by Nonsequitur

Created on: April 25, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

Probably one of the most notable Hitchcock goofs that actually got caught before it got onto film was one relayed by Stephen King in an anecdote in his book On Writing. His wife, Alma, known notoriously as Hitchcock's toughest critic, was among an audience of people watching an initial cut of his movie Psycho. While most praised the movie profusely at the end, Alma sat in stone silence and said finally, "You can't send it out like that." What she was referring to, and what everyone else including Hitchcock himself had missed, was a shot from the famous shower scene. Actress Janet Leigh, when she is supposed to have been dead, swallows in one of the shots.

Other Psycho goofs that did make it past the final cut may have been at the fault of a sloppy continuity editor, or simply allowable given budget and time restrictions. For example, the shower scene also switches between times of cleanliness and other times of being covered in blood. The fact that this seen alone has over 90 splices of film is remarkable; some mistakes were almost to be expected.

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