Phoenix history: Towering Confusion with Downtown Phoenix’s twin antennae

• Some movie buffs think the building with the rooftop antennae in "Psycho" is the Westward Ho
• The distinctive radio tower featured in Hitchcock’s classic was on the Heard Building, built in 1920
• The Westward Ho was used in Gus Van Zant's remake

While Phoenix will never be mistaken for Hollywood, the Arizona capital has experienced its share of movie magic. One of the most noteworthy clips of Phoenix cinema fame came in Alfred Hitchcock’s "Psycho," released in 1960.

The plot involves a secretary, played by actress Janet Leigh, who embezzles money from her Phoenix employer and flees to a distant motel operated by the creepy Norman Bates, portrayed by actor Anthony Perkins.

After the opening credits, Psycho begins with its title dissolving into the Phoenix skyline; Camelback Mountain is visible in the distance. The camera slowly pans south, providing views of the San Carlos Hotel, the Professional Building, the Adams Hotel, and a building with a huge radio antenna affixed to its roof.

Finally, the lens focuses through an open window on the fourth floor of the Jefferson Hotel.  There, Leigh and her boyfriend are concluding a clandestine lunchtime rendezvous.

Still standing

Despite the many changes downtown Phoenix has undergone in the decades since Psycho was filmed, fans of the Hitchcock movie are heartened to find that many of the buildings captured in the flick are still extant.

Some movie buffs think the building with the distinctive rooftop antennae survives as the Westward Ho. The former luxurious hotel was built in 1928 and now offers subsidized housing for the elderly.

But the Westward Ho does not appear in Psycho … unless, of course, you count Gus Van Zant’s 2002 remake of Psycho, starring Anne Heche and Vince Vaughn.

The distinctive radio tower featured in Hitchcock’s classic was on the Heard Building, Phoenix’s first “skyscraper” built in 1920. The seven-story building was capped with a massive KTAR radio tower in 1930, which has since been removed.

Hitchcock and Phoenix

Hitchcock, himself, might have mistaken the antennae-topped buildings for one another, since he was not onsite in Phoenix when the movie’s opening scene was filmed. Psycho was shot at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, and the highway footage of Leigh driving from Phoenix was filmed on State Highway 99 between Bakersfield and Fresno.

So why did Hitchcock bother setting Psycho in Phoenix if the majority of the thriller was set in southern California?

“Phoenix seems to be a place where a director can stage a great murder, explosion or other crime,” Steve Weiss, executive director of No Festival Required Independent Cinema says. “Maybe it's because we have such nice weather, or that it's always that great contradiction of wonderful weather and tragic outcome. From Psycho to The Getaway (the remake) to David Lynch's TV drama, Hidden Palms, we're the go-to place for bad people doing bad things.”

Douglas C. Towne is the editor of Arizona Contractor & Community magazine,http://www.arizcc.com/