Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho reputation, including "Rope", "Rear Window", "To Catch a Thief", "The Man Who Knew Too Much", and "North by Northwest". The project, which Hitchcock tackled in part to compete with financially successful, low-budget, youth-oriented horror movies, went on to astound many by becoming a cultural watershed, an international box-office success, a film classic, and a forerunner of the violent, disorienting films and real-events of the turbulent 1960s and '70s. "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho" was initially distributed in hardcover print by W.W. Norton for Dembner Books on April 15, 1990 in the United States. A trade paperback edition was
Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho Prior to the book's publication, Rebello's initial research appeared as a 22-page article in the April 1986 issue of "Cinefantastique" magazine entitled "Psycho: The Making of Alfred Hitchcock's Masterpiece". That research was expanded for the book version. The book details Hitchcock's acquisition of the original novel by Robert Bloch to his work with two different screenwriters, casting, filming, editing, scoring, and promotion. "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho" shows the daily lives of the filmmakers, who believed they were making a modestly budgeted, black-and-white shocker, representing a radical departure from the elegant, suspenseful films that had made director Hitchcock's