josh pincus is crying

This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “highlight”.

When I was a kid in the early 1960s, a trip to the family doctor was a dreaded thing. I did my best to hide every sniffle or stomachache, lest I be subjected to some poking and prodding from that creepy, bespectacled guy with the stethoscope around his neck and the unnaturally cold hands. A hard tongue depressor down the throat or the possibility of some sort of needle didn’t add favorably to the experience. The only glimmer of joy involved with a doctor’s visit was the promise of a few minutes perusing the pages of Highlights for Children.

While my mom thumbed through an old issue of Good Housekeeping  or Redbook,  I would eagerly select a copy of Highlights for Children  from several strewn across a low table in the waiting room. Then, I would happily bide my time trying to figure out “what’s wrong with this picture” in a drawing on the back cover. Inside, the issue was jammed with jokes and riddles, a page of hidden objects camouflaged throughout a jungle scene, the continuing adventures of the oddly-drawn Timbertoes family and my favorite — Goofus and Gallant.

Goofus and Gallant were two young boys who offered lessons in manners and responsibility through their contrasting actions. As their descriptive names indicated, Goofus was the self-centered, selfish sneak with no consideration for family and classmates. Gallant was the cheerful, helpful little priss who regularly earned praise from adults and was often named “Teacher’s Pet”. The lessons that Goofus and Gallant taught in the 60s were geared toward completing homework or sharing your toys.

I haven’t seen an issue of Highlights for Children  in nearly four decades, as my wife usually took our son to the pediatrician when he was little. (He made it a point to get sick after I had already left for work.) I imagine the subject matter for Goofus and Gallant had to change with the times, while becoming more direct in its approach. Here’s how I envision Goofus and Gallant today…

Click illustration  for a larger version.

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A footnote to this post:
This time last year, I made a resolution to create one million illustrations in 2011.
I fell 999,851 short.

This week’s Illustration Friday word is “messenger”.

In rare instances, it is  appropriate to shoot the messenger.

This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “sink”.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Frank Silvera immigrated to the United States with his family as a youngster. Determined to follow his dream of acting, he appeared briefly on Broadway before joining the US Naval Reserves during World War II. After the war, he returned to acting. He was featured in the Audie Murphy western The Cimarron Kid.  This was the first in his career of over seventy-five motion picture and television roles.

Frank was frequently cast in “racially indeterminate” roles. Because he was black with light skin tone, he regularly played Mexicans, Blacks, Polynesians, Indians, Asians and even the occasional white role. On Broadway, he played Ben Gazzara’s father in A Hatful of Rain.  In films, he was usually cast as criminals and other unsavory types, co-starring in Mutiny on the Bounty, Viva Zapata!  and Roger Corman’s take on The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.  Once he auditioned for a small role as an elevator operator. The producer told him “he wasn’t black enough”. Frank asked “Well, am I light enough for one of the white roles?” The amused producer gave him a part.

Frank founded The Theater of Being in Los Angeles, to help young black actors and actresses get a start in show business. He was also a vocal and active advocate for civil rights in the 1950s and 60s.

In 1970, Frank was attempting to repair a faulty garbage disposal under the kitchen sink in his home when he was accidentally electrocuted. He was 55 years old and a regular cast member on the popular TV western The High Chaparral  at the time.  His final film, Valdez is Coming,  was released after his death.

In 1973, The Frank Silvera Writers’ Workshop Foundation was co-founded by actor Morgan Freeman in Frank’s memory.

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My annual Christmas music compilation is available as a FREE DOWNLOAD for a limited time.
26 unusual songs and a custom full-color cover with track listings — all for you and for FREE!
Just CLICK HERE for “A Non-Traditional Christmas 2011.”
(You will be taken to a new window. Click the word “download” next to the title, not the big green “DOWNLOAD” button at the bottom of the page.)

Happy Holidays from your pal JPiC!
(Please contact me if you have trouble with the download.)

This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “separated”.

My mother’s parents ran an antique store not far from their home at Fourth and Spruce Streets in Philadelphia. In the summer months, they operated a bath house on the boardwalk in the seaside resort of Wildwood, New Jersey. In addition, eighteen years separated my mother from her oldest sibling. Needless to say, “family time” was a rare event. While the three older brothers were out doing “adult things”, my mother and her older sister were left in the very capable hands of Minnie Ellis, or as my mother affectionately called her “My Minnie”. Minnie was technically “the housekeeper”, but she was much, much more. She was cook, baby-sitter, playmate, disciplinarian, teacher and friend. With my grandparents’ overwhelming responsibilities of running one business (and five months out of the year, two businesses), Minnie was the perfect parental supplement. She earned the love and respect of my mother and her family, so much so, that she was viewed as part of the family herself.

One day, my mother at around eight or nine years old, arrived home after school. She found Minnie in the kitchen preparing that evening’s meal. My mother spoke right up and caught Minnie by surprise.

“You’re black.”, my mother said.

“Am I?”, answered Minnie, not at all flustered by my young mother’s assertion, “Who told you that?”

“A boy at school. He said that you’re black and I’m white.”, my mother continued.

Minnie produced a bleached white, cotton dishcloth and draped it across my mother’s arm. “Hmmm”, she began and stroked her chin, ” this rag is white and you don’t look white. You look pink to me.” Then Minnie took off one of her shoes and aligned it with her own arm. She continued, “I sure don’t look like the color of this black shoe. I look brown.”

My mother observed the demonstration and understood Minnie’s message of how ridiculous the statement was. She momentarily felt ashamed, but then hugged and kissed Minnie and went on her way.

Years later, when my parents were dating, my mother met her future in-laws. My paternal grandparents were two textbook bigots, pure and simple in their ignorance and disdain for all people who they saw as “different”. After my parents’ wedding and brief honeymoon, they visited my father’s parents for the first time as husband and wife. Over dinner, they talked about the wedding and the guests. Then, my grandfather - my mother’s new father-in-law - said to my mother, “How could you bring yourself to kiss that…” and he used a horrible word, one that was at one time excised from copies of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer  but features prominently in the lyrics of many current rap songs. A word that is euphemistically known as “The N Word”. A word that made my mother cringe and nearly throw up. She looked at her father-in-law, staring at him with eyes like twin lasers, and through clenched teeth, slowly and deliberately said, “Don’t you ever  speak about ‘My Minnie’ that way. Ever!”  She pronounced each syllable as though each one was its own word. My grandfather, that ignorant man, got the point loud and clear. My mother had little to say to him (but plenty to say about  him) for the remaining fifteen years of his life.

In 1959, two years before I was born, my parents and my brother drove to Miami, Florida for a vacation. They loaded their packed suitcases and traveling provisons into my father’s brand new orange and white, tail-finned sedan and made their way South on Route 1.  (For years, my mother joked that my brother stood up in the back seat for the entire trip.) The journey predated the sleek concrete highways of Interstate I-95. Route 1 snaked though tiny, quaint burgs along the eastern seaboard. The pre-Josh  Pincus Family eagerly sampled the simple offerings of a culture that moved at a slower pace from the big-city bustle of Philadelphia. One afternoon, they pulled the car into Jessup, Georgia, as my mother was intrigued by the promise of authentic Southern cooking advertised on a sign several miles back. Since the area of commerce was fairly small, locating the eatery was easy and the Pincuses went in and prepared for a Dixie feast. According to my mother’s recollections, the “authentic” Southern cuisine consisted of small, dried-out pieces of chicken, canned vegetables and Pillsbury biscuits (recognized by Mom since she had made them countless times herself). During the meal, a large spider descended from the ceiling on a single strand of web and wiggled its many legs just inches from my mother’s nose.

Her appetite ruined, my mom sought salvation in the fresh air. My father unhappily paid the tab and followed my mother and brother to a gas station across the street. Figuring he’d fill the tank, he parked the car adjacent to one of the pumps and asked the attendant to “fill ‘er up”. My mother spotted a water fountain by the station’s office and felt a cleansing drink would wash away the remnants of the awful lunch. She pressed the button on the spout and leaned down, bringing her lips closer to the stream of water. Suddenly, a scream pierced the air.

“What are you doing???” A windburned man in overalls was rushing out of the office and yelling at my mother in a dry Southern accent.

“What am I doing?”, she asked, bewildered, “I’m getting a drink.”

The man pointed to the base of the fountain, specifically to two lines of words stenciled on the front. “That’s for colored only”, he said.

My mother stepped back and - sure enough - in large white letters, the words “Colored Only” were painted on the tank, reinforcing the same angry, hateful directive that the gas station man initiated. My mother was horrified. Horrified that this situation existed in her world. She said nothing as the man watched her back away from the fountain. She joined her family in the car and sat silently in the passenger’s seat for a good portion of the drive.

These incidents stayed with my mother her entire life and she related these stories quite often as lessons to my brother and me. The most important lesson my mother taught me was not to waste time giving an audience to stupidity.

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My annual Christmas music compilation is available as a FREE DOWNLOAD for a limited time.
26 unusual songs and a custom full-color cover with track listings — all for you and for FREE!
Just CLICK HERE for “A Non-Traditional Christmas 2011.”
(You will be taken to a new window. Click the word “download” next to the title, not the big green “DOWNLOAD” button at the bottom of the page.)

Happy Holidays from your pal JPiC!
(Please contact me if you have trouble with the download.)

This week’s Illustration Friday suggested word is “brigade”.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

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My annual Christmas music compilation is available as a FREE DOWNLOAD for a limited time.
26 unusual songs and a custom full-color cover with track listings — all for you and for FREE!
Just CLICK HERE for “A Non-Traditional Christmas 2011.”
(You will be taken to a new window. Click the word “download” next to the title, not the big green “DOWNLOAD” button at the bottom of the page.)

Happy Holidays from your pal JPiC!
(Please contact me if you have trouble with the download.)

This week’s Illustration Friday word is “round”.

Michael Larson was flat broke, unemployed and had few possessions. He did, however, have a lot of time. And he used his time wisely. With no job, he began watching game shows to combat his boredom. One show, Press Your Luck,  piqued his interest.

Famous for its simple general knowledge questions, big money payoffs and the irrepressible Whammy character, Press Your Luck  was one of the more popular game shows. Contestants answered questions posed by host Peter Tomarken and were rewarded with spins on the “Big Board”. The “Big Board” was made up of 18 lighted squares, each briefly displaying a prize of dollar amount in five distinct flashing patterns. Interspersed among the prizes were Whammies, little cartoon devils whose job was to wipe out a player’s accumulated winnings. From the privacy of his home, Michael watched intently (and later videotaped) episodes of Press Your Luck.  He stared and focused on the patterns of flashing lights and prizes on the “Big Board”. Soon, he realized that two squares never showed a Whammy. He figured if he could memorize the patterns, he could surely gain an unbeatable edge and never hit a Whammy. Of course, he would have to be selected to appear on the show, but to Michael, that was a minor detail.

In May 1984, after weeks and weeks of intense preparation, Michael used the last of his savings to travel to Hollywood from his native Ohio for a tryout. Executive producer Bill Carruthers was happy to have Michael as a contestant despite contestant supervisor Bobby Edwards’ distrust and reservations.

In the first round of his appearance, Michael only accumulated three spins and compared to his competitor’s combined fourteen. He even hit a Whammy on one of his spins. The second round was a different story. Michael refocused, answered several questions and finished the second round with seven spins, more than he needed.

When his turn began, his demeanor from Round One changed drastically. He grew silent and stone faced. Ed Long, another contestant, called Michael’s state “trance-like”. Michael furrowed his brow and, with the precision and concentration of a surgeon, he stopped on a square illuminated with a high money amount and an award of an additional spin. He repeated this action over and over again. Over the course of a regulation game (that CBS broadcast over two days, due to the length of Michael’s turn), Michael racked up $110,237, the highest single-day win in game show history (to that date). He also passed the CBS “winnings cap” and was not permitted to return, although he was the reigning champion. CBS didn’t want to pay Michael, accusing him of cheating. The rules were scoured and a clause could not be found prohibiting memorization of the patterns of the board.

Michael divided his winnings, setting aside a portion for taxes, placing some in a bank account and investing the remainder in real estate. He later discovered that his real estate deal was an elaborate ponzi scheme and he lost his entire investment. Then, Michael heard about a contest being run by a local radio station. A random serial number from a one-dollar bill could be matched for a $30,000 payoff. Michael began withdrew the remaining funds from his bank account in one-dollar bills. He would sit and carefully check the serial numbers of each bill, intending to re-deposit the bills if a match was not found. In December 1984, Michael and his wife attended a Christmas party. While they were out, their home was broken into and $40, 000 in bagged one-dollar bills were stolen. Michael accused his wife Teresa of having been involved and their already-fragile marriage ended.

In 1994, when the film Quiz Show  was released, interest in the Press Your Luck  scandal was reignited. Michael, recently diagnosed with throat cancer, appeared on Good Morning America  to discuss his brief infamy. A short time later, Michael became involved with a nationwide lottery fraud scheme and went into hiding. He passed away in central Florida in 1999 and it was only then did his family learn of his whereabouts.

This week’s Illustration Friday word is “vanity”.

You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte
— You’re So Vain by Carly Simon

Carly Simon’s 1972 hit “You’re So Vain” has been the subject of controversy for nearly forty years. The subject of the scathing ode to a self-absorbed lover has remained a mystery. In interviews, Simon has continued to be coy and vague when discussing the song. She has adamantly dismissed the speculations of numerous journalists and news commentators and other times has hinted that those same guesses could possibly be correct. Famous names from Simon’s past — session guitarist David Armstrong, singers Cat Stevens and Kris Kristofferson, even Simon’s ex-husband James Taylor — have  all been suspected as the object of Simon’s musical affront.

In 2003, Dick Ebersol, president of NBC Sports, paid $50,000 at a charity auction to have Simon whisper the name of the person in question to him and him alone. As a caveat to the privilege, he was sworn to secrecy. He has kept his word, only volunteering this insignificant clue: the man’s name has an “E” in it.

The general consensus is that the song is about a composite of three gentlemen — actor Warren Beatty (who called Simon to thank her for the song), Mick Jagger (who contributed uncredited backup vocals on the song, along with Harry Nilsson and Simon herself) and producer David Geffen (the then-head of Elektra Records, who lavished attention on Joni Mitchell, much to Simon’s disappointment) .

All obviously vain people, but Carly Simon ain’t admittin’ to nothin’.

This week’s Illustration Friday inspirational word is “silent”.

“Now hurry down, baby she’s the hippest street in town!” - South Street by The Orlons (1963)

The Orlons sure knew what they were talking about in their 1963 hit “South Street”. By the time I started hanging out on Philadelphia’s South Street in the 70s, it was still  the hippest street in town. Compared to the mundane sameness of Northeast Philadelphia (where I grew up), South Street may as well have been on another planet. Weekdays on South Street, the unofficial southernmost boundary of “Center City Philadelphia”, were nothing special or even out of the ordinary. The street was lined with businesses and a moderate amount of shoppers and browsers strolled the sidewalks. Weekends were a different story. After struggling through class after boring class all week long in high school, South Street was the perfect destination for blowing off some steam.

At George Washington High School, in the hallway chaos between classes, plans were made with friends for the weekend. Someone was given the task of securing the use of Dad’s car for the night. As night fell on Saturday, that car would make the regular stops at the predetermined time and an unsafe amount of passengers would pile into the vehicle for the 30-minute drive to our local Xanadu.

South Street glittered under the streetlights. The few municipally-placed trees were laced with twinkling lights. Storefronts were lit with harsh neon giving the store’s window displays an ethereal glow and loud, cacophonous music blared from each open doorway. A peculiar blend of smells drifted from the varied eateries, mingling into a fusion that was alternately enticing and nauseating. The narrow, uneven sidewalks were packed with people — in a weird approximation to Logan’s Run— none under the age of 30. It was an all-out assault on our sheltered, Northeast Philly senses — and boy!  did we love it.

After storing the car in a relatively safe parking garage (where we all chipped in for the fee), our first order of business was food and our first stop was Frank’s Pizza at the 2nd Street corner of South Street. This cramped, unassuming joint was jammed with a knot of patrons that was “in the know”  about Frank’s oven-baked tomato and cheese manna. This was not the assembly line shit I was served from any number of mall food courts. This was a time-honored, secret recipe masterpiece that Frank’s nonna had perfected in the Old Country many years prior to her waving “Hello” to Lady Liberty in New York Harbor. We could have stayed all night at Frank’s gorging ourselves, but there was plenty to see out on South Street. Once sufficiently stuffed with pizza, we’d peruse the risque greeting cards (giggling at the overtly homoerotic images) at Keep In Touch  right next door. Then onto Zipperhead and Rosebud to marvel at the fashionably-ripped leopard-print pants our parents would never approve of our wearing.

It was on South Street I got my first taste of that unique form of entertainment — the busker, or street performer. South Street was dotted with its share of  wannabe musicians and singers. A barefoot guy in a floppy hat banging on an out-of-tune guitar would be wailing for handouts just a few feet from a waif-like young lady doing her best a capella  Joni Mitchell and a pony-tailed young man waving a fanned deck of playing cards urging passers-by to “pick one, any one”. Each had an upturned hat or unlidded cigar box placed before them for donations and each was having a modicum of success. There were even some performers, like local legend Waco Smith, who had some notoriety and a small fan base. (Waco, who passed away in 2001, encouraged a young G. Love to sing). In addition to the musical entrepreneurs, there were others who used other methods to hustle a buck or two. One in particular was Flower Man.

Flower Man was a mysterious figure of slight build, clad in a ratty, secondhand tuxedo. His face was daubed with stark white greasepaint and contrasting ruby red lips. He had a wooden tray strapped to his front, that displayed his wares — a surplus of deep red single roses and an unruly pile of pale yellow tissue paper. He prowled the corner of 4th and South, in the shadow of Copabanana and Jim’s Steaks, silently — almost telepathically — offering his floral commodities to the sidewalk-clogging crowds. Usually my excursions to South Street were dates (sometimes double or triple), so, for me,  a purchase from Flower Man was standard. Flower Man made a little spectacle for each transaction — carefully selecting the perfect rose, snipping stray leaves from its stem and wrapping it in tissue with exaggerated flourish — all the while leering seductively at the female half of the purchasing couple.

I made plenty of purchases (for plenty of girls) from Flower Man. When I was in art school in the early 80s, I used Flower Man as my inspiration for several projects. In an Experimental Medium class, I cut, glued, scored and folded a variety of papers into a colorful paper sculpture using Flower Man as the subject. In a Silk Screening class, I hand-stretched a screen and fashioned several stencils for each color of a print, again, with Flower Man as the focus. I was so pleased with the final results of the screened prints — a vivid, six-color, hand-pulled design enhanced by its presentation on black paper — that I gave a few as gifts to family members. I even gave one to Flower Man himself.

I got married almost immediately after graduating from art school. Our first few years of married life were spent in a two-story rented townhouse in Northeast Philadelphia. Soon, we were able to move into a beautiful, old twin home with hardwood floors and loads of character, just outside of the city. Mrs. Pincus and I filled our home with an array of quirky antiques and kitschy reminders of our youth. My wife frequented numerous flea markets and thrift shops searching for that elusive thing  that would look perfect in that empty corner of whatever room had an empty corner. One day, Mrs. Pincus went to idly examine the new arrivals at a Salvation Army store near our home. After roaming the aisles, she noticed it was approaching “pick-up” time at our son’s school, so she gathered her selections and proceeded to the cash register to pay. The customer ahead of her was discussing a large framed piece of art with the cashier.

“Do you know anything about this?”, the woman asked the volunteer cashier, as she held the frame out for inspection.

“No. No, I don’t.”, the cashier answered.

The woman turned the frame over so the art faced her and, sequentially, my wife. Mrs. Pincus’ eyes widened and she was hit by a jolt of recognition. The frame, in this woman’s hand, in this arbitrary Salvation Army store, held a print that I had created years earlier. It was a silk-screened print of Flower Man.

An “Oh my God” involuntarily slipped from my wife’s lips and then she said to the woman and cashier, “I know the artist. It’s my husband.”

The pair were dumbfounded (as was my wife). “Really?”, asked the woman, now quite intrigued, and she re-examined the piece with the assumed eye of a seasoned art collector. Then, she quickly turned to the cashier, paid for the framed print — my  print — and hurried out of the store.

I don’t know how that print found its way to that thrift shop. I don’t know why that woman anxiously purchased it and made a hasty exit.

Who knows? Maybe I’m a really famous artist.

This week’s Ilustration Friday’s challenge word is “stripes”.

John Philip Sousa composed 136 marches in his lifetime. Sousa, the leader of the United States Marine Band, composed one of his most famous on Christmas Day 1896, as a tribute to his friend David Blakely, the manager of the Sousa Band, who had recently passed away. The rousing composition was “The Stars and Stripes Forever March”. In 1987, an Act of Congress proclaimed the piece as the National March of the United States.

Sousa wrote six verses of lyrics, heavy with heart-stirring patriotic imagery, to accompany his piece. Sousa’s words are almost never sung and are scarcely even known. Instead, most Americans know an alternate set that they are sure are the actual lyrics. You know the ones I’m talking about. The ones that open with “Be kind to your web-footed friends…” Thanks to one Mitch Miller, those words are forever linked to Sousa’s triumphant and lively tribute to his friend and his country.

Mitch was a musician, composer, producer and conductor. He orchestrated the music for Orson Welles‘ infamous War of the Worlds  broadcast in 1938. In the 40s, he was hired as a A&R man at Mercury Records, where he was instrumental in directing the careers of Patti Page, Frankie Laine, Johnny Mathis, Doris Day, Dinah Shore and many others. Mitch pushed his affinity for novelty tunes on the likes of Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney, almost ruining their careers. In the 50s, he joined Columbia Records in the same capacity. There, he signed Aretha Franklin to a contract, but she soon left to join Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic Records. She accused Miller of hampering her creativity. Miller famously passed on two performers based purely on his blatant hatred for rock and roll. Those two singers, Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly, signed on to competing labels.

In the 60s, Mitch Miller had one of the most popular shows on television, Sing Along with Mitch.  For an hour every week, American families tuned in to watch Miller lead a male chorale and several soloists (including Leslie Uggams and future Sesame Street  staple Bob McGrath). Mom, Dad, Grandma and the kids would cheerfully sing back at their television, while “following the bouncing ball” across the song lyrics on the bottom of the screen. Miller presented favorites like “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts”, “Yellow Rose of Texas” and “When You’re Smiling”. He would end every show by leading the cast (and the home viewers) in a recitation of the silly “web-footed friends” lyrics set to the tune of Sousa’s majestic march, thus permanently altering America’s perception of the patriotic song.

Thanks Mitch. Thanks for everything.

This week’s Illustration Friday suggestion is the word “scary”.  (I did another illustration for the word “scary” in 2008. You can see that  illustration HERE. )

I love scary movies. I have loved scary movies since I was a kid. The problem is… they don’t really scare  me. The classic Universal Monster movies from the 30s and 40s were great, but I thought Dracula, Frankenstein  and even The Wolf Man  were cool, not scary.  When I was a teenager my mom introduced me to a great movie from 1944 called The Uninvited.  It was one of the first Hollywood films to present a ghost story in a serious manner. Previously, ghost stories were always played for laughs. The Uninvited  was eerie, but, unfortunately, it didn’t scare me. In the 60s, Hammer Films, a British studio, remade a handful of Universal’s pictures as full-color, blood-drenched spectacles with erotic overtones. I was hardly frightened by these movies, as my budding hormones found the abundance of heaving bosoms very distracting from the horror. The Japanese imports, like Godzilla  and Rodan,  didn’t do it for me either and The Exorcist  actually made me laugh.

In the late 70s and early 80s, a new genre of scary movies was introduced — the slasher film. The original Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street  and Friday the 13th  were all cleverly written and very entertaining. Sure, I jumped at each one’s climactic finale, but I was not what would be described as “scared”. (Don’t get me started on the awful sequels to these films.) Again, my mom pointed me in the direction of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho  from 1960. Goddammit, if that bastard Hitchcock didn’t scare me at last!

Psycho  is the perfect scary movie. Why? Because Hitchcock manipulates the shit out the audience. Everything he does goes against the norm. SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN PSYCHO. First, he introduces the heroine as a thief. Then, he kills her — the film’s star — a mere 45 minutes into the story. Psycho’s  killer isn’t a terrifying monster. He’s a good-looking, well-mannered young man; the guy next door. He offers candy to an investigating detective, for Christ’s sake! At one point, Hitchcock actually has the audience worried for the killer’s well-being. Most importantly, Psycho has the twist ending that all other films wish they had. Oooh,  that Hitchcock!

Alfred Hitchcock secretly bought the rights the Robert Bloch’s novel for nine thousand dollars and then bought all of the individual copies of the book that he could find to protect the surprise ending. Psycho  was released to theatres with explicit instructions that no one was to be admitted once the film began and he implored movie audiences not to reveal the ending to friends. It was genius marketing. The film, shot in thirty days for $800,000, earned over forty million dollars.

I have seen Psycho  countless times and, although I know every scene and every line of dialogue, it still scares me. No other film comes close. Now, that’s  scary.