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Frenzy (1972)

Jon Finch , Alec McCowen , Alfred Hitchcock  |  R |  DVD
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (103 customer reviews)

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Product Details

  • Actors: Jon Finch, Alec McCowen, Barry Foster, Billie Whitelaw, Anna Massey
  • Directors: Alfred Hitchcock
  • Writers: Anthony Shaffer
  • Producers: Alfred Hitchcock
  • Format: Dolby, Dubbed, NTSC, Original recording remastered, Subtitled, Widescreen
  • Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
  • Subtitles: English, Spanish
  • Dubbed: French
  • Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Rated: R (Restricted)
  • Studio: Universal Studios
  • DVD Release Date: June 20, 2006
  • Run Time: 116 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (103 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B000ECX0RY
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #55,765 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
  • Learn more about "Frenzy" on IMDb

Special Features

  • "The Story of Frenzy" featurette
  • Production notes
  • Production photographs
  • Trailer

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Alfred Hitchcock's penultimate film, written by Anthony Shaffer (who also wrote Sleuth), this delightfully grisly little tale features an all-British cast minus star wattage, which may have accounted for its relatively slim showing in the States. Jon Finch plays a down-on-his-luck Londoner who is offered some help by an old pal (Barry Foster). In fact, Foster is a serial killer the police have been chasing--and he's framing Finch. Which leads to a classic Hitchcock situation: a guiltless man is forced to prove his innocence while eluding Scotland Yard at the same time. Spiked with Hitchcock's trademark dark humor, Frenzy also features a very funny subplot about the Scotland Yard investigator (Alec McCowen) in charge of the case, who must endure meals by a wife (Vivien Merchant) who is taking a gourmet-cooking class. --Marshall Fine

Product Description

Jon Finch, Barry Foster, Anna Leigh-Hunt. Alfred Hitchcock directed this stylish thriller about a man who's accused of being London's dreaded Necktie Murderer." 1972/color/116 min/R/widescreen.

Customer Reviews

One of Hitchcock's all-time best. Scott T. Rivers  |  26 reviewers made a similar statement
All I can say is this is a good movie. true crime reader  |  15 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
37 of 40 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Droll and dark Hitchcock suspense film March 18, 2001
Format:DVD
Frenzy was a homecoming of sorts as it was Hitch's first film shot in the UK since he left during the 40's. I would disagree with those who claim that Frenzy can't stand with Hitch's best work; Hitch's droll and dark sense of humor change what could have been a run of the mill thriller into a minor masterpiece. The best bits in Frenzy are every bit as startling and powerful as those in Rear Window, Vertigo and North by Northwest. Although his wife Alma's heart attack couldn't have informed the pre-production stages of the script and film, it certainly had an impact on the atomsphere captured in the film. There is an underlying darkness here only hinted at before (most explicitly in The Birds, Vertigo and Marnie).

The performances are uniformly excellent. The fact that Hitch chose stage actors and lesser known British film actors for this film gives it a bit more grit and reality than his earlier films. Anthony Schaffer's script plays with the routine cliches of suspense films. A number of sequences (including the scene where the murderer is trying to retrieve a bit of incriminating evidence from one of his victims) flirt with sardonic humor. The dialog like most of Hitch's films is outstanding. Here Schaffer, again, turns many of the cliches (some from Hitch's own films) from film dialog into a droll commentary on both the action and the film audience as observers.

The extras included on this DVD are particularly outstanding given the standing this film has with most film buffs. The new interviews with Anna Massey, Jon Finch and others sheds considerable light on Hitch's methods during the making of the film and discounts a number of myths about him (including the idea that he didn't really work much with the actors. While he trusted the actor's instincts he also recognized that a well rehearsed film is akin to a storyboarded film; it's clear that preparation for both aspects were equally important).

Why is this film a "lesser" Hitchcock for most critics? It probably has to do with the more contemporary edge in some of the scenes. Frenzy has more in common with the brutality evident in early Hitchcock classics like Murder than with Rear Window or Shadow of a Doubt (a film that shares a lot of the same themes although Frenzy is a darker, more contemporary take on the same type of story). Frenzy clearly is Hitch's last great film and although it occasionally slips, its best moments are every bit the equal of his best films. On the whole the strengths of Frenzy outweight the weaknesses and make this terrific film a must for Hitch fans. One interesting observation in closing about Frenzy. Everybody points to Hitch's classic films as influencing Brian DePalma. It's clear that DePalma (who had already begun making films prior to 1972)borrowed more from Frenzy than other Hitchcock classics. Even a film like DePalma's Sisters (released the year after Frenzy) owes a great debt to this film.

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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The Master's Last Psychological Thriller April 27, 2004
Format:VHS Tape
For the first time in twenty-plus years, Alfred Hitchcock returned to his native England to make what turned out to be his final psychological thriller FRENZY. Despite a series of only modestly successful films since his 1963 triumph with THE BIRDS, Hitchcock had not lost his touch when he was handed Anthony Shaffer's fine screenplay (based on the Arthur LaBern book "Goodbye Picadilly, Farewell Leicester Square"). And although his approach to sex and violence is more explicit here (thanks to the ease in censorship restrictions that happened only a few years before), Hitchcock still delivers a film quite typical of his work--suspenseful, chilling, and often quite funny in a blackly humorous way.

The film revolves around a series of grisly strangulations of women occurring around London that have the police totally baffled. The killer's choice is a necktie, which pretty much leaves the door wide-open, since almost every man there wears a necktie. We are then introduced to Richard Blaney (Jon Finch) an ex-RAF officer and divorcee who has this tendency to drink too often and get a little bit too rough with people, including his ex-wife (Barbara Leigh-Hunt). The only real solace he gets is from his friend Robert Rusk (Barry Foster), a fruits-and-vegetables salesman in Covent Garden. What Finch doesn't realize, however, is that Foster is, in fact, the necktie strangler. And when Leigh-Hunt is found strangled in her office, the police, having interviewed her secretary, who had heard Finch arguing with her violently only half an hour before she was killed, immediately suspect and later arrest Finch, while Foster gets away. But an alert detective (Alec McCowen) suspects that there is something to Finch's story that could prove him innocent of the crimes.

Although it was only a moderate hit here in America, owing to an all-British cast (all of whom are extremely good), and also quite controversial because of the grisly nature of Foster's strangulation of Leigh-Hunt, FRENZY is nevertheless a brilliant movie, far more concise and better plotted than many of today's serial-killer films of this day. Foster's performance is extremely complex; instead of the typical mad-dog killer, he is a suave businessman with a thing for women--for seducing and then strangling them. Finch's performance is, by necessity, less sympathetic so as to keep the audience off-balance, thinking that he is indeed the killer.

And unlike too many pseudo-Hitchcock films of our time, FRENZY has moments of dry British wit and morbid dark comedy. One involves two policemen chatting in a bar about the killings, where one remarks, "We haven't had a good murder since (Agatha) Christie", and that such a spree "is always good for tourism." Another involves Foster having to get an incriminating piece of evidence off of the corpse of one of his female victims in a potato truck--and he has to actually break off her fingers to do it. Hitchcock later said, "The remarkable thing about that scene is how it improved the taste of the potatoes." Still another is McCowen enduring the "gourmet cooking" of his dotty wife (Vivien Merchant).

A superior piece from one of the all-time great directors, a man who was an influence on everyone from DePalma to Spielberg and beyond, FRENZY is a disturbing but always intriguing horror opus well worth re-discovering.

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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Hitchcock's second last film is a tightly-written, well-acted suspense thriller featuring a luckless and underachieving hero being framed for murder, a cunning and psychotic villain whose murderous itinerary is detailed, a gritty and realistic directorial style from Hitch, a story set in a working-class milieu that is far apart from the glamorous and exotic settings of his earlier films, and one horrific murder scene in which the depiction of brutality and evil reached a new height for the director. This film is quite a world apart from the elegant, smooth, urbane suspense pictures he made in the 40s and 50s. But with the increasingly jaded audiences in the 70s, the change was probably inevitable. Still, Hitchcock's craftsmanship made FRENZY as exciting and memorable as his more traditional thrillers.

This DVD from MGM/UA presents the film in a new, widescreen video transfer and a Dolby Digital monophonic sound track. The picture looks a bit dark for my liking; unfortunately there is no "color bars" on the disc for me to test the display. Colors are bright and realistic, however. The audio is bright and sharp.

There is an original 45-minute 'Making-Of' documentary that features new interviews of actors Jon Finch, Barry Foster, and Anna Massey, a theatrical trailer (showing Hitchcock floating on the Thames), 100 or so B&W production photos, and the usual "production notes" and "cast biographies".

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Suspense in the Making
I'm one of Alfred Hitchcock's most devoted fans!! Rate this one high up there with all the rest!! Great buy.
Published 20 days ago by Anonymous
5.0 out of 5 stars Frenzy
Bought as gift, and the recipient says loved and had never seen before. Disc (movie and sound and color, etc.,) all okay and good performances by actors. Read more
Published 21 days ago by Cecy
5.0 out of 5 stars wowo
good story and the actors are cool and I think it's worth buying. best movie made!!! thank you for having it
Published 1 month ago by tigeress2010
4.0 out of 5 stars A sexual killing frenzy
By 1972, the great Alfred Hitchcock was nearing the end of his career, but he still had one last great suspense movie in him. Read more
Published 1 month ago by E. A Solinas
4.0 out of 5 stars A sexual killing frenzy
By 1972, the great Alfred Hitchcock was nearing the end of his career, but he still had one last great suspense movie in him. Read more
Published 1 month ago by E. A Solinas
2.0 out of 5 stars The Necktie Strangler Strikes in London (in Color)
What do we learn when Hitch returns to London after almost twenty years in the US? We learn that men are brutes. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Zarathustra
4.0 out of 5 stars Good, intense...and sometimes kinda funny
Wonderful Hitchcock mixes tough subject matter with tongue-in-cheek humor. In many ways better than we he uses well known actors.
Published 4 months ago by AGoodfriend
5.0 out of 5 stars Thanks for the Hitchcock
This is the last great film from Alfred Hitchcock. A man is wrongfully accused of some rape/murders while the real killer goes free.
Published 4 months ago by James W. Mcmullen
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow
I don't know what it is, but something about this movie gets me really excited. I watched it for the first time last month and thought it was a thrill. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Trendy Shopper
5.0 out of 5 stars Vintage HIthcock
"Oh no, it's another necktie murder!" Really great casting and excellent use of a number of film techniques, especially the use of silence. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Dr Jack L Edwards
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