The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder

It killed its star off after forty minutes. There was no happy ending. And it offered the most violent scene to date in American film. The shrieking strings of the soundtrack seared the national consciousness--nothing likePsychohad existed before.Drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge of Hollywood, renowned film critic David Thomson vividly shows how, in 1959, Hitchcock masterfully madePsychoto reflect the sexual, creative, and political ferment that would soon overtake the nation.Psycho, all of a sudden, represented all America wanted from a film--and, asThe Moment of Psychobrilliantly demonstrates, it still does.

David Thomson is the author of numerous books on film, including “Have You Seen . . . ?” A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films and the Biographical Dictionary of Film. A regular contributor to the New York Times, Film Comment, The New Republic, and Salon, Thomson lives in San Francisco with his family.