Frenzy<\/em> is indeed a repugnant, ugly, and deeply mean-spirited work, it is also a masterpiece\u2014the last to come from one of the (if not the) greatest directors of all time, which not only stands shoulder-to-shoulder with his more famous and celebrated works, but, in the way it maliciously indicts the viewer, casts said works in a new, harsher light.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\nAdapted from Arthur La Bern\u2019s 1966 novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square<\/em>, Frenzy<\/em> follows the search for a London serial killer who strangles women with neckties. The real perpetrator, as revealed early on, is Rusk (Barry Forster) a well-liked, suave, and successful grocer. After Rusk claims his latest victim in the form of the ex-wife (Barbara Leigh-Hunt) of friend and fellow service member Blaney (Richard Finch, playing the least agreeable hero in all of Hitchcock), he sets Blaney up to take the fall for his crimes, forcing the former RAF pilot-turned-down at heel barman and his current lover Babs (Anna Massey) to hide from the police while trying to flee the country. On the trail of both men is the seemingly aloof but actually quite keen Scotland Yard Inspector Oxford, who takes counsel from his even more perceptive homemaker wife Mrs. Oxford (Vivien Merchant).<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt\u2019s immediately apparent what drew Hitchcock to the story, and in many ways, Frenzy <\/em>plays like a medley of his greatest hits up to that point: an innocent man-on-the-run (Saboteur<\/em>, Young and Innocent<\/em>, The Wrong Man<\/em>), the psychological character study of a sexually-driven psychopath (Psycho<\/em>, Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train<\/em>), the quirky detective story (Rope<\/em>, Dial M for Murder<\/em>). He undoubtedly also felt something of a personal connection to the material\u2014albeit in his expectedly macabre fashion\u2014as his own father was a grocer and merchant in London\u2019s Covent Garden (where many of the on location scenes were filmed). Appropriate that Frenzy<\/em> would mark the first time Hitchock returned to shoot a film in London since 1950\u2019s Stage Fright<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe most comedic pieces of the film revolve around the Oxfords\u2019 domestic life\u2014a generally blissful existence marred only by Mrs. Oxford\u2019s quixotic obsession with \u2018exotic\u2019 cooking (there may be no scene that better sends up British culinary squeamishness than when Mrs. Oxford blanches after tasting her latest concoction: a margarita)\u2014which undoubtedly struck a chord with Hitchock since his own wife and close collaborator Alma suffered a stroke during production, necessitating the filming of a couple of scenes without him while he tended to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(As understandably keen as Hitchcock was on the material, the same can\u2019t be said of others. La Bern was disgusted by the finished film and publicly condemned it. Original composer Henry Mancini was fired from the project and replaced by Ron Goodwin. Hitch\u2019s initial choice for Rusk, Michael Caine, turned it down because he objected to the role, which led to a falling out between the two that would last until Hitch\u2019s death in 1980.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Along with being Hitchcock\u2019s second-to-last feature (his final move, Family Plot<\/em>, would come out four years later) and his long-awaited return to his native soil, Frenzy<\/em> also boasts another key distinction within his oeuvre: it is the only one of his films to receive an R rating. Certainly, had the modern ratings system been around in earlier years, other of his work would have received it (Psycho<\/em>, for example), but there is no denying that he took full advantage of the T\u2019s allowances, particularly in terms of nudity. Whereas he always lamented not being able to show full-frontal nudity in Psycho<\/em>, Frenzy <\/em>has two scenes depicting it (albeit both using body doubles in the place of actors Leigh-Hunt and Massay). <\/p>\n\n\n\nWhile the latter example is merely a brief glimpse of post-coital dressing, the first is a prolonged, graphic and extremely upsetting rape and murder that is anything but titillating. Gone is the genius formalism found in Psycho\u2019s <\/em>shower montage or the darkly comic staging of Frenzy\u2019s<\/em> other most famous scene (in which Rusk has to rummage through a moving truck full of potatoes in order to retrieve a piece of evidence from a victim\u2019s cadaver). Instead, he forces the viewer to stew in the pitiful, pathetic, and horrifying violation until it reaches its grim and inevitable conclusion. This scene is so effective that for the next major murder, he tracks away from the action, leaving it to the us to remember what\u2019s come before.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAlong with the three aforementioned set pieces, the most memorable and telling moment comes during an early aside, which sees two random characters\u2014a doctor and a solicitor\u2014gleefully pontificate on the necktie murders over a pint at a pub. When the barmaid joins in and mentions that the killer rapes his victims before strangling them, one of the men jokes, \u201cWell, I suppose its nice to know every cloud has a silver lining.\u201d A few moments later, he goes off about what a boon the killings are for business, stating, \u201cWe haven\u2019t had a good, juicy series of sex murders since Christie, and they\u2019re so good for the tourist trade. Foreigners somehow expect the squares of London to be fog-wreathed, full of handsome cabs, and littered with ripped whores\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This scene recalls the meta-commentary on true life murder Hitchcock gives over to two supporting characters throughout Shadow of a Doubt<\/em> (probably his closest film spiritually to Frenzy<\/em>), but whereas those scenes have a sly charm about them, this moment in Frenzy <\/em>reveals the wretched misogyny and banal cruelty at the heart of our obsession with these gruesome headlines. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThat Hitchcock puts these words in the mouths of members of both the upper and working classes makes it clear that he\u2019s not letting anyone off the meathook\u2014himself least of all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new 4K restoration of “Frenzy” opens in New York on Friday. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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