Frenzy

Hitchcock returns home to his native London for his penultimate, and last great film. It lacks the depth and complexity of the masterpieces Vertigo and Rear Window but mixes the black comedy of The Trouble with Harry, without the whimsey, and the graphic violence of Psych and is a superb summing up of a career and a return to the wrong man entertainments of the 39 Steps. This is Hitchcock’s love letter to London, to the market where his greengrocer father carried out business and the city of Jack the Ripper.It is cast by a troupe of fine British stage actors, lead by Jon Finch as the Richard Hanney figure and Barry Foster as the, outwardly normal psychopath, but as always Hitchcock is the real star.A special mention for Barbara Leigh Hunt who proved herself to be a real trooper going well beyond the call of duty in her murder scene.The great Vivian Merchant, the first Mrs Harold Pinter, steals the show, as she did in Alfie, as the detective Alec McCowan’s cordon bleu chef wife. And less it be said that Hitchcock is a misogenist, she analyses the case far more perceptibly than her blinkered husband, neatly reversing the Holmes and Watson relationship.I would suggest that her character is an affectionate portrait of Hitchcock’s wife and adviser, Alma Reville.Anna Massey is good, as the trusting lamb to the slaughter. A decade earlier she was in Michael Powell’s derided masterpiece Peeping Tom which secured her place in cinema history.Billie Whitelaw, Barbara Leigh Hunt, Bernard Cribbins and Clive Swift ad Jean Marsh all add class to the proceedings.The author of the source novel, Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square, Arthur La Bern was dissatisfied with the adaptation, even writing a letter of complaint to the Times, mainly due to the updating from the late forties to the present day and change of point of view, but also the chagrin of Hitchcock having bought the rights anonymously at a rock bottom price. But Hitchcock, who had no qualms about altering Conrad’s The Secret Agent, wasn’t concerned about hurting La Bern’s feelings.It is perfectly true that the central character, a washed-up squadron leader, traumatised by the bombing of Dresden, makes more sense in a late forties setting, but Hitchcock had no desire, or budget for that matter, to make a period piece. Hitchcock was returning to London twenty-years after filming Stage Fright and the film exists in a curious time warp between the 1971 present and the fondly remembered city of his youth.There are three extraordinary shots that demonstrate that he was still fully in control of his filmic faculties.The unbroken title shot is a tracking helicopter shot down the Thames that ends going underneath Tower Bridge, just as a choreographed steam tug boat puffs leisurely across the frame. Masterly. And all with no drones and computer animation.After the first gruesome and explicit murder, after the murderer has left the office and Blaney has turned up, failed to gain entry and then left, the secretary returs from lunch and the camera remains stationary in the alleyway for a audaciously long time waiting for the discovery of the crime and the inevitable scream. Hitchcock plays with the viewer, knowing what to show and what to leave to the imagination.I the third example, Babs, Blaey’s barmaid friend, and Rusk go up the stairs to his flat at 3 Henrietta Street and instead of following them into the flat, the camera retreats back down the stairs and back out into the bustle of the street. The invisible transition from studio to location (flat and street) masked by a porter with a sack of potatoes on his shoulder crossing the frame.The blu ray edition shows off the superb technical achievements of the British crew, under the master’s baton. Like all his work, it has the construction of a fine swiss watch and is a joy to behold

Hitchcock at his best. A hard watch at times. Barry Foster is a terrifying villain and is supported by a superb case. Jon Finch is miscast as he’s too young given his back story but he’s good.

This was Hitchcock's penultimate film and my favourite of his later films. It's set in London, and has many of his famous stylistic trademarks. The policeman's wife's cooking being a comedy highlight There are plenty of darker comic moments as well. This being an early 70s film, Hitchcock took advantage of the more lenient censorship laws, so the main murder is much more explicit than anything we'd seen before from him.I've seen the film twice in the last year, and it certainly holds up to repeated viewings. The ending is great.The bluray looks really good. I already owned a DVD, which wasn't bad, but this is much better. If I could have given it 4.5 stars I would have. Highly recommended.

We love this film so downloaded it as 'frequent watcher' and are glad we did. Lovely, lovely, LOVELY.

I hadn't seen this film since about 1979 and since the GF expressed an interest in watching it I thought it a good idea to re-evaluate it post haste. As a proud Englishman it gave me great pleasure to see the Master back in England capturing the English time frame of London perfectly, for the film to work we really need to get the vibe of the place and to believe in the characters who frequent the area, I feel Hitch delivers this no problem at all.The story stands up as genuine thriller material, some crazy fruit loop is strangling women with neck ties and the police are trailing the wrong man...Sound familiar? Well yes it is, but Hitch being Hitch, he manages to bring dashes of humour to go with the tense taut terror unfolding on the screen.The cast do fine here, and I do believe that the fact that none of the actors are top draw names actually helps the film bring out an uneasy feel, here the interesting fleshing of the characters is one of Hitchcock's great strengths in this particular piece. The villain of the piece stands up as one of the best because he could easily be your best mate, someone you readily turn to in times of need, yet strip away that facade and you get the savage murdering rapist that Hitchcock takes great delight in assaulting our eyes with.Lovely...Lovely...LOVELY....LOVELY !Although its rating on IMDb hovers around 7.5 I have always been led to believe that Frenzy wasn't all that well thought of, tales of America refusing to embrace the film because of its London sensibility, and tired old arguments about the great man being past his peak etc. I have no idea if any of those statements are true? But what I personally know is that Frenzy is a very good film that has me squirming and laughing in equal measure, so with that it's just shy of being a Hitchcock classic, but still it stands up as better than what most other thriller directors could ever have hoped to have achieved back then. 8/10