In addition to being the second-to-last film he ever directed, Frenzy was Hitchcock’s last bona fide masterpiece. It’s a film that follows the itinerary of a killer, while at the same time detailing the plot of an innocent man on the run for a crime he didn’t commit. This is a synthesis of two of Hitchcock’s signature narrative patterns.
The innocent man is ex-RAF pilot Dick Blaney. The crime he’s being persecuted for is the murder of his ex-wife, of which he’s innocent. The guilty party is none other than Blaney’s best friend, Bob Rusk. He’s a sexual psychopath who strangles women as a means of pleasurable release. He’s known as the Necktie Murderer, and he’s one of those suave villains that Hitchcock loved to depict.
The overriding structural motif in Frenzy is food. The acts of preparing, serving, and eating food play a central (if sometimes comical) role for Inspector Oxford in the film, who’s assigned to the Necktie Murderer case. Also, a key scene in the film takes place on a potato truck. In it, Rusk attempts to retrieve his signature golden pin from the clutches of a corpse that he’s stashed in a potato sack. He does so while sifting through a truckload of potatoes that hinder his progress. This entire film takes place against the backdrop of Covent Garden, an outdoor fruit and vegetable market in central London. Rusk himself owns a fruit stand in Covent Garden, and lives in a flat above it. At numerous junctures throughout the film, Hitchcock continues to weave food into the fabric in his systematic effort to “fill the tapestry”. This helps make Frenzy a truly rich and multifaceted creation.
A great deal of black humor marks this film. In the potato truck scene where Rusk attempts to retrieve his pen, his victim’s foot continually smacks into his face as a consequence of rigor mortis. This increases the difficulty of his task, and he must ultimately rely on leaning on the meddlesome legs to fasten them down while breaking the corpse’s stiff fingers to loosen its grip on his pin. In fact, Rusk has as much trouble with this corpse as the Vermont townspeople do with their own bothersome corpse in The Trouble with Harry. Also, Inspector Oxford suffers with an overly anxious wife who is enamored with her gourmet cooking lessons. She experiments with a number of exotic concoctions on the poor Inspector, many of them difficult to look at much less eat, and their interactions in the film become a hilarious comedy of culinary errors.
Note the murder scene in which Mrs. Blaney is dispatched by Rusk. Hitchcock illustrates her rape with a startling and cold frankness, and her strangulation with tenderness and care. In his seminal text on the master, Truffaut remarked that Hitchcock filmed his love scenes like murder, and his murders like love. One clearly understands that statement by studying this disturbing scene. This scene is also a model of bravura cutting. The montage that expresses Mrs. Blaney’s death is an elaborate and syncopated flurry of close-ups arranged in rapid succession. This montage immediately evokes the knife murder in Psycho, which is the stuff of cinematic legends. In both instances Hitchcock equalizes form and content, which is a most lofty and admirable goal. Every cut in the film represents a knife cut in the sequence in Psycho, just as every cut represents a desperate gasp at life-saving breath in the similar sequence from Frenzy.
"Frenzy" (1972) - Photo by Arthur Schatz
In Frenzy, stairs are a hazardous symbol. More often than not in the work of Hitchcock, stairs lead to doom. Frenzy is no exception. Note the lengthy shot that accompanies Rusk up the stairs with a victim that also happens to be Blaney’s current girlfriend. Once we follow them to the top of the stairs, and Rusk enters his apartment with the unsuspecting Babs Milligan, he tells her that she’s just his type. We heard those words right before he raped and killed Mrs. Blaney, so we anticipate what’s coming next. But Hitchcock doesn’t give us what we’re expecting (does he ever?). Instead of subjecting his audience to a second gruesome murder (and knowing he won’t be able to top the first, and more importantly, doesn’t need to anyway), Hitchcock decides to simply let his camera retreat back down the steps and out of the building. This sequence shot displays the virtuosity of its chief creative hand, as the camera not only silently backtracks and exits from the door we previously entered, but also seamlessly enters the busy street outside the apartment and travels clear across that street. It then rests on the other side of the street, framing Rusk’s building in its entirety in a matter-of-fact way while unassuming passers-by carry on with their day in Covent Garden, completely unaware of the horrendous acts taking place only right above them. It’s one of the most unique shots in the entire Hitchcock canon, and it takes the idea of subjective camerawork to its logical extreme (it’s also an effort at simplicity). This shot does not represent the subjective experience of a certain character, as is usually the case in Hitchcock’s work (with the goal of placing the audience in the character’s shoes, thus causing them to identify with those characters all the more and be that much more invested in what’s on the screen). Rather, this shot represents the subjectivity and thought process of its creator in a concentrated and exposed manner. This shot represents Hitchcock.
And what does this shot tell us? It tells us that its creator is a voyeur; a voyeur with a certain sense of propriety and decorum. It tells us that the creator is cynical, but not absent of pity. It tells us that amid all the numbing drama in life that consumes one’s attention, there are always untold stories buried deep down in the recesses of our existence. It tells us of a multi-layered world with multi-layered meanings. It tells us everything, and at the same time nothing. Nothing, because the shot is non-committal. Nothing, because the shot is passive. Nothing, because the shot is non-judgmental. It’s an extremely complex shot packed with significance, yet masquerading deftly as an empty shot; a shot of gratuitous, and possibly unnecessary flourishes. It’s a shot few directors are capable of. But the kind of shot that Hitchcock, that great director of stylized concreteness, that pure visual storyteller, that master of suspense; it’s the type of shot that he excels in. By extension, his cinema is thus exalted.
Other Alfred Hitchcock films discussed that you may also enjoy:
HITCHCOCK: The Lost Masterworks
HITCHCOCK: The Lost Masterworks – “Secret Agent” (1936)
HITCHCOCK: The Lost Masterworks – “Jamaica Inn” (1939)
HITCHCOCK: The Lost Masterworks – “Lifeboat” (1944)
HITCHCOCK: The Lost Masterworks – “The Trouble with Harry” (1955)
HITCHCOCK: The Lost Masterworks – “Topaz” (1969)
HITCHCOCK: The Lost Masterworks – “Frenzy” (1972)