In Hitchcock's original film "Psycho", when the camera scans Norman's room, why does it focus on the records on the turntable - Beethoven's 'Eroica'- was it mistaken for 'erotica' or does eroica mean other than heroic? Never got the significance.

I really have no idea. Indeed, I don't recall the scene. But here is a conjecture.

Hitchcock was known for his puckish sense of humor. When I was a kid, in the 1950s and 1960s, the common cartoon representation of a lunatic was that he thought he was Napoleon (e.g., the novelty song "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Haha" was recorded under the name Napoleon XIV). Beethoven originally dedicated the Eroica symphony to Napoleon. Just a thought.

Here's another take on it:

"A stifled eroticism is detectable. Psycho-analysts have long scratched their heads over the disc of Beethoven's Eroica symphony on a turntable, speculating about Napoleon and imperial monomania. They surely miss the point. Eroica is "erotica" with one letter missing, a sly symbol for the pornography we don't see in Norman's room but know from hints, and explicitly from Bloch's novel, is there."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/30dfd0d2-32de-11df-bf5f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2tTnhGjBs

This very long treatise on several Hitchcock films states "Hitchcock surely assumed the audience would think "erotic" rather than "heroic." "

Scroll all the way down to the reference notation of 48.

http://brightlightsfilm.com/28/psycho1.php#.UwGCC6N5mSM