PSYCHO

Marion Crane and her boyfriend Sam Loomis meet for a secret romantic assignation during a
Friday lunch hour at a hotel in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. They discuss how they can barely
afford to get married due to Sam's debts. Marion returns to work at a realtor's office. A client
comes in with $40,000 in cash to purchase a house as a wedding gift for his daughter. The
client flirts with Marion. Her boss instructs her to promptly deposit the money in the bank, and
she puts the money envelope in her purse. Marion then asks her boss if she can take the rest
of the afternoon off, and that she was not feeling well. Back at her room, Marion starts
packing to leave for an undetermined time while contemplating taking the money. She
ultimately decides to steal it, leave Phoenix, and drive to (mythical) Fairvale, California, to give
it to Sam. However, upon passing through downtown Phoenix on her way out of town, she is
spotted by her boss as he crosses the street at a stopped traffic light, which unsettles her.

On the road now in California, she pulls over at night to sleep but is awakened the following
morning by a California Highway Patrolman; he can tell something is wrong because of her
furtive, anxious behavior. The officer, however, lets her go. Upon arriving in Bakersfield,
Marion pulls into a used car dealership to hastily exchange her car (a 1956 Ford Mainline), for
another (a 1957 Ford Custom 300). Driving up US 99 during the rainy night, she imagines
conversations in her mind of her boss and the client discussing the stolen money, and
becomes increasingly nervous. After accidentally taking a wrong turn, she drives up to the
Bates Motel, a remote lodge that has recently lost business due to a diversion realignment of
the main highway. The youthful proprietor Norman Bates, nervous but friendly, invites her to a
light dinner. Marion, alone in her cabin, overhears a heated argument between Norman and
his mother about inviting her to the house. He ends up persuading her to have dinner with him
in the motel parlor. Norman talks about his daily life and his hobby, taxidermy and discloses
that his mother Norma is mentally ill, but he becomes agitated when Marion suggests his
mother be institutionalized. During their conversation, Marion decides to return to Phoenix
and return the stolen money. Upon returning to her cabin, Norman, looking through a hole he
had made in the parlor wall long ago, sees her undress, and returns to his house behind the
motel. Marion subtracts the amount of money she spent from the stolen money, then tears up
the paper and flushes it down the toilet. The burden now lifted from her conscience, she takes
a relaxing shower. While showering, a shadowy figure of an elderly woman quietly enters the
bathroom, shoves back the shower curtain, and proceeds to stab her repeatedly to death with
a large kitchen knife. The figure then leaves the cabin with the shower still running with
Marion laying on the floor dead. Norman comes into the cabin and "discovers" Marion's dead
body. Convinced that his mother had committed the crime, he wraps the body in the shower
curtain and cleans up the bathroom. He puts Marion's wrapped body in the trunk of her car,
along with all her possessions and, unknowingly, the money, and sinks it in a nearby swamp.

A week later, Marion's sister Lila arrives in Fairvale to confront Sam Loomis about Marion's
whereabouts in his hardware store. A private detective named Arbogast confirms Marion is
suspected of having stolen $40,000 from her employer. Arbogast eventually finds the Bates
Motel. Norman's evasiveness and stammering arouse his suspicions; when Norman mentions
that Marion had met his mother, Arbogast demands to speak to her but Norman refuses. From
a payphone, Arbogast calls Lila and Sam to tell them about his encounter with Norman, and
that he intends to return to the motel to attempt to speak to Bates' mother. He would call Lila
and Sam again in an hour. Upon entering the Bates' residence, looking for Norman's mother, a
figure emerges from her room and murders Arbogast on top of the staircase.

After three hours, fearing something has happened to Arbogast, Sam and Lila go into Fairvale
to talk with the local sheriff. The sheriff is puzzled by the detective's claim that he was
planning to talk to Norman's mother, stating that Mrs. Norma Bates died ten years ago, along
with her lover, in a murder-suicide. He calls Norman to ask him about Arbogast, and is told
that he asked some questions and left. Back at the Bates' house, Norman, seen from above,
carries his mother down to the cellar of their house; she verbally protests the arrangement,
but he explains that she needs to hide from whoever comes next looking for Arbogast and
Marion.

Sam and Lila, posing as husband and wife on a business trip, rent a room at the Bates Motel to
search the cabin that Marion stayed in. Lila finds a scrap of paper (with "$40,000 written on it)
that Marion supposedly flushed down the toilet, while Sam notes that the bathtub has no
shower curtain. Lila, not believing Mrs. Bates is dead, is determined to speak to her. Sam and
Lila develop a plan: Sam is to distract Norman with conversation while Lila sneaks into the
house to look for Mrs. Bates. Lila searches hers and Norman's rooms. The conversation
between Sam and Norman turns sour, Sam accusing Norman of stealing the $40,000 to re-
start his life. Norman angrily orders Sam and his wife to leave the motel, then wants to know
where Sam's wife was. The two begin to grapple, but Norman subdues Sam, and runs into the
house to accost Lila. Lila, spotting Norman approaching, hides in the cellar and sees Mrs. Bates
sitting in a rocking chair, her back to Lila. She calls out to the woman, getting no reply; Lila taps
Mrs. Bates' shoulder, the chair then rotates to reveal the desiccated corpse of Mrs. Bates,
shocking Lila into screaming with fear. A figure enters the basement, wearing a dress and wig
while wielding a large knife, revealing Norman to be the murderer all along. Sam then enters
behind Norman, just managing to overpower Norman.

At the county courthouse after Norman's arrest, a psychiatrist who interviews Norman reveals
not only the killings of Marion and Arbogast, but that Norman had been excessively dominated
by his mother since childhood, and when she took a lover, he became insanely jealous that she
had "replaced" him, then murdered his mother and her lover. Later, he developed a split
personality to erase the crime of matricide from his memory and "immortalize" his mother by
stealing and "preserving" her corpse. When he feels any sexual attraction towards someone,
as was the case with Marion, the "Mother" side of his mind becomes jealous and enraged. At
times, he is able to function as Norman but other times, the "Mother" personality completely
dominates him. The psychiatrist also reveals that Norman, in his "Mother" state, had killed
two missing girls prior to Marion and Arbogast.

Norman is now locked into his mother's identity permanently. Mrs. Bates, who, in a voice-
over, talks about how it was really Norman, not her, who committed all those murders and
that she should have 'put him away' years ago, finally saying that she 'wouldn't even harm a
fly' (A double exposure shows Norman's face merging with that of his mother's corpse). The
final scene shows Marion's car being recovered from the swamp.