I've been off line a couple of days and am just catching up
with this string. I completely agree with William that there
is almost certainly nothing to the Woolrich/Norman Bates.
Bloch was a Wisconsin-based writer (making a living mostly as
an ad writer) until he moved to Hollywood in 1959. That move,
by the way, came well before the movie was released and
became a hit. He came after a friend (Samuel Peeples) got him
an assignment writing scripts for the syndicated television
program "Lockup."
I doubt Bloch ever met Woolrich, although it is barely
possible at one of Hans Stefan Santesson's (editor of The
Saint Detective Magazine) parties or the Hydra Club (a SF
group) as Santesson's guest. Santesson made a big effort to
get Woolrich out of his hotel to social gatherings. Woolrich
would drink cheap wine from the bottle and get smashed. If
anyone came up to compliment him, he snarled them away. Plus
Bloch wrote extensively about the creation of Psycho (and in
great detail about all of his career) with no mention of
Woolrich.
The Nevins biography, which came out in 1988, does mention
the Bates/Woolrich similarities and asks "Could Hitchcock's
version of Norman Bates have been intended as something of a
Woolrich figure?" Nevins proceeds to debunk the speculation
on several grounds without totally shutting the door. As
William says, I doubt either Bloch or Hitchcock knew anything
of Woolrich's relationship to his mother, much less used it
as an influence.
Richard Moore
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, William Ahearn
<williamahearn@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- sonny <sforstater@...> wrote:
>
> >
> > but psycho and bloch are OT, sorry. i brought
it up
> > because of what i'd
> > heard about woolrich and norman
> >
> Having looked into this for my series on Hitchcock,
I
> can tell you that Robert Bloch is on the record
as
> having based Psycho on newspaper reports of Ed
Gein.
> It's one of the reasons that that Psycho is so tame
in
> terms of the reality of Ed Gein whose exploits --
such
> as they were -- were not the fodder of
family
> newspapers. The real and grisly and despicable
story
> of Ed Gein wouldn't come out until years later.
Yes,
> Woolrich had a bizarre relationship with his
mother.
> But he didn't kill her and stick her in the
root
> cellar. And neither did Ed Gein kill his
mother
> (Gein's, not Woolrich's). There's nothing to
suggest
> that Bloch knew anything of Woolrich's
relationship
> with Woolrich's mother. While there may have been
any
> number of rumors, Nevins biography of Woolrich,
First
> You Dream, Then You Die wasn't even published
until
> 1982. So, whether OT or not, I doubt there is
anything
> to this story.
>
> William
>
> Essays and Ramblings
> <http://www.williamahearn.com>
>
>
>
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