Frenzy

Whilst not being one of Hitchcock's more famous films, it's actually a rather tense, nihilistic, explicit and nasty piece. It reminded me a lot of Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, if not really posing the serious questions about voyeurism raised by Powell's masterpiece.

The story is set and filmed in an early 1970s London almost unidentifiable with the modern day metropolis, apart from the major landmarks. The many scenes around Covent Garden reminded me of another Powell film, the early scenes of The Red Shoes. In fact Covent Garden of 1948 appears almost unchanged to the 1972 version. Twenty-four years on from 72 and the place would be unrecognisable. The restoration of the print is absolutely wonderful – it makes the 1972 London seem absolutely real.

This film marked a turn to the more explicit and violent for Hitchcock. The rape / murder scene is genuinely distressing to watch, and to film judging by the comments of Barry Foster, the actor involved. Female nudity is also shown several times. The 70s did seem to mark a watershed in terms of screen violence. The explicit horror here is certainly on a par with A Clockwork Orange, and more overt than Peeping Tom. The meals served up by the Police Inspector's wife are also horrific, if in a different way. I was reminded strongly of Eraserhead...

Another link to Peeping Tom is the wonderful Anna Massey. Here she plays a cheeky cockney lass in a very winning way. She does not look ten years older than her performance in the Michael Powell film. Jon Finch plays the unsympathetic hero very well - when he made this he was fresh from playing Polanski's Hamlet, and the character does indeed have a few Hamlet moments. Jean Marsh plays a wonderfully plain secretary. Billie Whitelaw is in her element as a distrusting, cold friend, wife of an ex-RAF colleague of the Finch character, played by the irreplaceable Clive Swift, also known as King Arthur's surrogate father in Excalibur, and of course long-suffering husband to “that Bucket woman.” (My goodness, just found out that BBC TV celebrity gardener Joe Swift is his son with Margaret Drabble.)

Francois Truffaut, after seeing this film, said it was a young director's film. Meaning that there was considerable experimentation going on with this movie.

Two scenes stick out for me. As Anna Massey's character storms out of the pub after quitting her job, she pauses, the screen is filled with her motionless face and all the street sounds are quietened for a few seconds. When the noise returns it is the smarmy grocery trader who asks her if she has a place to go. At this point you realise she is already dead. The second scene is in the promotional trailer for the film, with what must be an effigy of Hitch floating on his back in the Thames.