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Film Features

The Best Hollywood Hoaxes for April Fool's Day
David Moats , March 31st, 2009 11:08

In honour of April Fool's Day, The Quietus collects the best Hollywood Hoaxes: from Joaquin's beard to Marilyn's letters; from the Hollywood makeup artists who made Bigfoot to Kubrick's moon landing; from electric shocks in the cinema to faux documentaries with Herzog; it's all here.

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Psycho's Shower Scene

Hitchcock went to great lengths to ensure that audiences were genuinely surprised by the infamous shower scene, which abruptly halts the Janet Leigh plotline and switches to the main act. He even went so far as to enforce a 'no late entry' policy. No one would have suspected that Hitchcock would kill off the top-billing actress only part way through. Although it happened because of scheduling conflicts, for the trailer he ended up filming a different actress – Vera Miles – being killed, which only confused people further. More of a good-natured deception that a true hoax – Hitchcock was pretty much doing the audience a favour.