The only thing that this movie has in common with Hitchcock's past work is his misogyny--never before displayed so relentlessly, so sleazily, and with such absence of redeeming features. Come the screen liberties of the seventies, dirty old men of the cinema could really let it rip, and finally even Hitch got to do a giant close-up of a tit. Bless! The Master of Suspense finally got his suspenders down--and oh, my eyes, my eyes!The screenplay is tragicomically bad, a cringe-fest from start to finish, both technically (if you need to teach Clunky Exposition 101, look no further) and, supremely, in content. In the first five minutes two men tell us the murder of women has a "silver lining"--they are getting raped first. Oh joy. The characterization of women, with somewhat of an exception of Babs (who'll nevertheless get raped, murdered, and humiliated post mortem), is invariably awful--they are either monsters or treated as such, even when there's no clue why that should be so (Blaney's ex-wife being a case in point. Her sins, apparently, are that she divorced Blaney AND became a successful businesswoman.) The secretary, played by Jean Marsh, is also grossly insulted by Blaney ("she should be paired up with a 700 pound Japanese wrestler to iron out her creases" WTF?), out of the blue, she did nothing to him. Even the cameo couple we see in the beginning in Blaney's wife's matrimonial office gives us the woman as the monstrous shrew and the man as her hapless prey. The inspector's pretentious wannabe gourmet-cook wife isn't a monster but a standing joke, so forced and badly played it's torture to watch their scenes.I feel bad for the many fine actors in this who were probably chuffed to work with Hitchcock, just to find themselves neck deep in a garbage truck. Definitely a top contender if not the winner in a Worst Movie By A Great Director competition.

I've always liked 'Frenzy', Hitchcock's second to last movie, filmed when he was 73. The London pub and market scenes in Covent Garden always grab me from the start, and I love the dialogue between Jon Finch and both Anna Massey and Barry Foster. Finch plays a down-on-his-luck barman who's just been "given the push" (fired) from his job for drinking too much, Massey is his feisty co-worker, and Foster his charming and kind friend who tries to help him. Hanging over London is the "Necktie Murderer", as we see in the early shots of a nude woman floating in the Thames. When Finch pays a visit to his ex-wife (Barbara Leigh-Hunt), things take a downward turn, but I won't say anything further.There are several excellent shots worth noting. The one where Hitchcock slowly backs the camera down the stairwell and back out into the street, after the killer and his next victim are entering his apartment, is brilliant. The fumbling around in the moving potato truck, leading to breaking fingers where rigor mortis has set in has a gruesome and morbidly absurd feel to it. I also love the small moment when at the trial, Hitchcock places the camera outside the courtroom, and lets us hear snippets of the judge's pronouncement when the door opens. The film feels eminently British which I enjoyed, and distinctly Hitchcock, as he slips in some droll humor in the form of a detective (Alex McCowen) and his wife (Vivien Merchant), who cooks him unappetizing French haute cuisine while he craves traditional British fare. For the first time, Hitchcock also uses brief nudity in a few scenes mostly to heighten the garish and horrifying murders, and maybe to please his inner voyeur. There are moments which made me smile (a margarita being too exotic a drink comes to mind), and others which made me cringe (a gentleman saying to a barmaid that being raped before being strangled is akin to every cloud having a silver lining, and her smiling about it). The middle portion of the film is not quite as strong as I remembered it, but overall, a solid thriller, and underrated in Hitchcock's oeuvre.

(Movie quote) - "Now, do I look like that sort of a bloke??" OK. Here's my slant on things - For starters - "Frenzy" was certainly no "Psycho". Nope - Not even by a long-shot.And, speaking about "Psycho" - Character Bob Rusk (the fruit & veggies guy in "Frenzy") was certainly no cross-dressing momma's boy like Norman Bates, neither. Nope - He sure wasn't."Frenzy" was released 12 years after the classic, twisted, shocker "Psycho" - And, if you ask me - It was clearly one monstrous step down the ladder when it came to direction by Alfred Hitchcock. This was especially so if the viewer was expecting to see an "in-depth" character study of a deranged serial killer. (I mean - Hello!!?? - There was no character study of this killer here, at all!) And, finally - I can't believe that Hitchcock actually had the low-down gall to substitute the sharp blade of a knife (slice. slice), as the killer's weapon, for (of all things) a frickin' necktie. (choke. choke) Anyway - Because of these 4 serious strikes against "Frenzy", I had no choice but to reduce my rating of it to just 3 measly stars.

What a disappointment Frenzy turned out to be. I always wondered why nobody talks about this Hitchcock film, and now I know why. It is entirely devoid of the style and nuance and subtle humor of the master's classics. Crime and violence are needless to say the focus of this director's oeuvre, but usually he manages to approach those themes in very artistic and creative ways. Not here.Frenzy basically offers the viewer insight into actual rapes and murders. Very unpleasant to watch and not mitigated by any aesthetic agenda--at least as far as I could see. But I won't be watching it again to find out whether I was just somehow obtuse. This was a unidimensional work which might titillate viewers who share the culprit's tastes, but for anyone else? Just plain gross. Way too graphic, and gratuitously so. Unlike Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (equally disturbing), this film does not redeem itself in either message or form. There really is no message or investigation going on here. Perverted sadistic murderers have untamed desires and are to be avoided at all costs? Please. Tell us something that we don't already know.