Frenzy

Jon Finch - Richard Blaney
Alec McCowen - Inspector Oxford
Barry Foster - Bob Rusk
Billie Whitelaw - Hettie Porter
Barbara Leigh-Hunt - Brenda Blaney
Vivien Merchant - Mrs. Oxford
Anna Massey - Barbara 'Babs' Milligan
Bernard Cribbins - Felix Forsythe
Bunny May - Barman
Michael Bates - Sergeant Spearman
Jean Marsh - Monica Barling
Clive Swift - Johnny Porter

If the opening of Frenzy seems slightly familiar, it is because it is almost identical to the first frames of Hitchcock's Young and Innocent. In the latter, a woman's body is washed ashore with the belt from a raincoat, obviously used to strangle her, floating nearby. Frenzy, Hitchcock's first film made in England in almost twenty years, opens with a Parliament official declaring that there will no longer he pollution in England's waters, just then a woman's nude body floats down the Thames, a tie around her neck, revealing that she is the latest victim of a killer that is terrorising London. The initial exposition of the film invokes memories of many of the early Hitchcock films made in England, The Lodger in particular, with its motifs of a panic-stricken city swept with fear of a psychopath on the loose.

Perhaps one of the reasons for Frenzy's success was Hitchcock's return to the subject matter that made Psycho into one of the most profitable films of the early 1960s. Frenzy mirrors the chaos of today's society, but it is tempered with Hitchcock's disarming use of understated comedy. just as Psycho was about a maniac, so too was Frenzy. This was blended with Hitchcock's favourite theme of the innocent man. The script was brilliantly penned by Anthony Shaffer, based on the novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square by Arthur Labern. Shaffer was the author of the mind-teasing play Sleuth. He was able to assimilate Hitchcock's brand of humour with the harsh realities of the crimes committed by the psychopath. The story adheres to the plot of the novel but strays with additional subplots obligatory to any film made by Hitchcock. Adding a comedy relief from the otherwise grim proceedings, we catch the police inspector, played by Alec McCowen, being treated to his wife's gourmet cooking. All the poor man wants is a hearty and filling meal. Instead he is the recipient of an assortment of exotic foods. It is during the undeletable repasts, that he relates to his wife the events up to date. Not only does it help the audience understand what has happened but it reduces the tension for a brief time, before it again tightens.

Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), a former RAF pilot now down on his luck, quits his job as a pub bartender when the boss accuses him of stealing drinks. Momentarily upset, he talks with his friend, Bob Rusk (Barry Foster), a fruit and vegetable dealer. He then drops in on his ex-wife Brenda (Barbara Leigh-Hunt), the owner of a matrimonial agency. His pent-up frustration cause him to lash out at her verbally. while her secretary overhears from the outer office. The next day, Bob Rusk comes to Brenda's office and is told that her agency can not satisfy his peculiar tastes in women. She tells him to go elsewhere but instead he stays, brutally attacks and rapes her, then strangles her with his necktie. Scotland Yard puts out an arrest warrant for Blaney based on Brenda's secretary's identification. He learns of his new problem from Babs Milligan (Anna Massey), a co-worker at the pub he has just quit. He escapes from the police with Babs and gets shelter with an old-time war buddy, Johnny Porter (Oliver Swift). Babs stays with Rusk, who rapes and kills her. He dumps her body in a potato sack but, when he realises that his monogrammed stickpin is missing, torn off in the struggle before the rape, he rushes back to the truck. He finds the right sack and then coldly breaks her fingers to release the pin clenched in her fist. Blaney goes to Bob for help. Instead Bob frames him and after a quick trial and conviction, Blaney cries out that he will get revenge on Rusk. Inspector Oxford (Alec McCowen) hears this and checks into the possibility of Blaney's innocence. His wife (Vivien Merchant) provides him with inedible gourmet cooking along with her suspicion that Blaney is not the right man. The information begins to build against Rusk but Blaney, impatient for revenge, escapes from prison. He sneaks to Rusk's room and bludgeons what he thinks is Rusk's body but actually is the latest rape victim. Inspector Oxford arrives and tells Blaney to be still. Rusk comes in shortly with a trunk intended as the coffin for the body in the bed. Oxford, surprising Rusk, remarks, "Why Mr. Rusk-you're not wearing your tie." Blaney is exonerated.

Frenzy is a festival of Hitchcock touches and production values. Every shot and movement fits together with perfection. Police rush to the body of a young girl that floats up to the scene of a political speech in the film's opening. The tie with which she has been strangled is still hanging around her neck. The speaker hopes it is "not his club tie." We cut to a shot of John Finch putting on his tie. We immediately, although incorrectly, assume that he is the murderer. Rusk, the real murderer, is identified symbolically with his gold and diamond initial stickpin in the form of an R. He often uses it to pick his teeth after eating a piece of fine English fruit. He removes it from his tie and places it in his lapel before his bout with Barbara Leigh-Hunt. The pin becomes a symbol of violence and murder. When Babs leaves the pub in hope of helping the hiding Blaney prove his innocence, she is followed by her friend Rusk. She walks out of the pub with the sounds of the city around her. Suddenly the sound fades out and we hear Rusk behind her, asking if she needs a place to stay. A chill runs through the audience. Soon after Hitchcock again uses sound (and camera movement) to add yet another magnificent touch. Babs and Rusk arrive at his flat. The noise of London fades as the camera follows them to the top of the stairs. "You know, you're my kind of woman," says Rusk. The camera slowly tracks back down the stairs in a single movement and the noises of traffic cover any screams that might be made. We know that we will never see Babs alive again. When we do see her again, she is stuffed in a potato sack. Rusk is trying to regain his stickpin, which has somehow disappeared. He remembers that she grabbed it during her murder. Rusk finds the pin tight in her rigor-mortised grip. He must break her fingers to set it free. Later, as Mrs. Oxford gives her ideas to her husband the inspector, she gingerly breaks breadsticks. Hitchcock takes us immediately back to the breaking of the fingers with exactly the same sound.

After his trial, Blaney is pulled from the courtroom screaming, "I'll get you, Rusk!" and is placed in a small cell. Hitchcock returns to the Paradine Case technique as the camera looms above the cell and the door closes behind him with a resounding clang. After a spate of films that did not have that Hitchcock polish to them, Frenzy was full of bluster. The idea of assembling a cast of excellent but generally unknown actors gave the story a look of urgency and reality which would have been lost with familiar faces. The scripts of Hitchcock's previous three films were his undoing. With Frenzy he had first-class material. After three successive disappointments, his popularity, although still high, was descending. The raves for Frenzy brought people to the theatres.

There is only one scene of brutal violence in the film, but others are implied or are not particularly graphic. Nevertheless, the tempo of violence remains instilled in our minds throughout the film. If he accepted sloppy, perfunctory performances from his cast in his last few pictures, in Frenzy he gets riveting portrayals and gutsy acting, making every part of the story and characterisation believable. Jon Finch, as the innocent loser caught up in a circumstantial nightmare, evokes a balanced amount of outrage. Alec McCowen as the methodical Sherlock Holmes-type inspector is properly subdued in his role. Vivien Merchant as his doting wife is perhaps understated in her comic role, but she provides Hitchcock with the required foil, and Anna Massey as the doomed Babs Milligan is likeable with that blend of commonness and sexuality.
Extract© Richard A. Harris, Michael S. Lasky: The Complete Films of Alfred Hitchcock.