Can You Spare Me a Tie?

In his work from the 1950′s era (and early 1960′s), Alfred Hitchcock created several films with an undercurrent of voyeurism; Rear Window, Vertigo, and Psycho. Those films seem to make suggestions of the subject, but due to the time period they were made in, Hitchcock probably never had the opportunity to go into the darker side of that human condition as he was able to finally in the 1970′s. In Frenzy, the viewer is the Voyeur; this time with all the frankness and brutality that the modern era of film making could allow in a serial killer thriller. Like his earlier film Rope from 1948, Hitchcock makes one feel helpless as the viewer is made aware of clues that some of the characters aren’t aware of; you really want climb on screen and slap some sense into the players. Frenzy was Hitchcock’s first R rated film, and it also contains the first nude scene of his films ‘ still pushing the envelope as he did in Psycho and The Birds.

Richard Ian Blaney (Jon Finch) is not necessarily the nicest guy in the world, and he winds up being the prime suspect in a string of necktie murders in London, despite his innocence. The real strangler is Robert Rusk (Barry Foster), who is also acquainted with Blaney. Rusk is smoother and smarter than Blaney, and he stays out of the police’s sights until Blaney escapes and eventually catches on to Rusk’s guilt. Blaney is desperate to prove his innocence, and he will sacrifice and sabotage everything in the process. The disparity of the main character, and the murders are tempered by the dark humor of the Chief investigator, and a wrestling scene with a corpse that is not easy to block out of your mind.

After we first witness Robert Rusk killing a victim after raping her, it is hard to believe that it could be topped by a sequence of silence as the camera leaves the murder scene, and leads the viewer out of the building and across the street in a long ever so slow camera shot. That shot looks seamless, but it is a few scenes edited together cleverly at the point where a figure crosses the front door of the building. Out of every Hitchcock movie I have ever seen, that was the darkest moment I personally feel he ever committed to film. Another one of the great scenes in this film is when Rusk is attempting to retrieve a pin of his that one of his victims had grabbed off of his lapel during her murder. He had stuffed the body in a giant potato sack, and put it on the back of a truck (which takes off in the process). The body has gone into rigor mortis, and the hand is locked and clenching his pin; Rusk is forced to have to break fingers in a hilariously gruesome manor to release it – ouch!

One would think that later in life a director would be settled and comfortable with a style that was a success for him for fifty years, but Hitchcock produced his most unsettling work by breaking expectations. In the DVD extra features, it is revealed that the office rape and murder scene caused a bit of a controversy. Hitchcock insisted on leaving the tongue hanging out of the victim’s mouth, regardless of his friends, co-workers and family who suggested he edit that portion out. Many unfavorable reviews of this film call it ugly, and hateful; I can’t really argue with that, it is. But that is what should be praised for ‘ he never really ventured into that territory in his films before. Sometimes ugly is necessary; making the lead actor kind of a jerk doesn’t always make the audience want to pull for him, but that adds to the tense nature of the film. This is my favorite of Hitchcock’s work; I just feel kind of dirty after watching it, like I was guilty of something. If a movie can take you to that ‘other place’, whether it is a nice place or not, it deserves all the credit it can get.

LadyR3D

More Posts - Website