The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 70

Mi 14 Friday, July 4, 1986 The Philadelphia Inquirer Film: Norman Bates is back in 'Psycho III' Review PSYCHO HI Produced by Hilton A. Green, directed by Anthony Perkins, written by Charles Edward Pogue, photography by Bruce Surtees, music by Carter Burwell, distributed by Universal Studios. Running time: hour, 33 minutes. Norman Bates. Anthony Perkins Maureen Diana Scarwid Duane Jeff Fahey Tracy Roberta Maxwell Parent's guide: (violence) Showing: At area theaters By Desmond Ryan Inquirer Movie Critic Psycho III welcomes you back to the Bates Motel, where the management has a different definition of check-out time.

Moviegoers accustomed to the relentless cycle of sequels to half-wit hits will rightly ask if it's worth signing the motel register for the third time. Funnily enough and those are the operative words for the macabre, deadpan wit of this third chapter the answer is affirmative. Most sequels are inspired by a commercial reflex, rather than valid moviemaking reasons. Not so with the Psycho sequels. The fact that there is a gap of a almost quarter of a century between Alfred Hitchcock's classic Psycho (1960) and the resumption of the series in 1983 by Australian director Richard Franklin may well have something to do with the surprising quality of the two sequels.

Psycho III is cherished for the perfection of its structure and execution. We had every right to feel that when Norman Bates was carted off to his fate at the end of Hitchcock's film there was nothing more to be said on the subject. In having the temerity to pick up Norman's knife in Psycho II, Franklin made both a salute to the maestro's original and a cunning amplification of the central character. What happened, he asked with deceptive ingeniyty, when Norman was released from the mental hospital and took his place once again behind the dusty front desk? and when. Suspense in such circumstances is possible, but limited.

Perkins and screenwriter Charles Edward Pogue make the sensible decision to stress psychology over suspense and to leaven the story with double-entendres that are delivered with an absolutely straight face by someone who the audience knows still belongs in a straitjacket. Besides having a sense of humor, Psycho III works because it has a question as simple as the one posed by Franklin in his well-received sequel. What would Norman be like if he were given a tantalizing chance at normality? The matter is posed shrewdly by placing him in the path of a woman who is enduring her own torments, a refugee from the convent. Maureen (Diana Scarwid) has visions of the Virgin Mary that are as real to her as Norman's warped encounters with his mother, and that gives the film an eerie balance in its obsessions. She cannot take her final vows because of her sexual urges and leaves the order.

Although Psycho serves up the usual series of killings, it's most effective when these two broken people are together. The central relationship and the dark comedy more than atone for the predictable plot. Norman remains under the thrall of the late Mrs. Bates in ways that would be unfair to reveal here. And he also has to cope with an investigative reporter with a cynical view of his alleged recovery that is not i.

-iL Vr A fir 4 Franklin introduced a note of ambiguity into the story, having Norman tormented by the relative of one of his victims. Suddenly, the screen's most celebrated murderer and mother's boy had a claim on our sympathy. Franklin was immeasurably assisted by the return of Anthony Perkins in the role that irretrievably altered his career. What, then, could be more fitting than Psycho a film that allows Perkins to have the last word on the subject in his first effort as a director? In real life, Perkins has been forced to live with this captivating killer for a long time. And in taking up the story once again, he has made some very astute decisions.

Obviously, the issue in the killings that are by now as routine as room service at the motel is not who, but how Maureen (Diana Scarwid) and Norman (Anthony Perkins) kiss of Insanity and murder that is far more pertinent in this age of the "Twinkle defense" and routine pleas of madness to excuse mass killing shared by townsfolk. They even the sheriff believe that Norman has paid his dues. But nothing has prepared him for Maureen. The movie also takes up the issue than it was 26 years ago. V- 'SS fi A DON SIUPS0N3ERRY BRUCKMIMR PR00UCTI0N VW Ai-J i n-r'-: Sjfi TOM CRUISE KELLY McGILUS llimHUOniMBaBaHMHBlMBMItlMMHMlTTIWIMHai R.

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