7tavern: Frenzy (Alfred Hitchcock, 1972)

Frenzy (Alfred Hitchcock, 1972)

Sound (2)
3
Plot (2)
3.1
Cast (2)
3.2
Special Effects (2)
2.9
Length & Pace (2)
3.1
Cinematography (2)
3.1

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: Jon Finch, Barry Foster, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Alec McCowen, Anna Massey.

Synopsis: A serial killer is murdering London women with a necktie. The police have a suspect... but he's the wrong man.

Tagline: From the Master of Shock... A Shocking Masterpiece!

Classification: PG for some nudity and disturbing scenes.

Release date: 21 June 1972 (USA)

Running time: 116min

Language: English

Studio website: -

Links: IMDb Profile http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068611/

Awards: Nom. for 4 Golden Globes - best picture, director, screenplay, score.

Categories: Crime, Horror, Romance, Thriller

Main

Trailer

Squish
Reviews: 740
Points: 0 (Level 1)
Reviewer

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Plot:
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Length & Pace:
Cinematography:

2.5

Frenzy (1972)

Hitchcock! Hitchcock! Hitchcock!

He thinks she's lovely. Her naked body-double proved it.

Genre: Crime Thriller (UK)

Starring: Jon Finch (The Tragedy of Macbeth), Barry Foster

Directed By: Alfred Hitchcock (To Catch a Thief; I Confess)

Overview: London's neck-tie murderer seems unstoppable, but when the strongest lead points to the wrong man, suspense escalates... a little.

Performance:

Standard fare with some nice chokin' an' dyin'.
Rating: 7

Cinematography:

Hitchcock's signature tracking shots, jump cuts and flashbacks are the best aspects of this film, but even Girlfriend of Squish pointed out how little this felt like a Hitchcockian picture. I wholeheartedly agree.
Rating: 7

Script:

Hitchcock allowed the cast to rewrite some of the lines, but when it came back he said 'I didn't say you could rewrite the whole script'. I guess if it were good in the first place that whole first half hour wouldn't have seemed like the most tedious garbage ever, causing horrible flashbacks to The Birds. Bo-ring.
Rating: 6

Plot:

The best part of a thriller is the thrills, we all know that, and there's one scene, the memorable and suspenseful potato truck scene, that saves this film from obscurity. I believe it was Akira Kurosawa who said 'in my films there's really only two or three minutes of real cinema'. I don't think he meant 'cause the rest of the movie sucks', as was the case with Frenzy. For one little moment of suspense, even though there may be some enjoyable morbid humour, this film's story has got to be some of the weakest plotline out there. We learn early on who the necktie murderer is, which eliminates mystery, and puts the wrong man as the prime suspect. When you think about it, above all suspicions of murder, there's nothing better than being accused of being a serial killer because you just have to wait it out before you eventually go free, since the murderer will most likely strike again. In The Fugitive (1993), Dr. Richard Kimble pleads that a one-armed man was the one who killed his wife, and endangers his own safety by searching for this one-armed man. Tommy Lee Jones as detective does what any good cop would do: investigates everything that doesn't quite mesh. In The Fugitive it didn't diminish the action and suspense to know that another angle was looked at, but in Frenzy, it took any element of thrill and turned it into a story that one ceases to care about. Not only does the end become predictable, but it maps out the conclusion, regardless of the last scene's dramatic and interesting events, that if done right, would have been an interesting lesson in vengeance. Nope, it didn't even go there.
Rating: 5

Mood:

Potatoes reflect the murderer digging in the darkest soil of his sins to retrieve evidence. A horrid-looking fish head soup with squid, served but uneaten by the detective reflects his inability to find the solution to the case. The murderer, a fruit merchant, constantly eating, represents his dramatic nature and his hunger for things feminine... turns out all these inferred symbols I just hammered out are just a load of bull.
After all my research to explain the motivations of why food was so prevalent in this picture, I've learned that symbolism played no part in it. With half the scenes having food, mention of food, or eating of it, I'd have thought that something deeper was going on. I was sadly mistaken. The constant use of food was just there to distract us from the rotten story. To all you budding filmmakers out there, if you're going to have a theme, make it fit. If it doesn't fit, make it at LEAST symbolic.
Rating: 5

"I think you'd look GREAT like this actually!"

Overall Rating: 60% (Not Even Mildly Enticed)

Aftertaste:

Typically considered one of Hitchcock's weakest films, I would agree. These days I look for a tale that is either comfortably predictable, or not predictable. I think that's a pretty standard quest in the average audience. When something doesn't work in a movie, be it due to acting, to editing, to theme or feel, people leave with something unresolved, an awareness that it 'wasn't very good'. After constantly writing about it, a critic can pinpoint these reasons and tell you exactly why people won't like something. Well, I'll tell you what's not to like about this: it's a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. It's a story told a hundred times with no study of the characters, no excitement and no lessons to be taught. It's a story with no flow, it's a story that reminds me of puberty, awkward.

It's not worth your time.

Recommendations: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009), Requiem for a Dream, Dawn of the Dead

2010-05-16 08:08:49

eternality_tan
Reviews: 159
Points: 0 (Level 1)
Reviewer

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Plot:
Cast:
Special Effects:
Length & Pace:
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3.5

3.7

3.8

3.2

3.6

3.7

Frenzy (Alfred Hitchcock, 1972)

The last decade of Alfred Hitchcock’s filmmaking career is not particularly noteworthy. But if there is a film worth mentioning, it would probably be Frenzy. After more than three decades directing films in Hollywood, the legendary British filmmaker returns to London to shoot a screenplay adapted by playwright Anthony Shaffer from Arthur La Bern’s novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester. Frenzy is a fairly good film on its own. But to put things into perspective, it comes nowhere close to what Hitchcock would have accomplished in his prime.

Headed by a British cast, this film is another of Hitchcock’s seemingly endless output of ‘mistaken identity’ pictures. Here, an innocent man Richard Blaney (Jon Finch) happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and becomes a wanted suspect in a string of murder cases in which a sadistic and sexually perverse killer goes around raping and strangling his victims with neckties. The Necktie Murderer as he is known is revealed early in the film. This allows the director to concentrate on narrative progression and more importantly, character development, allowing viewers to empathize with Blaney, and at the same time, feel frustration when the noose wrongly tightens on him.

In Frenzy, the sense of dread overwhelms the suspense evoked. In a prolonged sequence detailing the first murder, Hitchcock gives us one of his most chilling murder scenes since the infamous shower stabbing in Psycho (1960). The cold, mechanical method used by the Necktie Murderer to subdue, rape, and kill his victim is a shocking contrast to his affable, sociable demeanor. Ironically, the suspect Blaney is divorced, easily irritable, and is known to be violent under the influence of alcohol. This does him no good considering the predicament he is in.

Hitchcock knows the value of the power of imagination. In a clever long take, the Necktie Murderer brings an unsuspecting woman up a flight of stairs to his room. The camera never enters the room; as the door shuts, it quietly moves down the stairs in the reverse direction, out of the lobby and into the noisy street where it ends with a wide shot of the whole building. With this sequence, Hitchcock once again demonstrates that a brutal act can be made more ghastly and frightening by leaving it to our imagination.

There is the occasional Hitchcockian black humor which is less morbid than what could be observed in his previous works such as The Trouble With Harry (1955). Similarly, the suspense does not reach a cranking high and is slightly disappointing for a Hitchcock film, though the finale is still a reminder of his remarkable directing ability. Frenzy, for most parts, is intriguing and engaging, but it lacks the hypnotic power and rewatchability of his greatest films such as Vertigo (1958) and Rear Window (1954).
SCORE: 7.5/10
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Recommendations: Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, 2010), To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962), The Visitor

Singapore's Most Prolific Film Blogger @ www.filmnomenon.blogspot.com

2009-10-01 08:50:03

Squish
Reviews: 740
Points: 0 (Level 1)
Reviewer

Frenzy (1972)

Hitchcock! Hitchcock! Hitchcock! He thinks she's lovely. Her naked body-double proved it. Genre: Crime Thriller (UK) Starring: Jon Finch ( The Tragedy of Macbeth ), Barry Foster Directed By: Alfred Hitchcock ( To Catch a Thief ; I Confess ) Overview: London's neck-tie murderer seems unstoppable, but when the strongest lead points to the wrong man, suspense escalates... a little. Performance: Standard fare with some nice chokin' an' dyin'. Rating: 7 Cinematography: Hitchcock's signature tracking shots, jump cuts and flashbacks are the best aspects of this film, but even Girlfriend of Squish pointed out how little this felt like a Hitchcockian picture. I wholeheartedly agree. Rating: 7 Script: Hitchcock allowed the cast to rewrite some of the lines, but when it came back he said 'I didn't say you could rewrite the whole script'. I guess if it were good in the first place that whole first half hour wouldn't have seemed like the most tedious garbage ever, causing...

(Read More...)

2010-05-16 08:08:49

eternality_tan
Reviews: 159
Points: 0 (Level 1)
Reviewer

Frenzy (Alfred Hitchcock, 1972)

The last decade of Alfred Hitchcock’s filmmaking career is not particularly noteworthy. But if there is a film worth mentioning, it would probably be Frenzy . After more than three decades directing films in Hollywood, the legendary British filmmaker returns to London to shoot a screenplay adapted by playwright Anthony Shaffer from Arthur La Bern’s novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester . Frenzy is a fairly good film on its own. But to put things into perspective, it comes nowhere close to what Hitchcock would have accomplished in his prime. Headed by a British cast, this film is another of Hitchcock’s seemingly endless output of ‘mistaken identity’ pictures. Here, an innocent man Richard Blaney (Jon Finch) happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and becomes a wanted suspect in a string of murder cases in which a sadistic and sexually perverse killer goes around raping and strangling his victims with neckties. The Necktie Murderer...

(Read More...)

2009-10-01 08:50:03

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