Frenzy

Theatrical Release Poster

Barry Foster

**Frenzy** is a 1972 British thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It is the penultimate feature film of his extensive career. The screenplay by Anthony Shaffer was based on the novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square by Arthur La Bern. The film stars Jon Finch, Alec McCowen, and Barry Foster and features Billie Whitelaw, Anna Massey, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Bernard Cribbins and Vivien Merchant.

## Plot

Set in the early 1970s, the plot centres on a serial killer terrorizing London by raping and then strangling women with a necktie. Bob Rusk, a Covent Garden wholesale produce merchant, is the murderer. However, circumstantial evidence, partially engineered by Rusk, will implicate Rusk's friend Richard Blaney, who becomes a fugitive attempting to prove his innocence.

Blaney, newly fired from his pub job, visits his ex-wife, Brenda, at her matchmaking business. They briefly argue, but Brenda invites Blaney out to dinner. Broke, Blaney ends up spending the night at a Salvation Army shelter; while there he discovers that Brenda had slipped money into his coat pocket.

Soon after, Rusk arrives at Brenda's office. Brenda had previously refused him as a client due to his sexual peculiarities. When Brenda spurns his advances, he rapes and strangles her with his necktie. After Rusk leaves, Blaney arrives to see Brenda, only to find the office locked. Suspicion falls on Blaney after Brenda's secretary tells police that she saw Blaney leaving the building just as she was returning from lunch.

Blaney meets up with Barbara "Babs" Milligan, his girlfriend and former pub co-worker. They soon learn about Brenda's murder and that Blaney is the suspect. They hide out at the flat of a friend who offers them jobs in Paris. Babs returns to the pub to fetch her and Blaney's belongings, intending meet him the next morning to go to Paris. At the pub, Babs runs into Rusk, who claims he is leaving town and offers her his flat for the night; after leading her there, he rapes and murders her (off-screen).

That night, Rusk hides Babs' body in a sack and stows it in the back of a lorry hauling potatoes. Back in his room, Rusk discovers his distinctive jewelled tie pin (with the initial R) is missing, and realizes that Babs must have torn it off. Knowing the tie pin will incriminate him, he goes to retrieve it, but the lorry starts off on its northern journey while Rusk is still inside. Rigor mortis has set in, forcing Rusk to break Babs' fingers to get the pin. Disheveled and dirty, he gets out when the lorry stops at a roadside cafe. Babs' body is discovered when it falls off the truck onto the road.

Blaney, now also accused of Babs' murder, seeks out Rusk's help. Although police are actively searching Covent Garden, Rusk offers to hide Blaney at his flat. Rusk goes there first with Blaney's bag and plants Babs' belongings inside it. He then tips off the police, who arrest Blaney and find the clothing. Blaney is convicted but he strongly protests his innocence and accuses Rusk, leading Chief Inspector Oxford to reconsider the case and secretly investigate Rusk. He also discusses the case with his wife in several comic relief scenes concerning her pretensions as a gourmet cook.

Blaney, now in prison, deliberately injures himself and is taken to the hospital where his fellow inmates help him escape the locked ward. He intends to murder Rusk in revenge. Oxford, learning of Blaney's escape, suspects he is headed to Rusk's flat and immediately goes there. Blaney arrives first and finds the door unlocked. He strikes what he assumes is the sleeping Rusk with a tyre iron. However, the person in the bed is not Rusk but the corpse of another of Rusk's female victims.

Oxford arrives as Blaney is standing next to the body, holding the tyre iron. He begins to proclaim his innocence, but a large banging noise coming up the staircase interrupts them. Rusk enters, dragging a large trunk into the flat. The film ends with Oxford's urbane but pointed comment, "Mr. Rusk, you're not wearing your tie." Rusk drops the trunk in defeat.

## Cast

* Jon Finch as Richard Blaney
* Alec McCowen as Tim Oxford
* Barry Foster as Robert Rusk
* Billie Whitelaw as Hetty Porter
* Anna Massey as Babs Milligan
* Barbara Leigh-Hunt as Brenda Blaney
* Bernard Cribbins as Felix Forsythe
* Vivien Merchant as Mrs. Oxford
* Michael Bates as Sergeant Spearman
* Jean Marsh as Monica Barling

## Trivia

* This was Hitchcock's only film to get an R rating for its original theatrical release.
* Alfred Hitchcock's daughter Patricia Hitchcock found this film so disturbing that she would not allow her children to see it for many years.
* Alfred Hitchcock used index cards to keep up with the shots in the complex potato-truck scene.
* The role of Robert Rusk was originally offered to Michael Caine. He thought the character was disgusting and said "I don't want to be associated with the part."
* Alfred Hitchcock originally planned to do his cameo as the body floating in the river. A dummy was even constructed to do the shot. The plans were changed and a female body, a victim of the Necktie Murderer, was used instead. The dummy of Hitchcock was used in the typically humorous trailer hosted by Hitchock himself.