Fifty years ago today, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho was released. (And 11.5 years ago, the useless Gus Van Sant remake was released.) Here's the original trailer for Psycho, which has the phlegmatic Hitchcock rambling in front of the movie's sets, accompanied by some cheery orchestral music.

I love trailers like this—trailers that stand separate from the films they advertise, containing new or unused footage. After seeing this trailer, you'd probably have no idea what kind of movie Psycho was, and no inkling of the shocking (for its time) violence it contained. All you'd gather is that Alfred has a peculiar fascination with bathrooms. Over the years Psycho has been labeled the first slasher movie, while it really only contains one scene of real slashing. Still, it raised the bar for horror-thriller movies.

Psycho was based on the true story of Ed Gein, a real life murderer from Plainfield, Wisconsin. Writer Robert Bloch reworked Gein's story into the novel Psycho, upon which the film was based. You can read more about Gein's original crimes over on Neatorama, in a reprint of the first chapter of Stephen Rebello's Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho.