Corrected entry: Norman Bates invites Marion to have dinner with him as he was going to eat anyway. She accepts and he brings down sandwiches. She then says she's not got any appetite, and he said they are all for her anyway as he's not hungry. Odd really, why would he make dinner for himself if he didn't want to eat and why would she accept dinner if she doesn't want to eat either?
Corrected entry: When Norman is cleaning the bathroom, he leaves the toilet seat down. But later, when Sam and Lila go into that same bathroom, they find the seat up. (00:53:50 - 01:32:50)
Correction: Several days pass between the two scenes. Plenty of time for Norman to give the bathroom a second cleaning.
Corrected entry: When Norman carries his dead mother down the stairs her legs are not stiff at all, but wiggle around loosely as he turns at the banister and begins his stairway descent. However, it may have given the plot away if she looked dead and stuffed at that point in the movie, but if she had been dead for many years (I assume stuffed by Norman), they would be stiff and rigid and not bend loosely below the knees.
Correction: He probably stuffed her so as to be "poseable" rather than in a fixed position since sometimes she sits in the chair, sometimes she's laid on the bed. Actually it might be easier to do it this way as you wouldn't have to insert rods to prevent the knees from bending.
Corrected entry: After Marion has worked out how much money she owes back when she decides to return to Phoenix, she rips up the piece of paper she wrote it on and throws it into the toilet. Later on her boyfriend and her sister come to find where she is and enter the bathroom she was killed, the sister looks down next to the toilet and there is a piece of the torn paper which she picks up. However when Marion was tearing up the piece of paper you can see that all the bits fell directly into the toilet making it impossible for that piece to be there.
Correction: Marion does throw all the pieces into the toilet but Lila (the sister) gets the piece FROM the toilet, not next to it. She says something like "There's something that hasn't dissolved here."
Corrected entry: In the Scene where Norman spies on Marion, he is looking right into the bathroom, but his office is next to her bedroom, rather than the bathroom. Hitchcock did this on purpose though, to see if anyone was paying close attention.
Correction: Marion is undressing in the bedroom not in the bathroom, the door to the bathroom can be seen centre frame. Incidentally, early cinema prints had a rather racy shot of Marion removing her black bra.
Corrected entry: When Norman goes to clean Marion's room, he goes into his office and comes out with a mop. Yet when he enters Marion's room, Norman also has a mop bucket with him (which he did not have before). (00:50:55)
Correction: When Norman goes to get the mop he also has a bucket, when he enters the room you can just see the metal handle in his other hand.
Corrected entry: In the shower scene after Marion has been stabbed, she slowly slides down with her back against the shower wall - you can see the blood from her back streaking down the wall and into the tub, but when Norman comes in to clean up, the wall is clean, and the only blood you see is in the tub and on the floor.
Correction: That is not blood on the wall as Marion slides down. If you look closer, it is actually her wet hair that is stuck to the wall. That is why Norman does not clean the wall in the shower.
Corrected entry: In the very brief time between Arbogast's re-arrival at the motel and his murder, Norman manages to disappear behind the motel, reach an upstairs bedroom in the house, and change into "Mother" by the time Arbogast reaches the top of the stairs. Not only that, he does this without Arbogast seeing him, even though it's been established that the house is visible from the office.
Correction: Arbogast didn't go straight to the house after he made his phone call. It gave Norman plenty of time to change. Besides, he must have been used to changing into "Mother" by that point, since he'd done it so many times before, so it wouldn't take that long.
The phone call is before Arbogast returns to the motel. After the call, as he arrives at the hotel, Norman is walking toward the rooms furthest from the hotel. Arbogast walks toward the house without seeing Norman, and though he delays a moment as he looks up the hill, his route to the house is fairly direct. It would be unlikely, and difficult if not impossible, for Norman to get to the house unseen, upstairs, and dressed like Mother. Norman would have had no reason to make a beeline for the house.
Corrected entry: At the end of the film in the Sheriff's office, you can see a wall calendar with the date on 17. The film started on December 11th - Marion absconds with the money on the same day. She slept the first night in her car, then drove all day Saturday before arriving later that night at Bates motel, she was killed the same night. When Arbogast arrives we learn that Marion has been missing for one week, it is now Saturday, Sam and Lila visit the motel to look for Arbogast, (who by now is dead) and they go to visit Sheriff Chambers later that same evening. They meet the Sheriff the following Sunday morning outside the church, it is on the same day that Norman is captured and taken into custody, now the date on the wall calendar should have shown 20 and not 17, the story has lasted for a total of nine days and not six days.
Correction: All this is true, but it can easily be explained by someone in the sheriff's office forgetting to change the calendar. Character mistake, not movie mistake.
Corrected entry: In the closing scene, right before Marion's car is pulled out of the swamp, Norman Bates, or 'Mother' at this point, is sitting in a chair talking to himself. Watch his face closely before it shows Marion's car, and you can see the skeleton of Mrs. Bates superimposed over him.
Correction: Any information that can be gained simply by watching the film is not trivia.
Corrected entry: When Arbogast is stabbed, in one shot there's no blood on his face, but in the very next shot there is.
Correction: There's only two shots where we see him as he is killed, and in both shots, blood is visible on his face.
Correction: Marion IS hungry, she just tells Norman she hasn't much of an appetite, since "Mrs. Bates" had just screamed that she didn't want Marion feeding her appetite with "my food or my son". As for Norman, he was being polite.
LuMaria 1