Reading the book again also made me realize that Sam wasn't as nice as he was in the movie. Sam seemed to have a bit of a roving eye in the book. It was just a subtle thing. The 90s movie also picked up on that.
What I mean, is that he didn't really seem to be as into Mary as Mary was into him.
You asked a pretty question; I've given you the ugly answer.
Fasten Your Seatbelts….
It's Going To Be A Bumpy Night!

That's right. Norman in the novel was fat, balding and wore glasses.

He was an interesting choice for the role in the film. The complete opposite of the Norman in the written story.
You asked a pretty question; I've given you the ugly answer.
Fasten Your Seatbelts….
It's Going To Be A Bumpy Night!

His character did, though

You just can't imagine that cute Anthony Perkins doing anything as gross as cutting someone's head off, can you?

Alma Reville read that part of the book out in the film Hitchcock

Psycho

name of the novel?
let me smell your farts for israel

Plus Hitchcock played up the shower scene for its sexuality - a wet beautiful naked woman. A decapitation would have meant too much unnecessary gore.
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I Spit On Your Grave was graphic but funny
If we take the time to see with the heart and not with the mind, we shall see that we are surrounded completely by angels ~ Carlos Santana

Violence in film really escalated shockingly quickly between the 60s and 70s. We evolved from cartoonish, rubber-knifed shower stabbings to crucifix masturbation in
The Exorcist
, revenge-based torture porn through
I Spit On Your Grave
, and head-decapitating, leg-severing, halved-man chewing monsters via
Jaws
.
Hark! Harold the angel sings.

As the years have passed, they have perfected it.
One other thing…
The blood and guts and the sex became more readily available and accessable with the advent of the VCR.
You asked a pretty question; I've given you the ugly answer.
Fasten Your Seatbelts….
It's Going To Be A Bumpy Night!

Now days? Limbs are torn off and heads roll as the blood flows. No big deal
You had that back then, too. I remember an old interview Christopher Lee did in German, I think right after his role in Captain Invincible (1983), and he was asked what he thought of modern horror films. He didn't like them all that much, because "these days" you could see everything. Blood, gore, the lot. (As if one couldn't see that in the Hammer films he starred in.)
Graphic butchery of the human body in film goes back at least as far as 1916, and the '70s and '80s were chock-full of it. Guts being torn out, eyes being poked out, heads being chopped off, skulls being crushed, chests being ripped open… You name it, it was there back then as well. And people back then were also complaining about "what are movies coming to". But the fact is, those graphic depictions have always catered to a certain niche, which is why we only see such gore in certain kinds of movies. Gore has never been "no big deal" in mainstream movies, and it isn't today either. Movies like Hostel, I Spit On Your Grave (which is a remake of a 1978 revenge-porn with virtually identical action) etc. are not movies for everyone, and the gore displayed there would be met with loud protests had they appeared in a
regular
action or drama.
Just like we have a lot more porn these days - but you still don't see porn in regular movies.
Sometimes
you see unsimulated sex in mainstream movies, but that happens just as rarely today as it did decades ago. Caligula, anyone?

I avoid a film if it's too graphic
If we take the time to see with the heart and not with the mind, we shall see that we are surrounded completely by angels ~ Carlos Santana

You're welcome

Sad but true.
You don't know it, but you just gave me a little nudge. I just perused my book shelf. I found it! While I have viewed the film many times… even just recently, I haven't read the story in years. It's time.
Thanks for the nudge.
You asked a pretty question; I've given you the ugly answer.
Fasten Your Seatbelts….
It's Going To Be A Bumpy Night!

People are too desensitized to violence these days.

The film version was shocking enough for audiences in 1960.
I confess that I had never seen it until the mid 70s. In my early 20s, I was shocked!
Now days? Limbs are torn off and heads roll as the blood flows. No big deal
You asked a pretty question; I've given you the ugly answer.
Fasten Your Seatbelts….
It's Going To Be A Bumpy Night!