For my second survey i have decided to do it on a few thriller openings, in order to do this i had to do a bit of research on you-tube by watching many different videos, however after not being able to decide or to find any suitable for the survey, i manage to get a few opening of Jordan who is researching thriller openings as a whole for the research base. So i was given three thriller openings one from the film called Psycho, Rear Window and Reservoir dogs.
Opening summary - Psycho
Hitchcock opens this landmark film in his traditional manner, involving the viewer immediately with his players and his twisting plot. The camera pans the skyline of Phoenix, Arizona, and then focuses on one building, zeroing in on one hotel window, going through it to show Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), wearing only a bra and slip, reclining sensuously on a bed, her lover Sam Loomis (John Gavin) standing over her. From the onset of their conversation we realize that they are having an adulterous affair and that Gavin is too poor to get a divorce. (In presenting the opening scene in this manner, like a peep show, Hitchcock transforms the viewer into a voyeur.) The unhappy Marion returns to her real estate office, where her boss George Lowery (Vaughn Taylor) agrees to hold $40,000 for a rich, loud-mouthed client, Tom Cassidy (Frank Albertson).
In a moment of weakness, Marion steals the money and decides to make a new life for herself. She pays cash for a new car, but her nervous behavior draws the attention of a state policeman who follows her and, when catching her asleep in the car, warns her not to sleep along the roadside. Marion drives through the night until she is exhausted and begins looking for a place to stay.
Opening summary - Rear Window
James Stewart, one of the director's favorite leading players, is excellent as magazine photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries, a man of action, who has broken his left leg and is confined to his Greenwich Village apartment. Now he must passively sit back and be content with the mundane day-to-day activities he views from the rear window of his apartment through field glasses and the telescopic lens of his camera. His window looks out on a back court area showing a small garden and the back areas of other apartment buildings. His neighbors are conspicuously unconscious of their own vulnerability to Jeff's constant gaze. Jeff watches housewives, newlyweds (the only persons who actually draw the shades on their rear windows), a composer in a posh apartment, a lonely woman he dubs Miss Lonely Hearts, a Broadway ballerina ("Miss Torso"), and, of particular interest to Jeff, Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr), who lives with a shrewish wife.
Opening Summary - Reservoir Dogs
The story looks at what happens before and after (but not during) a botched jewelry store robbery organized by Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney). Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) is a career criminal who takes a liking to newcomer Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) and enjoys showing him the ropes. Mr. Pink (Steve Busce) is a weaselly loner obsessed with professionalism. Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) has just gotten out of jail after taking the rap on a job for Cabot; he's grateful for the work but isn't the same person he used to be. While Mr. Blonde goes nuts during the heist, the thieves are surprised by the sudden arrival of the police, and Mr. Pink is convinced one of their team is a cop.
