Frenzy



"":Mr. Rusk, you're not wearing your tie.""

- Inspector Oxford.

The penultimate film of Alfred Hitchcock, Frenzy is a 1972 film adapted by Anthony Shaffer from Arthur La Bern's novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square.

Our "hero" Richard Blaney is down on his luck; just as he's fired from his job at a pub, his estranged wife Brenda is murdered by a neck-tie wielding Serial Killer. Because of a witness's mistake, Blaney is now the prime suspect. Only his former co-worker, Barbara Jane "Babs" Milligan, and his former army buddy, Johnny Porter, believe his innocence. When he's left without his allies, Richard is left to the mercy of the police. Fortunately, one investigator, Oxford, finds the smoking gun that'll save Richard from prison.

This film features examples of:

 * Affably Evil: Bob Rusk, when he's not killing people.
 * Big Bad Friend: With nowhere else to turn, Richard hides out in Bob Rusk's apartment, whereupon Bob promptly frames him for Bob's crimes.
 * Catch Phrase: "You're my type of woman."
 * Clear My Name
 * Creator Cameo: Hitchcock as usual, this time in the crowd looking at the body in the river.
 * Cruel and Unusual Death: Brenda's murder remains one of the most horrific, disturbing depictions of violence in film history.
 * Darker and Edgier: Notable as Hitchcock's only film to get an R rating. Of course, this might well be because it was the first film Hitchcock made after the Production Code had been abandoned and ratings were instituted. If he could have filmed Janet Leigh naked he probably would have.
 * Dead Mans Chest: The killer hides a body in a sack that he dumps in the back of a lorry full of sacks of potatoes. He then realises that his tie pin is still clutched in the dead woman's hand and has to retrieve it from the back of the moving lorry.
 * Dies Wide Open: And with tongue sticking out.
 * Driving a Desk: Very noticeable as Babs and Richard ride in a taxi.
 * Drop Dead Gorgeous: A naked victim of the killer floats in the river in the film's first minutes.
 * Info Dump: A rather pointless scene where two starchy old guys at a pub chat about how The Sociopath thinks and behaves.
 * Jerkass: Richard is such an unpleasant person that he almost deserves getting wrongfully convicted of murder. One wonders what Babs sees in him.
 * London Town
 * The Matchmaker: Brenda's job.
 * Not Helping Your Case: After Blaney is wrongly arrested, he acts out and ultimately escapes from prison. He returns to Rusk's apartment and beats up what he assumes to be Rusk sleeping, but it's the corpse of Rusk's newest victim. To add insult to injury, it's in front of Oxford; fortunately, Rusk shows up in a way to finally implicate himself.
 * Nothing Is Scarier: Rusk's murder of Babs occurs offscreen.
 * Oh Crap: Rusk, when he's finally caught red-handed by Oxford.
 * The Oner: Three of them, all pretty chilling:
 * After Brenda's death, the camera stays on the street as a woman enters the building, followed by about 30 seconds of dead air until she screams, having discovered the body.
 * Rusk invites Barbara into his apartment, after we already know he's the killer. The camera again remains outside, then retreats down the stairs and out of the building, where several people walk by oblivious to the murder happening right next to them.
 * Blaney's trial is viewed from behind soundproof doors, with the viewer only able to hear the occasional bit of dialogue when someone opens them. They swing shut just before the sentence is read, followed by Blaney screaming "IT'S RUSK!" loudly enough to be heard through them.
 * Playing Against Type: Bernard Cribbins, who plays the odious pubkeeper Forsythe, was usually known for his comedic roles and for his work in children's shows such as The Wombles.
 * Police Are Useless: Subverted; Oxford is the only one to suspect Richard's innocence from the start. One of very few subversions of this in Hitchcock's work, as he was famously afraid of cops.
 * Rape As Drama
 * Running Gag: The terrible cooking of Inspector Oxford's wife.
 * Serial Killer
 * Spanner in The Works: Barbara steals Rusk's tiepin as he kills her; his attempt to pry it from her cold dead hands helps provide the evidence to finally send him away.
 * Verbal Irony: Rusk telling Babs "You've got your whole life ahead of you" as he lures her to her death.
 * What Could Have Been: The original idea for the project featured as the protagonist a handsome, charming young body-builder who happens to be a serial killer. It was to be set in New York City and told from the POV of the murderer, and to feature nudity and violence beyond anything ever shown on screen at that time (the 1960s). After the murderer kills twice the climax was to come when NYC police set up a trap with a policewoman posing as a potential victim. The project, tentatively titled Kaleidoscope Frenzy, was rejected by Universal and then abandoned by Hitchcock, who later reworked some of the elements into the later Frenzy.