Frenzy
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DVD details
Actor: Barry Foster, Jon FinchBrand: NBC Universal
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Published), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Original recording remastered, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 116 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-06-20
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Reviews of Frenzy
DVD Review: The Wrong Bloke
Summary: 4 Stars
When it was released in 1972 after a couple of slower moving espionage flicks, many reviewers saw Hitchcock's FRENZY as something of a return to form--to say nothing of it being a welcome return to the director's native England. Even after he was firmly ensconced in Hollywood, Hitch had never really ceased making films with an English setting. But aside from the requisite location footage, those films were obviously shot on studio lots--DIAL M FOR MURDER and STAGE FRIGHT being prime examples. And those classics, good as they were, featured American actors in key roles. FRENZY, on the other hand, was veddy British and proudly so. Anglophiles the world over can take delight in the rather spectacular opening shots of the Thames and the Tower Bridge. And many of the exterior shots were filmed in Covent Garden, where decades before Hitchcock's own father had been a greengrocer.
Aside from the neighborhood and overall milieu, I wouldn't go overboard on stressing the autobiographical elements. The return to his homeland does seem to energize the director and make for a ripping good yarn, with a goodly amount of real suspense and gobs of dark Hitchcockian humor. But this is not an intensely personal film, in the manner of VERTIGO, say. Despite its grim premise--serial murder being something of delicate matter in the post-Manson early 70s--FRENZY has a lightness of touch that was largely absent in his classic 60s period. The movie is as much remembered for the wryly humorous domestic scenes between Chief Inspector Oxford (Alec MacGowan) and his ecctric but perceptive wife (Vivien Merchant)as it is for its graphic violence.
I remember any number of critics at the time commenting on the almost complete lack of glamour about the film. The shots of London were often breathtaking, but the cast seemed average in the extreme (if such a thing is possible). Even the potentially dashing Jon Finch (who had just wrapped Polanski's MACBETH) wasn't exactly radiating star power here. Whatever charisma he might have otherwise possessed, is hidden behind a rumpled suit and a bad haircut. The average man caught up in an intrigue he cannot quite fathom isn't a Hollywood luminary like Jimmy Stewart this time out. Finch looks every bit the down-on-his-luck former RAF pilot reduced to tending bar and scuffling his way through life in a Swinging London that seems to be leaving him behind.
And he's really not all that likeable, which may be Hitchcock's cleverest touch. He's anything but a sweetly bumbling Stewart type, or an elegant, cheeky Cary Grant. This character has baggage, much of it under his eyes. This is another "wrong man" tale, but the difference is, you have to work a bit harder to care about this particular wrong man.
Ultimately, the relative obscurity of the cast makes for a much more character driven film, and I'd say, one that's all the stronger for it. There are lot of familiar faces in this movie, but there's a world of difference between looking at a character actor and wondering, "Now where have I seen him before?" and saying, in effect, "Ah, Jimmy Stewart, well, we all know what he brings to the table."
Aside from being a compelling suspense film, FRENZY was also the first Hitchcock film to receive an "R" rating. Much had changed in the ten years since PSYCHO, for instance, and a romantic liaison in a hotel, for instance, would now feature actual nudity. It was the 70s, after all, and such was required in almost every film aimed at an adult audience. Interesting that the master handled this newfound freedom as well as he did. There is nothing that is gratuitous about the nudity in the trysting scenes, and while the equally graphic rape and murder scene (and there's only one, although others are implied)is quite disturbing, it also is anything but gratuitous. (Thank the good Lord and screenwriter Anthony Shaffer for convincing Hitchcock to only portray only ONE of the film's several murders up close and all too personal.)
FRENZY wasn't quite the hit it should have been, but it did serve to demonstrate that the later Hitchcock had lost none of his powers. Good show!
Description of Frenzy
Jon Finch, Alec McCowen and Barry Foster star in this morbid blend of horror and wit-the first Hitchcock film to earn an 'R' rating. The Necktie Murderer has the London Police on red alert, and an innocent man is on a desperate quest to find the real serial rapist-murderer and clear his own name. Alternating heart-pounding tension with distinctive Hitchcock humor, Frenzy marked the Master of Suspense's return to his native England after almost twenty years. Starring: Jon Finch, Alec McCowen, Barry Foster, Billie Whitelaw, Anna Massey, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Vivien Merchant, Clive Swift, Bernard Cribbins, Michael Bates, Jean Marsh Directed by: Alfred HitchcockBestsellers in DVD
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