Frenzy

Genre: crime drama  

With: Jon Finch (Richard Blaney), Barry Foster (Robert Rusk), Barbara Leigh-Hunt (Brenda Blaney), Anna Massey (Babs Milligan), Alec McCowen (Chief Inspector Oxford), Vivien Merchant (Mrs. Oxford), Billie Whitelaw (Hetty Porter), Clive Swift (Johnny Porter), Bernard Cribbins (Felix Forsythe), Jean Marsh (Monica Barling)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Screenplay: Anthony Shaffer (from a novel by Arthur La Bern)

Release: 1972

Studio: Universal Pictures

Rating: PA

MBiS score: 8.5/10

A Friend in Need Is a Useful Friend Indeed

QuickView

Story-line: when London women are stalked by a serial killer who uses neckties to strangle them, an irascible, unemployed bartender emerges as the suspect. 

Pluses: excellent acting all around, a suspenseful and detailed screenplay that pushes all the right buttons and plays with the viewer until the very end, outstanding cinematography, economical direction, complicit editing by John Jympson and music by Ron Goodwin.

Minuses: you may find the film’s humour too morbid at times but trust Mrs. Oxford to serve up priceless reparteees along with her improbable gourmet dishes.

Comments: FRENZY, a serial killer movie with a British feel, makes a valiant effort to develop its characters instead of insisting on mayhem and grisly details. Yes, a couple of scenes are terrifying and even lurid but I’ll never forget one chilling, understated sequence in which the camera goes down a staircase to a busy street rather than show the nefarious deed being committed upstairs. If murder in real life is the most horrendous of crimes, I have to admit that fictional works like this one can turn it into riveting entertainment.  

MBiS

© 2018 – All rights reserved