Rating: 
Summary: Another Hitchcock Masterpiece!
Review: Alfred Hitchcock is one of the few masters of letting the audience know early on 'who dunnit', then spends the bulk of the film time 'closing in on the killer'. "Frenzy" is definitely one of Hitchcock's best suspense thrillers. -- A down-on-his-luck bloke gets framed for a series of rape/murders by the real killer. The innocent man is sentenced to prison, but breaks out to get revenge. The final scene is priceless (the last words are right up there with Gone With The Wind's '...frankly my dear...')! You will want to watch this one more than once!
Rating: 
Summary: Going Into A "Frenzy"
Review: Alfred Hitchcock's next to last film, 1972's Frenzy, may not be as close to perfection as say, Vertigo or Psycho, but it still has a lot going for it. One reason the film may not have been a hit in the U.S., is the lack of any well known stars in the mostly all British cast. It's also more violent then you might expect. Movies were changing in the 70's and Hitchcock felt he had to meet those challenges However, once you accept all of that, it's easy to realize that Frenzy still has many of the same Hitchcock trademarks. London is being terrorized by a serial killer who uses neckties to murder his victims. Richard Blaney (Jon Finch) is a man down on his luck, who turns to a friend for help. As it happens, the friend Robert Rusk (Barry Foster) is not that trustworthy, and is hiding secrets. The evidence at the killings leads Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector Oxford (Alec McCowen) to suspect Blaney. Now, both of these men have reason to be on the run. Frenzy's script was written by Anthony Shaffer, who also penned the noteworthy Sleuth, and has one of the director's favorite themes--Wrong Man Accused and on the run. The film is also filled with a lot of dark humor amid the chaos. The film loses it way at times, but, not often enough to ruin the whole thing. Look for another creepy role by actress Billie Whitelaw (who would go on to freak folks as the nanny in The Omen). The extras on the DVD provide some nice history about the film. Put together by Hitchcock documentarian Laurent Boazreau, "The Story of Frenzy", features recollections from cast members Anna Massey, Jon Finch, and others and is well produced. A series of production photograghs, production notes, and the film's theatrical trailer top off the bonus material. Fenzy is solid Hitchcock, yet different, in good and not so good ways. Not at the top of the heap or bottom of the barrel. It's recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Top - Notch Hitchcock
Review: Alfred Hitchcock's second - to - last film "Frenzy" is a return to the classic Hitchcock thrillers from the 1950s' and early '60s'. After a couple of second - rate films of the mid to late 1960s' ("Torn Curtain" in 1966 and "Topaz" in 1969), "Frenzy" had everything a Hitch film needed - suspense, drama and humor. A sexual physcopath known as the Necktie Murderer has England in a tizy. Raping women and then strangling them with his tie, the police are left clueless with nary a single suspect. Thrown into the mix is Richard "Dicko" Blaney (John Finch), who is not having the greatest day. First, he loses his job at a local job. Next, he has a violent confrontation with his ex - wife, Brenda (Barbara Leigh - Hunt). The only two people who seem to give a damn about him are his good friend Bob Rusk (Barry Foster) and his girlfriend Babs (Ann Massey. Things get worse when he goes to visit Brenda the next day. After she doesn't answer the door, he walks away. What he doesn't know is that she is the Necktie Murderer's latest victim and that her secretary spotted him leaving the scene of the crime. Naturally assuming he did it, the police arrest him. He escapes and goes out on a limb to prove his innocent. What entails is non - stop suspense that only the Master can provide. "Frenzy" should stand as one of Hitchcock's greatest achievements. It certainly differs from all his other classics, as it seems more intone with the modern thrillers of today (the nudity especially). While his last film was great, this one was truly his last masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: GOOD MOVIE
Review: All I can say is this is a good movie. 5 star Alfred Hitchcock
Rating:
Summary: Very Underrated
Review: Before I saw this movie last night, I thought it was supposed to be one of Hithcock's worst films because it was made in his very slow late 60's-70's part of his career. How wrong was I! I think this film is very underrated and is definitely one of his 10 best films. In the film, a woman is murdered, so the police wrongly assume that her ex-husband is the killer. The ex-husband now has to run for his life (This is one of Hitch's recurrent themes where an innocent man is wrongly accused of a crime he didn't ocommit.) Hitch uses dramatic irony by letting the audience know who the real killer is while the actual characters do not. The ex-husband is caught and put into jail with the real killer still on the loose. The film mixes humor, murder, and irony superbly.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, absolutely brilliant
Review: Everyone who's seen a lot of Hitchcock and read up on him has their favorite Hitch film, and then they have the one which isn't quite their favorite, but which they feel has been criminally neglected in the general consensus. For me, Frenzy is that second film. For some reason, this late-life thriller has never been accorded much respect (most people haven't even heard of it), but it's one of his most well-crafted and cohesive films, without the demure hesitancy which makes Shadow of a Doubt and Strangers on a Train less effective now, and with a great sense of purpose that keeps the audience focused. Even classics like Vertigo have a tendency to drift and lose the audience, I think; in Frenzy, everything is succint and to the point. Hitchcock also finally found the nerve to show murder onscreen, and its occurence is as brilliant as anyone would expect. A cast of relative unknowns deliver excellent performances, particularly the rough-around-the-edges 'hero.' This is beside the point, of course, but I love the way he rolls his R's - 'Rrrrrrrrusk!' Another thing I appreciate is that Hitchcock seems to have lost some of his obsession with unreal beauty. There are no polished Cary Grants or dreamlike Grace Kellys in the lower-middle-class world of Frenzy, giving it a terrific gritty reality; here are ugly men and women doing (and suffering) ugly deeds. Some people, discussing this film with me, have pointed out that it may have been the time frame which made the movie seem so realistic - after all, that was more the style in the seventies, when it was made. I don't think so, however, when you consider that he followed Frenzy with the funny but airheaded Family Plot, which is as unlike Frenzy as apples and potatoes. Finally, the role that food plays as a motif and symbol is wonderful, totally relevant to the film. This is Hitchcock's underrated masterpiece, period.
Rating:
Summary: The Master's Last Psychological Thriller
Review: For the first time in twenty-plus years, Alfred Hitchcock returned to his native England to make what turned out to be his final psychological thriller FRENZY. Despite a series of only modestly successful films since his 1963 triumph with THE BIRDS, Hitchcock had not lost his touch when he was handed Anthony Shaffer's fine screenplay (based on the Arthur LaBern book "Goodbye Picadilly, Farewell Leicester Square"). And although his approach to sex and violence is more explicit here (thanks to the ease in censorship restrictions that happened only a few years before), Hitchcock still delivers a film quite typical of his work--suspenseful, chilling, and often quite funny in a blackly humorous way. The film revolves around a series of grisly strangulations of women occurring around London that have the police totally baffled. The killer's choice is a necktie, which pretty much leaves the door wide-open, since almost every man there wears a necktie. We are then introduced to Richard Blaney (Jon Finch) an ex-RAF officer and divorcee who has this tendency to drink too often and get a little bit too rough with people, including his ex-wife (Barbara Leigh-Hunt). The only real solace he gets is from his friend Robert Rusk (Barry Foster), a fruits-and-vegetables salesman in Covent Garden. What Finch doesn't realize, however, is that Foster is, in fact, the necktie strangler. And when Leigh-Hunt is found strangled in her office, the police, having interviewed her secretary, who had heard Finch arguing with her violently only half an hour before she was killed, immediately suspect and later arrest Finch, while Foster gets away. But an alert detective (Alec McCowen) suspects that there is something to Finch's story that could prove him innocent of the crimes. Although it was only a moderate hit here in America, owing to an all-British cast (all of whom are extremely good), and also quite controversial because of the grisly nature of Foster's strangulation of Leigh-Hunt, FRENZY is nevertheless a brilliant movie, far more concise and better plotted than many of today's serial-killer films of this day. Foster's performance is extremely complex; instead of the typical mad-dog killer, he is a suave businessman with a thing for women--for seducing and then strangling them. Finch's performance is, by necessity, less sympathetic so as to keep the audience off-balance, thinking that he is indeed the killer. And unlike too many pseudo-Hitchcock films of our time, FRENZY has moments of dry British wit and morbid dark comedy. One involves two policemen chatting in a bar about the killings, where one remarks, "We haven't had a good murder since (Agatha) Christie", and that such a spree "is always good for tourism." Another involves Foster having to get an incriminating piece of evidence off of the corpse of one of his female victims in a potato truck--and he has to actually break off her fingers to do it. Hitchcock later said, "The remarkable thing about that scene is how it improved the taste of the potatoes." Still another is McCowen enduring the "gourmet cooking" of his dotty wife (Vivien Merchant). A superior piece from one of the all-time great directors, a man who was an influence on everyone from DePalma to Spielberg and beyond, FRENZY is a disturbing but always intriguing horror opus well worth re-discovering.
Rating:
Summary: The Master's Last Psychological Thriller
Review: For the first time in twenty-plus years, Alfred Hitchcock returned to his native England to make what turned out to be his final psychological thriller FRENZY. Despite a series of only modestly successful films since his 1963 triumph with THE BIRDS, Hitchcock had not lost his touch when he was handed Anthony Shaffer's fine screenplay (based on the Arthur LaBern book "Goodbye Picadilly, Farewell Leicester Square"). And although his approach to sex and violence is more explicit here (thanks to the ease in censorship restrictions that happened only a few years before), Hitchcock still delivers a film quite typical of his work--suspenseful, chilling, and often quite funny in a blackly humorous way. The film revolves around a series of grisly strangulations of women occurring around London that have the police totally baffled. The killer's choice is a necktie, which pretty much leaves the door wide-open, since almost every man there wears a necktie. We are then introduced to Richard Blaney (Jon Finch) an ex-RAF officer and divorcee who has this tendency to drink too often and get a little bit too rough with people, including his ex-wife (Barbara Leigh-Hunt). The only real solace he gets is from his friend Robert Rusk (Barry Foster), a fruits-and-vegetables salesman in Covent Garden. What Finch doesn't realize, however, is that Foster is, in fact, the necktie strangler. And when Leigh-Hunt is found strangled in her office, the police, having interviewed her secretary, who had heard Finch arguing with her violently only half an hour before she was killed, immediately suspect and later arrest Finch, while Foster gets away. But an alert detective (Alec McCowen) suspects that there is something to Finch's story that could prove him innocent of the crimes. Although it was only a moderate hit here in America, owing to an all-British cast (all of whom are extremely good), and also quite controversial because of the grisly nature of Foster's strangulation of Leigh-Hunt, FRENZY is nevertheless a brilliant movie, far more concise and better plotted than many of today's serial-killer films of this day. Foster's performance is extremely complex; instead of the typical mad-dog killer, he is a suave businessman with a thing for women--for seducing and then strangling them. Finch's performance is, by necessity, less sympathetic so as to keep the audience off-balance, thinking that he is indeed the killer. And unlike too many pseudo-Hitchcock films of our time, FRENZY has moments of dry British wit and morbid dark comedy. One involves two policemen chatting in a bar about the killings, where one remarks, "We haven't had a good murder since (Agatha) Christie", and that such a spree "is always good for tourism." Another involves Foster having to get an incriminating piece of evidence off of the corpse of one of his female victims in a potato truck--and he has to actually break off her fingers to do it. Hitchcock later said, "The remarkable thing about that scene is how it improved the taste of the potatoes." Still another is McCowen enduring the "gourmet cooking" of his dotty wife (Vivien Merchant). A superior piece from one of the all-time great directors, a man who was an influence on everyone from DePalma to Spielberg and beyond, FRENZY is a disturbing but always intriguing horror opus well worth re-discovering.
Rating:
Summary: Exalent
Review: Frenzy is a great movie.It's Hitchcock's second best since Pshcho.Great camra shots.Sure it has nudity in it but that dosn't make it any diffrent from any other Hitchcock film.He his the master of suspence and he surtinly proves it in this.And sure it's rated R but don't forget that Psycho's origanal rateing was M.If you like Hitchcock this is a highly recamended film.On a scale of 1 to 10 Frenzy gets a 10.
Rating:
Summary: Frenzy
Review: Frenzy is one of hitchcocks funniest and darkest films.1972 London is in the grip of the 'necktie murderer'whose murder method speaks for itself. Through an unfortunate series of circumstances, ex R.A.F. pilot Dick blaney becomes the chief suspect. Several scenes are classics, my favourite being the scene in the back of a potato truck where the killer must retrieve an incriminating piece of evidence from a previously disposed of corpse,deep into rigor mortis.(its funnier than it sounds,trust me). As you've probably guessed,I could talk about this film all day,but i'll just say BUY IT.
|
