When even the most serious of movie fans think of the groundbreaking 1960 movie Psycho, they’ll quickly acknowledge Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful skill as a director of suspense. After that they might consider Anthony Perkins’ unnerving performance as the psychotic hotel operator Norman Bates or Bernard Herrmann’s screeching otherworldly score. Maybe they’ll take a moment to recognize the narrative contributions of novelist Robert Bloch or screenwriter Joseph Stefano. Very rarely will graphic designer Saul Bass receive his due for his indispensable input into the film.
The former advertising artist is usually associated with the many iconic opening-credit sequences and posters he created for various films. What he doesn’t usually get as much credit for is the work he did as a storyboard artist for filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick, John Frankenheimer, and Alfred Hitchcock. According to this fascinating video from Eyes On Cinema, it would appear that many sequences in Psycho—including its most notorious and best-remembered—were born on Bass’ drawing table.