AS THE SON OF THE GOD APOLLO AND THE MUSE CALLIOPE, the hero Orpheus—a magically-gifted singer and lyre player—meets a bizarre death: Bacchic maenads in northern Greece rend his body to pieces, leaving his decapitated head to continue singing as it floats down the Hebrus river. What brought him to this end? He had found that he could not replace his deceased, beloved Eurydice with other women; his abject condition inspired other men too to reject their heterosexuality and it incited the sexually-deprived female devotees of Dionysus (Bacchus) to rage.

In Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, stuffed birds—mostly raptors—glare down at Marion Crane and Norman Bates (Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins) as they nibble cheese sandwiches in the latter’s motel parlor. This intrusion of untamed nature into an otherwise domesticated indoor environment instils a creeping dread as it becomes clear that something is likewise off between Norman and his mother.

If you’re placing bets on the Hollywood luminaries who’ll still be remembered and studied centuries from now, the odds are high for two household names: Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock.

POOR SCHEHERAZADE. Under threat of nightly death, she strung along her husband, Persian King Shahryar, with stories as fantastical as they were suspenseful. For 1001 nights, these narratives alone—especially their nightly cliffhanger endings—stood between her neck and the hungry blade of an executioner’s axe. Move aside, Alfred Hitchcock, this quick-witted, well-read woman was the first Mistress of Suspense.