Frenzy (1972)Despite claims to the contrary, we tend to judge people by appearances; and even psychopaths can wear a suit and tie...sometimes less the tie. Frenzy (1972) is a suspense film by Alfred Hitchcock about a murderer who has been terrorizing Covent Garden called "The Necktie Killer", due to his predilection for leaving his murder weapon (a necktie) behind as a calling card. After an embittered ex-military pilot--and recently ex-bartender--named Richard "Dick" Blaney (Jon Finch) visits his ex-wife and professional matchmaker, Brenda Blaney (Barbara Leigh-Hunt), she becomes the next victim of the Necktie Killer, making Dick Scotland Yard's number one suspect.
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Frenzy has been called a "return to form" for Hitchcock, whose reputation as the "master of suspense" was earned through tales of terror, including Psycho and more. (The film shares motifs with Psycho, not least of which is the series of twisted killings and an investigation that fails to deduce the true killer's identity.) The beginning of Frenzy vaguely implies that Dick might be the same perverted maniac most recently responsible for the rape and murder of a woman discovered floating naked in the Thames--that scene cuts away to Dick putting on his necktie. (The discovery of the body exemplifies Hitchcock's brand of black comedy, since a politician had just been promoting the government's efforts to clean up the refuse in the river.) Dick is a suspicious sort, who has fallen from grace since his glory days in the Royal Air Force. He is confronted with insinuations of thievery by the proprietor of the public house where he works and calls home--and probably not for the first time. Consider a scene where a couple of "gentlemen" order a couple of pints and lunch at another pub, and carry on morbidly about the sexual appetites of the serial rapist/murderer stalking the London streets. Dick is an accessory in the scene, venting his frustrations about the brandy he orders, and comes across as the kind of misanthrope who just might be the killer. He acts like he doesn't need charity, but he visits Brenda for this very reason. He is cynical and angry at the world, but mostly at himself for the mistakes he has made in life, including what he views as a failure to hold his marriage together. One of Dick's associates is a produce distributor named Robert "Bob" Rusk (Barry Foster)--a fair-haired and charismatic bloke who seems as everyday as anyone else. Bob seems to go out of his way to offer Dick money, some grapes to share with his semi-girlfriend, Barbara "Babs" Milligan (Anna Massey), and even a tip on a horse race. But Rusk has a secret agenda, and is soon revealed to the audience to be the Necktie Killer.
Frenzy looks like a whodunit at first blush, but turns into a story that fits snugly into Hitchcock's body of work, about a man wrongfully pursued. Dick is filled with guilt and self-loathing, while Rusk is his polar opposite--a psychopath who is unflinching in destroying life. Rusk was originally turned away by Brenda's agency due to his "particular tastes", but sneaks into her office while her secretary is out to lunch and kills her in his fashion. Then he finishes eating her lunch, takes the money from her purse, and goes on his merry way. Before Rusk is revealed as the killer, he carries on with a police sergeant about the killings like any ordinary man would without flinching. His murder weapon is emblematic of civilized society, and his ironic use of it has sardonic shades of social commentary to it. As much as Frenzy is about these two different men, it is also a portrait of London and the lives of its inhabitants. Frenzy begins with an overhead shot of the city, with the London coat of arms emblazoned in the upper-right corner of the screen--inviting the audience to see the city in all its splendor and squalor. The city's residents carry on about the killings as small talk--the kind of commentary one would find on a street corner or in a pub--with a predominance of slang that befits the setting. The police investigation is headed by Chief Inspector Oxford (Alec McCowen), a smart detective whose days are filled with gathering clues; his nights become an endurance test since his wife (Vivien Merchant) subjects him to all manner of culinary experimentation. Frenzy suggests that people have a way of acting silly when confronted with an extraordinary event. This happens when Dick takes Babs to a nice hotel for afternoon delight, and the porter recalls the description of his tweed sports coat from the paper, leading to him and his wife nervously phoning the police to take him into custody. These moments have an edge of tension to them, but are usually played for comedy, adding levity to an otherwise grim thriller.
Frenzy was adapted from the novel, "Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square", by Arthur La Bern, although it is deliberately reinterpreted to resemble a kind of pulp, "penny dreadful", with plot points that are both convenient and even unlikely and emphasizing moments that verge on the exploitative. Circumstances are intentionally stacked against Dick to make him look guilty, yet when he is captured, the complete lack of investigative work by the bungling police makes Dick's subsequent conviction a clear miscarriage of justice; even his complicated scheme to escape from prison and get revenge on Rusk is too pat. Why then would these hackneyed and spurious details be interjected into the story? Because it contributes to a specific kind of avant-garde film experience teased in Psycho but unleashed in Frenzy--that of the sleazy, cheap thriller. This is not meant to diminish the skilled craftsmanship or criticize the talented cast and crew who worked on the film, but there is something boring about a film that is too perfect and too elegant. Frenzy revels in its dirtiness with street slang and lots of booze, attractive women being strangled and having their breasts exposed, and a reptilian killer who almost gets away with it. Frenzy never dips into parody, even if it skirts the edge often enough; its closest contemporary counterpart would be the self-aware exploitation film, Grindhouse. Frenzy adds extraneous twists and turns to the story, subsequently avoiding the terrible pitfall of being predictable for the sake of being "perfect". In a self-referential nod to Psycho, Rusk disposes of one of his victims in a sack of potatoes, only to discover that she must have grabbed his initialed tie pin in her death throes. This forces him to search through the back of the dark truck for her body before it departs for its destination. Rusk scurries through the sacks of produce, and the woman's naked corpse seems to kick at Rusk from the jostling of the truck in motion, as though fighting him even in death. He is almost discovered after having kicked some potatoes out onto the highway, but eventually discovers the tell-tale pin; yet his victim's rigor mortis is so potent, it snaps the blade of his pocket knife when he tries to pry it free from her grip. Despite Rusk being an unmitigated monster, the audience is forced to ride shotgun with his sweat-laden anxiety as he struggles to reclaim the evidence of his killings. Encouraging any semblance of empathy with Rusk is a sleazy experience, recalling the out of hand comments made by some Londoners earlier about it "being a while since they had a good, old-fashioned sex crime".
Recommended for: Fans of a suspenseful thriller that embraces the unsavoriness of the subject matter--despite its pedigree--and even indulges in moments of black comedy. Frenzy seems like a retort by Hitchcock against those who forgot him as a purveyor of some of cinema's most notorious thrills and chills; given its mature and disturbing content, it is best suited for fans expecting something akin Psycho more than North by Northwest.
Frenzy looks like a whodunit at first blush, but turns into a story that fits snugly into Hitchcock's body of work, about a man wrongfully pursued. Dick is filled with guilt and self-loathing, while Rusk is his polar opposite--a psychopath who is unflinching in destroying life. Rusk was originally turned away by Brenda's agency due to his "particular tastes", but sneaks into her office while her secretary is out to lunch and kills her in his fashion. Then he finishes eating her lunch, takes the money from her purse, and goes on his merry way. Before Rusk is revealed as the killer, he carries on with a police sergeant about the killings like any ordinary man would without flinching. His murder weapon is emblematic of civilized society, and his ironic use of it has sardonic shades of social commentary to it. As much as Frenzy is about these two different men, it is also a portrait of London and the lives of its inhabitants. Frenzy begins with an overhead shot of the city, with the London coat of arms emblazoned in the upper-right corner of the screen--inviting the audience to see the city in all its splendor and squalor. The city's residents carry on about the killings as small talk--the kind of commentary one would find on a street corner or in a pub--with a predominance of slang that befits the setting. The police investigation is headed by Chief Inspector Oxford (Alec McCowen), a smart detective whose days are filled with gathering clues; his nights become an endurance test since his wife (Vivien Merchant) subjects him to all manner of culinary experimentation. Frenzy suggests that people have a way of acting silly when confronted with an extraordinary event. This happens when Dick takes Babs to a nice hotel for afternoon delight, and the porter recalls the description of his tweed sports coat from the paper, leading to him and his wife nervously phoning the police to take him into custody. These moments have an edge of tension to them, but are usually played for comedy, adding levity to an otherwise grim thriller.
Frenzy was adapted from the novel, "Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square", by Arthur La Bern, although it is deliberately reinterpreted to resemble a kind of pulp, "penny dreadful", with plot points that are both convenient and even unlikely and emphasizing moments that verge on the exploitative. Circumstances are intentionally stacked against Dick to make him look guilty, yet when he is captured, the complete lack of investigative work by the bungling police makes Dick's subsequent conviction a clear miscarriage of justice; even his complicated scheme to escape from prison and get revenge on Rusk is too pat. Why then would these hackneyed and spurious details be interjected into the story? Because it contributes to a specific kind of avant-garde film experience teased in Psycho but unleashed in Frenzy--that of the sleazy, cheap thriller. This is not meant to diminish the skilled craftsmanship or criticize the talented cast and crew who worked on the film, but there is something boring about a film that is too perfect and too elegant. Frenzy revels in its dirtiness with street slang and lots of booze, attractive women being strangled and having their breasts exposed, and a reptilian killer who almost gets away with it. Frenzy never dips into parody, even if it skirts the edge often enough; its closest contemporary counterpart would be the self-aware exploitation film, Grindhouse. Frenzy adds extraneous twists and turns to the story, subsequently avoiding the terrible pitfall of being predictable for the sake of being "perfect". In a self-referential nod to Psycho, Rusk disposes of one of his victims in a sack of potatoes, only to discover that she must have grabbed his initialed tie pin in her death throes. This forces him to search through the back of the dark truck for her body before it departs for its destination. Rusk scurries through the sacks of produce, and the woman's naked corpse seems to kick at Rusk from the jostling of the truck in motion, as though fighting him even in death. He is almost discovered after having kicked some potatoes out onto the highway, but eventually discovers the tell-tale pin; yet his victim's rigor mortis is so potent, it snaps the blade of his pocket knife when he tries to pry it free from her grip. Despite Rusk being an unmitigated monster, the audience is forced to ride shotgun with his sweat-laden anxiety as he struggles to reclaim the evidence of his killings. Encouraging any semblance of empathy with Rusk is a sleazy experience, recalling the out of hand comments made by some Londoners earlier about it "being a while since they had a good, old-fashioned sex crime".
Recommended for: Fans of a suspenseful thriller that embraces the unsavoriness of the subject matter--despite its pedigree--and even indulges in moments of black comedy. Frenzy seems like a retort by Hitchcock against those who forgot him as a purveyor of some of cinema's most notorious thrills and chills; given its mature and disturbing content, it is best suited for fans expecting something akin Psycho more than North by Northwest.