A young woman disappears with money from her office to be used to create a better life for her boyfriend and herself. Along the way to meet her love, she stops at a roadside motel and meets the young owner Norman. After some deep conversation, she goes to her room and is murdered by Norman. It then becomes the quest of her younger sister to find her. Her sister, Lila, along with her boyfriend Sam, and an ill-fated private detective, they work to find the terrible secret of Norman Bates and the fate of Mary/Marion. The differences in the movies and the novel are subtle at times and at others, vast. Each director of the film chose to take different angles at some aspects of the story. Hitchcock was working within the confines of the late 50s and early 60s. One major change that was made in the movie was the physical appearance of the character, Norman. In the novel, Norman Bates is middle-aged man with a "plump face rimless glasses scalp beneath thinning sandy hair." (Bloch 10.) In the first screen adaptation, Norman became somewhat attractive. He looked like the boy next door. Anthony Perkins played the part that just by looking at Norman you felt sympathetic for him. He looked like a normal trustworthy person (Hitchcock, 1960.) Hitchcock was also creating a movie in a time where explicit sexuality and nudity were taboo. The now famous shower scene, where Marion is murdered, took seven days and over 700 camera angles to shoot. Hitchcock wanted to make sure that there were no actual slashing shots shown or any nudity (Hitchcock/Psycho Trailer.) That would be left up to the viewer to use their imagination. Hitchcock chose the design of the house, which stands behind the Bates Motel. He believed that it cast a sinister feel on the whole area. In comparison, the 1998 version of the story was subject to more leniency. Director Van Sant chose to add nudity and visible stab wounds to the shower scene (Van Sant 98.