet Leigh said that the crew took great care to keep the water warm, and filming of the scene took an entire week.
Controversy arose years later when Saul Bass made claims that he had done the complete planning, and even directed the famous shower scene. Those who worked on the film have refuted this claim.
Despite the fact that the entire film is in black and white, several viewers vividly (and specifically) recall the "red" blood as it swirled down the shower drain. Obviously, this could not be true, not just for the fact of the black and white film, but the blood was actually Bosco chocolate syrup. Although feature films were produced in color at the time, newsreels were shown in black and white. Filming the movie in black and white might have made it seem less gory (see other trivia), but it also might have seemed more real to viewers at the time who were used to seeing the news in black and white.
During filming, this movie was referred to as "Production 9401" or "Wimpy". The latter name came from the second-unit cameraman on the picture Rex Wimpy who appeared on clapboards and production sheets, and some on-the-set stills for Psycho.
During preproduction, Alfred Hitchcock said to the press that he was considering Helen Hayes for the part of Mother. This was obviously a ruse, but several actresses wrote to Hitchcock requesting auditions.
Every theater that showed the film had a cardboard cut-out installed in the lobby of Alfred Hitchcock pointing to his wristwatch with a note from the director saying "The manager of this theatre has been instructed at the risk of his life, not to admit to the theatre any persons after the picture starts. Any spurious attempts to enter by side doors, fire escapes or ventilating shafts will be met by force. The entire objective of this extraordinary policy, of course, is to help you enjoy PSYCHO more. Alfred Hitchcock"
First American film ever to show a toilet flushing on screen.
For a shot right at the water stream, Alfred Hitchcock had a six-foot-diameter shower head made up so that the water sprayed past the camera lens.
If you look attentively you can notice that nearly every time a driver gets out of his car he does so through the passenger side, a seemingly odd behavior. This is due to the bench seating in older cars, and Alfred Hitchcock's desire to continue the shot without either moving the camera to follow the actor or having the actor walk between the car and the camera.
Immediately prior to the closing sequence of Norman Bates in his jail cell, as the camera moves down the hallway to where police have confined him, the uniformed guard at the cell door is Ted Knight, best remembered as pompous, dim-witted news anchor Ted Baxter on Mary Tyler Moore.
In Robert Bloch's novel, Norman Bates is short, fat, older, and very dislikable. It was Alfred Hitchcock who decided to have him be young, handsome, and sympathetic. Norman is also more of a main character in the novel. The story opens with him and Mother fighting rather than following Marion from the start.
In 2006, Scottish artist Douglas Gordon created a 24-hour slow-motion version of the film titled "24-Hour Psycho" that played at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #14 Greatest Movie of All Time.
In an interview on The Dick Cavett Show, Alfred Hitchcock said of the shower scene, "...everything was so rapid that there were 78 separate pieces of film in 45 seconds."
In order to implicate viewers as fellow voyeurs Alfred Hitchcock used a 50 mm lens on his 35 mm camera. This gives the closest approximation to the human vision. In the scenes where Norman is spying on Marion this effect is felt.
In the Collector's Edition DVD documentary, Janet Leigh says that a nude body double was used in portions of the shower scene. The DVD notes include a quote from Alfred Hitchcock, in an interview with François Truffaut, in which he says the same thing.
In the murder scene in the shower, there are two split second frames of the knife touching the body
In the novel, the character of "Marion" was "Mary" Crane. The name was changed because the studio legal department found that two real people named Mary Crane lived in Phoenix, Arizona.
In the opening scene, Marion Crane is wearing a white bra because Alfred Hitchcock wanted to show her as being "angelic". After she has taken the money, the following scene has her in a black bra because now she has done something wrong and evil. Similarly, before she steals the money, she has a white purse; after she's stolen the money, her purse is black.