Flavorwire

Think Alamo Drafthouse is strict about movie theater etiquette? Well, their anti-texting policy is nothing compared to Alfred Hitchcock’s response to latecomers. As you’ll see in the “press book on film” below, when Psycho premiered on Broadway, a sign hung over the cinema entrance that read, “No one.. BUT NO ONE… will be admitted to the theater after the start of each performance of Psycho.” According to Hitchcock, this was for the audience’s own good. But it was also part of a beautifully orchestrated marketing campaign that created excitement for the movie by driving home the importance of seeing it from the very beginning and featured cardboard cutouts of the filmmaker himself that explained the policy — which were guarded by real, live Pinkertons. In addition to these revelations, the video features plenty of exhortations from Hitchcock, delivered in his signature slow, creepy drawl. “I insist that you do not tell your friends the little, tiny, horrifying secrets of Psycho after you see it,” he tells us. And with a voice like that, how could we dare disobey?

[via Dangerous Minds]