Psycho, the beginning

Phoenix, Arizona...

The movie starts with a panoramic view of Phoenix, the precise date is displayed on the screen: Friday 11 Dec, 14.43; then, the camera dives in a hotel room window. In the room, a couple: the woman, Marion, spread sensuously and the man, Sam, near the bed, bare-chested. Marion wears a brassiere revealing a prosperous breast. As Sam has just said, it's hot!

She's dressing herself again. Of course they made love, and Marion must be back to work soon; the date at the beginning of the film suggests that Marion skips the lunch to meet Sam...

This is one of the most sensual scenes in the whole Hitchockian filmography, but he wants to create a relaxing atmosphere, for a better enjoyement of the horror that will follow. It sure inspired Roman Polanski in the first scenes of Frantic (Harrison Ford and his wife in a hotel room in Paris)

Here are the frames of the bed scene :

The film critic Jean Douchet remarks about this scene:

In the first scene of Psycho, John Gavin is bare-trunked and Janet Leigh wears a bra. For this reason, this scene satisfies only half of the public.

Janet Leigh shouldn't have been wearing a bra.This sequence wasn't so immoral; it doesn't suggest any particular feeling because I'm like an unmarried man. No doubt that this scene could have been more interesting if only the breast of the woman rub against the one of the man...