Film Review
By the early 1970s, Alfred Hitchcock was regarded as a filmmaker who
was past his prime. His last three films of the 1960s -
Marnie,
Torn Curtain and
Topaz
fared badly at the box office and were generally ill-received by the
critics. All that changed when
Frenzy
was released in 1972. Not only was the film a huge hit, both in
America and the UK, but the reviews it received were almost universally
favourable. At the age of 72, Hitchcock had made a spectacular
return to form.
It is easy to see why
Frenzy
was such a popular film. It has many of the key thematic elements
of Hitchcock's previous great films. There is the innocent man
unjustly accused of murder (
The Wrong Man /
North by Northwest) and the
likeable character who turns out to be a psychotic killer (
Psycho). There is a
liberal dose of that famous Hitchcock black humour, which not only
makes the film more entertaining but also heightens its darkness and
brutality. And the way in which the film is directed, shot
and edited has the precision and ingenuity that is recognisably that of
Hitchcock at his near-best.
Frenzy was the first film
which Hitchcock made in England since
Stage
Fright in 1950. The busy Covent Garden location
allowed the director to reacquaint himself with his humble origins - he
grew up in this part of the world, his father being an East London
greengrocer. The nostalgia element of the film is hard to
miss. The London it portrays is not the real city seen by a
contemporary Londoner, but the somewhat idealised version of someone
returning to England after many years.
For what was a comparatively low budget production, Hitchcock eschewed
big name actors in favour of established character actors and rising
talent. The cast list is one of the most surprising of any
Hitchcock film, including Jon Finch, Barry Foster and Alec McCowen as
the leads, with Anna Massey, Jean Marsh, Billie Whitelaw and Bernard
Cribbins in supporting roles. The performances are generally
good, although the characterisation is marred by some stilted and
unconvincing dialogue. Barry Foster has by far the best part and
so it is hardly a surprise that his contribution is the most
memorable. His portrayal of Rusk combines an avuncular charm with
a spine-tingling sense of menace; he may be the villain, but he is also
the character the audience most identifies with.
Frenzy was popular but it was
also controversial on account of the level of violence it
depicts. This was the only one of Hitchcock's films to be given
an R certification. Even today, the sequence in which Barbara
Leigh-Hunt is raped and murdered is shocking, not just because of
what it portrays, but also because
of the
way in which the
sequence is shot and edited - as a frenzied montage of very brief
shots. This flurry of images recreates in the mind of the
spectator not just the visual objective horror of what is happening but
also its subjective impression, the extreme emotional trauma
experienced by both the killer and his victim as the drama is acted out
in an orgy of carnal brutality. This is Hitchcock at his most
extreme and his most technically brilliant.
The film's other famous sequence is the one in which Barry Foster
frantically attempts to recover an incriminating tie pin from one of
his murder victims whilst travelling in the back of a lorry loaded with
potatoes. Whilst this has some of the shock value of the earlier
rape scene, this is played in a completely different way, as an
outrageous piece of black comedy. Hitchcock's love of the macabre
has never been so evident nor as skilfully realised as it is here.
Frenzy was to be Hitchcock's
last great film. He made one further film on his return to
California,
Family Plot, but this was not
an unqualified success and is regarded as a lesser work. What is
remarkable is not that Hitchcock had such a long and productive career
(53 full-length films over 54 years), but that he made so many films
that were both critically and commercially successful. Hitchcock
liked to entertain, but he also knew how to make great cinema, and
therein lies the secret of his longevity.
© James Travers 2008
The above content is owned by frenchfilms.org and must not be copied.
Next Alfred Hitchcock film:
Family Plot (1976)
Film Synopsis
In London a serial killer is at large. The victims are all young
women who have been raped and strangled with a necktie.
Meanwhile, former RAF man Richard Blaney is having difficulty fitting
back into civilian life. Having lost his job as a pub barman, he
looks up his ex-wife Brenda, who now runs a successful matrimonial
agency, and vents his frustration on her. The next day, Brenda is
found dead in her office, apparently another victim of the necktie
rapist. When he discovers that the police suspect him of the
killing, Blaney decides to go into hiding with his girlfriend
Babs. Unfortunately, Blaney's friend Bob Rusk has other plans for
Babs...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by frenchfilms.org and must not be copied.