Frenzy (1972)
Notable cast/crew: Jon Finch as Richard Ian Blaney. Alec McCowen as Chief Inspector Oxford. Barry Foster as Robert Rusk. Billie Whitelaw as Hetty Porter. Anna Massey as Babs Milligan. Barbara Leigh-Hunt as Brenda Margaret Blaney. Bernard Cribbins as Felix Forsythe. Jean Marsh as Monica Barling. Clive Swift as Johnny Porter.
Running time: 116 minutesDirector: Alfred Hitchcock
MacGuffin: Bob Rusk's tie pin
Hitchcock cameo: Standing in the crowd at the start of the film
Hitchcock themes:
- Sophisticated villain
- Hero falsely accused
Verdict: Frenzy was Hitchcock's "comeback" film. His previous three films (Marnie, Torn Curtain, and Topaz) had been flops, and critics were beginning to think he was tired, that film-making had passed him by. Hitchcock decided to return to Britain to film for the first time since 1956's The Man Who Knew Too Much. He ended up making a surprisingly modern film; one that still feels current today, and certainly more current than his other films. The ratings system had been implemented after the removal of the Hays Code in 1968. Hitchcock uses more vulgarity than before, and he uses nudity for the only time in his film career. Unfortunately, the latter detracts from the film as it is entirely gratuitous. There's no reason to show it, and it feels like he does it simply because he can in an effort to be "current".
Frenzy finds Hitchcock returning to ideas that recur in his movies. The man wrongfully accused on the run (The 39 Steps, North By Northwest), the misogynist killer (Psycho), the detective who searches for the real killer after the innocent is convicted (Dial M for Murder), all things we've seen before, but there's a welcome familiarity to them. These are ideas Hitchcock knows well and knows how to do well. If this was his answer to the young, rising auteur directors of the 70s, it's a good one.
It's a British cast, and Jon Finch does a fine job glowering through the film. He's down on his luck, and the juxtaposition of his volatile personality with the exposition provided by other characters initially sets us up to think he might be the killer. However, it's made clear early on that Barry Foster's Bob Rusk is the real villain. Michael Caine was Hitchcock's first choice for the role of Rusk, but Caine thought the character was disgusting and said, "I don't want to be associated with the part".
The film and its source book, "Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square", were inspired by the real-life unsolved crimes of the serial killer known as "Jack the Stripper". Unlike in the story, the real killings (which terrified London in the early 1960s) mirrored elements of "Jack the Ripper" in that the killer attacked prostitutes and that the killings mysteriously stopped.
Henry Mancini was originally hired as the film's composer. His opening theme was much darker than the final music composed by Ron Goodwin. Goodwin's final music is good in places, but his opening theme is too bright, too triumphant, for what is a dark film. Hitchcock thought Mancini's theme sounded too much like Bernard Herrmann's music. According to Mancini, "Hitchcock came to the recording session, listened awhile and said 'Look, if I want Herrmann, I'd ask for Herrmann'". Mancini was fired, never understanding the experience, insisting that his score sounded nothing like Herrmann. The irony was that Mancini was now being second-guessed for being too dark and symphonic after having been criticized for being too light before.
Alfred Hitchcock originally planned to do his cameo as the body floating in the river. A dummy was even constructed to do the shot. The plans were changed, and a female body, a victim of the Necktie Murderer, was used instead. Hitchcock instead became one of the members of the crowd who are listening to the speaker on the river bank. The dummy of Hitchcock was used in the trailer hosted by Hitchock himself.
There is a great Hitchcock moment when Babs is murdered. The camera moves away from the door, backwards down the stairs, out into the street. The pullback is one continuous motion with only one cut hidden as a man passes in front of the camera. This was due to the interiors being shot with an overhead track in a studio and the building exterior being an actual location. The silence of the shot until the street noise comes in adds to the unsettling feel of the shot. We know what is occurring in the apartment, but the rest of the outside world goes on about its business oblivious to the evil living in its midst.
A second sequence set in the back of a delivery truck full of potatoes provides the usual suspense for the murderer as Rusk, after realizing he's lost his monogram pin, attempts to retrieve it from the corpse of Babs. Rusk struggles with the hand and has to break the fingers of the corpse in order to retrieve his tie pin and try to escape unseen from the truck. The sound effect is morbidly played for humor later when the inspector's wife breaks breadsticks as her husband recounts the incident.
This doesn't rise to the level of Hitchcock's greatest works, but it is easily the best film from the last decade of his career, albeit flawed by going too far in an effort to shock the audience. He was better when he used the visual medium of film to suggest action rather than explicitly showing everything.
Out of five bananas, I give it:
Frenzy finds Hitchcock returning to ideas that recur in his movies. The man wrongfully accused on the run (The 39 Steps, North By Northwest), the misogynist killer (Psycho), the detective who searches for the real killer after the innocent is convicted (Dial M for Murder), all things we've seen before, but there's a welcome familiarity to them. These are ideas Hitchcock knows well and knows how to do well. If this was his answer to the young, rising auteur directors of the 70s, it's a good one.
It's a British cast, and Jon Finch does a fine job glowering through the film. He's down on his luck, and the juxtaposition of his volatile personality with the exposition provided by other characters initially sets us up to think he might be the killer. However, it's made clear early on that Barry Foster's Bob Rusk is the real villain. Michael Caine was Hitchcock's first choice for the role of Rusk, but Caine thought the character was disgusting and said, "I don't want to be associated with the part".
The film and its source book, "Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square", were inspired by the real-life unsolved crimes of the serial killer known as "Jack the Stripper". Unlike in the story, the real killings (which terrified London in the early 1960s) mirrored elements of "Jack the Ripper" in that the killer attacked prostitutes and that the killings mysteriously stopped.
Henry Mancini was originally hired as the film's composer. His opening theme was much darker than the final music composed by Ron Goodwin. Goodwin's final music is good in places, but his opening theme is too bright, too triumphant, for what is a dark film. Hitchcock thought Mancini's theme sounded too much like Bernard Herrmann's music. According to Mancini, "Hitchcock came to the recording session, listened awhile and said 'Look, if I want Herrmann, I'd ask for Herrmann'". Mancini was fired, never understanding the experience, insisting that his score sounded nothing like Herrmann. The irony was that Mancini was now being second-guessed for being too dark and symphonic after having been criticized for being too light before.
Alfred Hitchcock originally planned to do his cameo as the body floating in the river. A dummy was even constructed to do the shot. The plans were changed, and a female body, a victim of the Necktie Murderer, was used instead. Hitchcock instead became one of the members of the crowd who are listening to the speaker on the river bank. The dummy of Hitchcock was used in the trailer hosted by Hitchock himself.
There is a great Hitchcock moment when Babs is murdered. The camera moves away from the door, backwards down the stairs, out into the street. The pullback is one continuous motion with only one cut hidden as a man passes in front of the camera. This was due to the interiors being shot with an overhead track in a studio and the building exterior being an actual location. The silence of the shot until the street noise comes in adds to the unsettling feel of the shot. We know what is occurring in the apartment, but the rest of the outside world goes on about its business oblivious to the evil living in its midst.
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| Taking a foot fetish to extremes |
This doesn't rise to the level of Hitchcock's greatest works, but it is easily the best film from the last decade of his career, albeit flawed by going too far in an effort to shock the audience. He was better when he used the visual medium of film to suggest action rather than explicitly showing everything.
Out of five bananas, I give it:
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