One of the best films i have seen

Am I Missing Something?

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

In FRENZY, Hitchcock returns to his beloved London, and throughout the film one gets the impression that he was really enjoying the sights, sounds, and smells of his city. The wonderful Cockney accents keep coming up, the typical wisecracks, all conjure up a wonderful plot, based on one of the Master's favorite themes: the wrongly accused man who has been framed, and fights outrageous (mis)fortune.Direction is inspired, acting is generally of the highest order, although a stronger actor than Finch might have elevated FRENZY to masterpiece status. In contrast, Foster is superb as the tie murderer, clearly intelligent enough to frame Finch and to lure his victims, and yet bearing some signs of split personality, both loving and despising women. The rape scene with Barbra Leigh-Hunt is disturbing even today, especially because of they way he changes from a crescendo of lust to one of hatred once he is done. Alec McCowen as the chief inspector, and Vivien Merchant, as his wife, steal the show with some truly delicious cullinary discussions, with McCowen wishing he could just eat fish and chips, while Merchant keeps coming up with pig's trotter and other supposed French delights. The drink she makes for a visiting police inspector is one of the film's comic highlights, in all its British understatement. In fact, the McCowen-Merchant relationship is the only durable one in the film - all the others break down tragically and otherwise, but always with darkly comic touches.Photography is very economical but extremely well done, and script is great, with an ending that is textbook stuff in its simplicity and objectivity: "You are not wearing your tie, Mr Rusk". FRENZY is reminiscent of other films in Hitch's early British period, notably THE 39 STEPS and YOUNG AND INNOCENT, but imbued with the cynicism of the 1970s. Hitch was on top form here.Strongly recommended. 8/10

Gets really disturbing at times, reminiscent of 'Psycho'. There are sporadic moments in the film that scream out vintage Hitchcock. This film has one of the greatest tracking shots that I have ever seen in a film, not just because of the technical mastery, but also because of how it implies the concept of giving the murder victim her due dignity. Hitchcock also does what he does best which is to put us in the criminal's shoes and almost sweat with him while he tries to escape arrest.Although it is fun to see the juxtaposition of disturbing psychotic criminal activity with the Victorian humour of the cops and their family members, 'Frenzy' is still a film that is a bit devoid of thematic depth. It feels like an episode of a crime procedural show since it doesn't do deep beneath the surface of the crime/the criminal as Hitchcock did with some of his previous films like 'Psycho' or 'Vertigo'. However the technical brilliance of the film does make it a fun watch.

London is terrorised by a vicious sex killer known as the neck tie murderer. Following the brutal slaying of his ex-wife, down-on-his-luck Richard Blaney is suspected by the police of being the killer. He goes on the run, with the help of a few friends who believe his stories, determined to prove his innocence......Some have said that Hitchcock had lost his sharpness for detail and storytelling when he made this wonderful movie, but when you look closer, and can appreciate the sense of humour in the film, and the early seventies London setting, you will realise what a brilliant movie it is.What makes the film so watchable is the little things that have nothing to do with the story or the narrative, but flesh out supporting characters. Much like the Inspectors meal times, which, without a doubt, is the single funniest thing in the film. Here is a man who would like nothing more than a good old working class meal, but his wife keeps making him all this expensive, yet disgusting fodder.And not only that, even though she comes across as an ignorant socialite wannabe, she sometimes seems to usurp her husbands professionalism when discussing the case (films plot). Or maybe this was cleverly included by the auteur to provide a sort of explanation of the narrative, because hey! it was the seventies, and it was okay to make out that working class people who saw this may not understand what was going on....Despite all the humour, the film is extremely tense, and the scene where the killer hunts for his tie pin, is one of the many highlights of this movie.Finch and Foster are brilliant, and Finch has that nervy, sweaty tick down to a tee. It's no wonder he is a suspect, he may at the wrong place at the wrong time on several occasions, but he acts like a ticking time bomb throughout the film.Foster on the other hand, is the seventies wide boy you still see today down the big smoke, your atypical Londoner, who turns as quickly as you can say brewers droop.It's wonderfully filmed,the tracking shot during the second act is marvellous, and even though it's aged badly, it's still a lovely little thriller, albeit very, very tongue in cheek.

A man who rapes women and then strangles them with a necktie is terrorizing London. Chief Inspector Oxford is in charge of the case, assisted by Sergeant Spearman. At one point during the movie, Oxford tells Spearman that when they catch up with the necktie strangler, it will probably turn out that he is impotent. Spearman expresses surprise, and rightly so, for this is a bizarre claim. A man who is impotent cannot get an erection, and therefore is incapable of having sexual intercourse. Therefore, if the necktie strangler were impotent, there would be no semen in the vaginas of his victims. Since all of his victims were murdered and thus could not give evidence, why would the police think the women were raped? Inspector Oxford does not address that question, but simply tells Sergeant Spearman that it is not sex that gratifies such rapists, but violence.Several years prior to the production of this movie, it became fashionable to say that rape was not about sex, and some people maintain that theory to this day. It is said that rape is really about power, about dominating women. Even if it is so that rape has some motive other than sex, there still has to be a rape, and that means that the rapist cannot be impotent, regardless of what his motive might be. If we bend over backwards to make sense of Oxford's claim, we might say that the rapist is able to penetrate, but cannot achieve completion, cannot ejaculate. But that would mean no semen in the vagina, which brings us right back to the question, what would make the police think the women had been raped?Oxford speaks with an authoritative voice in the movie, and so we know we are supposed to believe him. But aside from squaring impotence with rape, there is the incongruity between his words and the rape that took place in the movie thirty minutes before, when we see Rusk raping Brenda. In the history of mainstream cinema, no movie, made before or since, has depicted sex, consensual or coerced, in which anyone, male or female, experiences greater heights of sexual ecstasy than does that of the necktie strangler in "Frenzy."What is remarkable about this movie is that, in discussing it with others, I have noticed that a lot of people accept the pronouncements of the detective, notwithstanding their apparent inconsistency with the rape scene. This is in part due to the authoritative voice of the detective, and in part due to the widespread acceptance of the rape-is-not-about-sex theory at that time. I have seen people twist themselves into a pretzel trying to argue that the rapist never really got it up, let alone gratified himself sexually.I suspect that this was Hitchcock's idea of a joke. He purposely put this contradiction into the movie between the words of the pompous detective and the scene of sexual passion, as his way of making fun of that theory.