In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1972 film, Frenzy, he returns to what he does best: the British thriller drama. After a long-running chain of American films and scattered public impressions for pictures like Marnie, Frenzy is much more reminiscent of his earlier works like The Wrong Man rather than his much more popular higher-concept pictures like Vertigo. The film itself is set in contemporary London zoning in on the protagonist, Richard Blaney (Jon Finch) who after just getting fired from his job as a barman finds himself being accused of not only the murder of his ex-wife but also several serial murderers done at the hand of the infamous “Tie Murderer.”
One of the stand-out features of the film is its cinematography. While the camera work quality is not necessarily consistent, the film certainly has lustrous vignettes. One that comes to mind is the haunting scene where the antagonist, Bob Rusk (Barry Foster) baits Blaney’s lover, Barbara “Babs” Milligan (Anna Massey) into coming over to his apartment with the secret intent to murder her to further incriminate Blaney. The setup for the shot itself is masterful in and of itself when Rusk opens the door claiming that Babs is his “type of woman”, a clear call back to the earlier murder of Blaney’s ex-wife Brenda (Barbara Leigh-Hunt) who is told the same time before she attempted rape turned to murder. As Rusk says this, Babs steps into his apartment which at this point in the film the audience can only imagine what lies inside as the door shuts behind the two. Slowly the camera pulls away facing the door trailing down the winding stairs and out the front door in silence. The shot is continuous and any viewer who isn’t looking for it will easily miss the cut in between shots in classic Rope fashion as the camera concludes itself to a view of the apartment building from across the street forcing the audience to invent their own images of the horrific acts happening behind Rusk’s door.
This being said, there are scenes with stark shortcomings including camera work. One of the most pivotal scenes in the film, the attempted rape into the murder of Brenda Blaney is the prime example. The shots themselves are framed sloppily and in some ways show the mentality of the new relaxed film restrictions of the 70s’. While, yes, many other films of the time, especially those put out by younger directors, were trigger-happy with their usage of nudity and violence causing Frenzy to pale in comparison, the film still manages to make Hitchcock look like a kid playing with his new toy. The entire scene feels unnecessary and removes itself from the Hitchcockian dread that he’s known for and evokes feelings of non-titillating discomfort and disgust. Much of it seems unnecessarily cruel and obscene especially juxtaposed against his prior 1964 film, Marnie which also contains a rape scene. The key difference is that the rape act doesn’t need to be visual to enforce terror. The imagery in Marnie doesn’t rely on literality to convey the impact of the scene which follows a long-standing Hitchcockian tradition. Hitchcock is at his best when he applies restraint.
This principle is applicable in other parts of the movie as well. The film is incredibly episodic, with many of its subplots seeming to be entirely pointless. The brief section where Blaney hides out in the home of a couple who seem to have been friends with him and his wife before the divorce seems entirely pointless and boring. Another example of this is the scenes between the chief of police (Alec McCowen) and his wife (Vivian Merchant) discussing her exotic and tasteless (if only) cooking. The scenes are well-done and entertaining but degrade the entire impact of the later half of the picture while also having no impact on the main plot.
Frenzy’s biggest downfall is its lack of focus. The film reeks of potential and yet seems to dispose of every thread that could have been latched onto. The prime example of this lack of discipline is the character Bob Rusk who feels as if he leaped in the attempts to reach for the Hitchcock villain hall of fame and take a seat next to the likes of Bruno Anthony from Strangers On A Train and Psycho’s Norman Bates but missed. Make no mistake, Rusk was certainly captivating but his characterization is just so close to some of the prominent villainous faces of Hitchcock’s films to not be compared. The moment Bob Rusk is at his peak is quite early on in the film during his meeting with Brenda in her office where she works as a relationship consultant and matchmaker. Brenda claims to not be able to help Rusk because of his peculiar taste in women and romance which is implied to be some type of sado-masochistic relationship. He domineers over Brenda and seems fanatic giving his character a great deal of danger before tipping over the ledge of enigmatic and distressing into cartoonish and half-baked from the rape scene and so forth. He seems to have all these loose threads and the psychosexual route that his character alludes to is never further addressed and is dispelled by the film’s progression disintegrating his depth and therefore his appeal.
What Frenzy executes well is its usage of early Hitchcockian tropes. Hitchcock reintroduces some of the lovable side characters like the unmanned husband and/or dopey father figure. It also brings back that British pacing of humor in film which was partially lost to Hitchcock’s prior American streak. It also utilizes constant concepts like the wrongly accused man and the coincidental and uncontrollable possibility of the man’s stripping of liberty.
The entire film is worth the watch and is incredibly entertaining. Its comedy is executed well and the performances only improve as the film progresses. The second half especially commands the audience's attention with a juggling of humor and suffocating intensity. Frenzy may be easily overlooked but it sticks closely to the techniques of early Hitchcock in full color and encompasses much of his directorial identity. It may not be a Hitchcockian classic but is a comfortable point in his filmography worth any audience’s time.