Critical Reception
The book received considerable praise upon its publication as well as in subsequent years.
On the publication of the hardcover first edition in 1990, critic Richard Schickel called the book "indispensable and marvelously readable" and "one of the best accounts of the making of an individual movie we've ever had." Christopher Lehmann-Haupt of the New York Times declared it a "meticulous history of a single film production." Anthony Quinn in The Sunday Times wrote; " combines a gossipy retrospective with a serious work of criticism, presenting an articulate guide to Hitchcock's idiosyncratic approach to film-making and the collaborative efforts that underpinned it. The author has conducted interviews with all those involved in the making of Psycho -- its casting, scripting, art design, lighting, editing, selling -- in the course of it, we inch closer to the bizarre, unpredictable quality of its director."
Psycho star Anthony Perkins called the book, "Meticulously researched and irresistible ... Required reading not only for Psycho-files, but for anyone interested in the backstage world of movie-creation." Images Journal reviewer Gary Johnson called it "one of the best books ever written about the making of a movie." Gerald Kaufman of the Sunday Telegraph found it "joyously entertaining."
Entertainment Weekly, referring to Rebello's revealing how Hitchcock arrived at the sound of the knife stabbing the heroine in the shower, opined "the melon tale alone is worth the price of ." Another top critic wrote that, unlike other books about films and filmmakers, it "reads more like a gripping novel than detached intellectualism."
In a January 6, 2010 Newsweek story called "The Mother of All Horror Films," Malcolm Jones called the book "fascinating" and Robert Graysmith, true crime author of the non-fiction book Zodiac, termed the book "groundbreaking." Leonard Maltin, in his "Movie Crazy" blog entry of October 29, 2010, called the book "landmark." In 2012, a writer for The Hollywood Reporter declared the book "a masterpiece about a masterpiece." The Guardian critic John Patterson called the book "enthralling" and, on February 1, 2013 in The Guardian described the book as "revelatory."
Read more about this topic: Alfred Hitchcock And The Making Of Psycho
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