Daily Dialogue — January 29, 2020

“Mrs. Bates?”

— Psycho (1960), screenplay by Joseph Stefano, novel by Robert Bloch

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Basement.

Trivia: Joseph Stefano was adamant about seeing a toilet on-screen to display realism. He also wanted to see it flush. Sir Alfred Hitchcock told him he had to “make it so” through his writing if he wanted to see it. Stefano wrote the scene in which Marion adds up the money, then flushes the paper down the toilet specifically so the toilet flushing was integral to the scene, and therefore irremovable. This was the first American movie (and possibly first fictional movie) ever to show a toilet flushing on-screen.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Basement scenes feature prominently in the horror genre as here with a scene from Psycho: