Runners

a winding mountain path. And to make matters worse, the drivers would attempt this route entirely at night and without headlights. A wrong turn in the dark could be deadly, but the payoff was worth the risk. The winner would walk away with a massive purse and the loser could leave in handcuffs. Because this wasn't the INND five hundred, and the racers weren't professional drivers, they were bootleggers. During America's prohibition era, illegal whiskey and moonshine runners became some of

the best getaway drivers in the country. There was a lot of money to be made by transporting liquor from world distilleries to speakeasies in the city, provided they didn't get caught. The roads were heavily patrolled by the FEDS, so runners did everything they could to give themselves an edge. They bought the best cars on the market, like Ford's powerful V eight, then modified them to the perfect getaway vehicles. They souped up the engines and ripped out the back seats.

They added suspension springs so the car's frames wouldn't sag under the weight of contraband and alert the cops. Some bootleggers even rig their vehicles with gadgets straight out of a Bond film. Cars were capable of emitting smoke screens and oil slicks, or dumping nails into the path of their pursuers, but no gadget or upgrade could match experience behind the wheel. The bootleggers weren't moving liquor or retooling their rides. They kept up their skills by racing one

another at local fairgrounds. Now, these races weren't supposed to be serious, at least at first. There were no cash prizes and no tickets sold, so a lot of drivers were surprised when people started to show up and watch At this point, the American auto racing scene was pretty much limited to triple A races like the Indy five hundred. These were expensive, high class events attended by wealthy businessmen and their families. The amateur bootlegger races were the exact opposite.

The cars were stock, the drivers were amateur, and the audiences were working class. The courses were so dusty that everyone went home the color of rust. But what these races lacked in frills, they made up for in spectacle. Reckless Roy Hall, for example, who had multiple convictions to his name, could be seen tearing around turns so fast

his vehicle briefly lifted onto two wheels. Meanwhile, Bill Blair Senior, a bootlegger from North Carolina, demonstrated the one hundred and eighty degree hair pin turns that he had perfected while evading atf agents. The combination of the talents and the guts on display caused the races to surge in popularity,

with audiences showing up in droves. The drivers started earning real money, maybe not bootleg level money, but enough that when national prohibition ended in nineteen thirty three, they kept on racing. And while that was happening an entire industry of mechanics and garages. The folks that serviced those booze runner vehicles transitioned to meet the needs of stock car racers. Even the promoters and team managers had roots in the illegal liquor trade. By nineteen forty seven, it was time

to make things official. A group of former bootleggers met in Daytona Beach, Florida to standardize the rules for their fledgling sport. By the time they left the meeting, they had formed a brand new racing association, which would see a rapid and meteoric expansion in the coming years. Among those early rules was an agreement that drivers couldn't be

sponsored by liquor companies. Ironic perhaps, but also clever. The league thought that if they were ever going to become mainstream, they would need to distance themselves from their criminal past. The rebranding was a success. The sport took off and eventually became the biggest auto racing league in the US, and today a few people remember that NASCAR was created by a bunch of professional bootleggers. Let's do a thought

experiment right now. Think about your local movie theater. What's the first thing that you can picture in your mind. Is it the smell of the popcorn, or maybe the feeling of the seat cushion under you as you settle in and watch the latest blockbuster. Whatever it is, Going to a movie theater and watching a film is something almost everyone has experienced at least once in their lives.

Well back in nineteen sixty one, film changed the movie going experience forever, and we're still feeling the effects of this today. British director Alfred Hitchcock was looking for his next big project. He had just finished North By Northwest starring Carrie Grant, the exciting spy thriller that had stars fighting for their lives atop Mount Rushmore. But rather than go bigger for his next film, he took a page

literally from his assistant Peggy Robertson. Robertson had read a review of a new novel by the author Robert Block. Inspired by the story of a Wisconsin farmer turned gravedigger and murderer, the book told the story of a lonely motel caretaker with a strange fascination with his mother. Robertson gave Hitchcock a copy of Block's novel Psycho and the rest was history. Except that's not where the story ends.

In fact, it's just the beginning, because Hitchcock new Psycho's success was going to hinge on one thing, the element of surprise. So to avoid any potential audience members from reading the novel ahead of time and ruining the twistwear spoiler alert the main character is killed halfway through the story, he had Peggy buy up every copy of the book she could find. Hitchcock then bought the rights to the film for Block's novel for nine five hundred dollars and

went to Paramount with his pitch. But they weren't too receptive. For one, the studio had already turned down the book based on its unsavory plot. The executives didn't want to spend a lot of money. North By Northwest By the Way had cost them about five million dollars, so Hitchcock eased their fears by promising to film the movie in black and white, and to avoid undue cost to the studio, he used his crew from the Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series.

When that didn't work, he said that he would pay for it himself. All Paramount had to do was distribute it, and finally they agreed. It took almost three months to film, but by the end Hitchcock had a tightly wound horror thriller featuring killer performances from the likes of Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates and Janetly as Marion Crane. But he also had a big problem on his hands. You see,

Marion's death happens almost an hour into the film. Now today, if someone is five or ten minutes late to a movie, the most they miss are the trailers or maybe the opening scene. But before nineteen sixty, theaters showed their films on a loop. They would open the doors and start

their projectors. Customers who bought tickets might catch the film at the beginning, or maybe even just the last few scenes, and then when it was over, they would sit and wait for the picture to start again and watch it until it reached the point where they had walked in. Hitchcock couldn't have that. He didn't want audiences coming in

late and missing the crucial scene where Marian dies. Even more so, he didn't want people learning the truth about Norman Bates before they'd even seen what comes before, so he and the studio ink to deal with the theaters, he forced them to adopt specific showtimes for Psycho. Now at first the theaters objected, but then they realized that they would make a lot more money by turning Hitchcock's film into an exclusive You had to be there event, oh and anyone who came late was not allowed into

the theater. The director even had a bunch of cardboard cutouts of himself made up with an explanation of this new rule, which read, we won't allow you to cheat yourself. You must see Psycho from beginning to end to enjoy it fully, and these were placed in theater lobbies for patrons to see as they walked in. Well, Hitchcock's gamble worked.

Audiences lined up in droves to see Psycho as intended, and the theaters loved how designated showtimes gave them a clear view of their busiest times of the day, as well as the ideal times to clean the theaters. Pretty soon, Psycho wasn't the only appointment only film being shown. Other movies followed suit, and the whole concept of showing films on a loop went the way of the Betamax. So the next time you make plans to see a new horror film, or a Victorian drama or a buddy cop

comedy in the theaters, you can thank Alfred Hitchcock. And the next time you freak out about taking a shower alone, well you can thank him for that as well. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. This show was created by me, Aaron Mankey in partnership with how

Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.