The US premiere of Alfred Hitchcock's milestone PSYCHO was uncut and uncensored, despite severe opposing wind. Nevertheless, any single home theater release worldwide only contains a censored version. The origin of this version is unknown. The theatrical re-release in the US a few years afterwards however was not uncensored anymore. At least cutting Norman Bates' bloody finger can be traced back to the British. Since the picture is not available in the US either, it is likely that some kind of customized and restored version that took any complaint into account has been used as source for any release there is.

Oddly enough, the uncensored version is not entirely lost. Years ago, it aired on German Free TV. Possibly in other countries as well. It is hard to get your hands on this uncensored TV version these says because the last time it aired was 10 years ago. Maybe, people in other countries are not that misfortunate. Anyway, any release on VHS, Laserdisc, DVD and Blu-ray only contains the censored international version.

At least in Germany, the uncensored version was aired many many times which suggests that an uncensored master still does exist and that makes it even worse. For some reason, Universal simpöy does not bother at all to release an uncensored version. In Germany alone, 10 different DVD and 4 different Blu-ray releases are available - the latest one was the so-called 50th Anniversary Edition. While there is more and more bonus available in order to keep the people spending their money for Psycho, the movie itself is always censored. It appears that Universal cannot deliver the uncensored version but the huge amount of releases raises the question if Universal does even recall that such a thing actually exists or if Universal simply ignores the fans' wishes - not uncommon for a major studio. The existence of an uncensored version has not been a big secret for quite some time though and it is not unlikely that Universal has received lots of mails regarding that issue...

The huge amount of re-releases also shows that - not very surprising - Psycho is still lucrative for Universal. Keeping in mind the existence of an uncensored version, their almost ignorant behavior regarding the releases however is even more upsetting - especially when it affects a classic like Psycho because we are talking about one of the most important movies in film history here. One of Hitchcock's finest hours and one of the most known movies of all time.

Last but not least, a few more or less personal words: Universal may hold the rights but a bit more cultural responsibility would be appreciated in order to reverse the anachronistical censoring which simply seems rediculous nowadys and release the uncensored theatrical version from 1960 because that is how Hitchcock intended Psycho to be. Not only from a filmhistorical point of view but they also owe these additional expenses to Hitchcock with whose movies Universal has made more than enough money.