Frenzy (1972)

Taglines: A shattering tale of psychological horror.

Frenzy movie storyline. In London, a serial killer is raping women and then strangling them with a necktie. When the reckless and low-class with a bad temper bartender Richard Blaney is fired from the pub Global Public House by the manager Felix Forsythe, he decides to visit his ex-wife Brenda, who owns a successful marriage agency.

Her secretary Miss Barling overhears an argument of the couple, and Brenda invites Richard to have dinner with her in a fancy restaurant. Then she put some money in his overcoat and does not tell him to avoid his embarrassment with the situation. Meanwhile, Richard’s friend Bob Rusk visits Brenda in her office, rapes her, and kills her with his necktie.

When Richard finds the money in his pocket, he visits Brenda, but finds the agency closed. Then he goes with his girlfriend Babs Milligan to an expensive hotel. Miss Barling sees Richard leaving the building and finds her boss strangled. She calls New Scotland Yard and Richard becomes the prime suspect. When Bob kills Babs, he frames Richard, who is arrested and sentenced to life. But Chief Inspector Oxford, who was in charge of the investigation is not absolutely sure that Richard is the serial killer.

Frenzy is a 1972 British thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It is the penultimate feature film of his extensive career. The screenplay by Anthony Shaffer was based on the novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square by Arthur La Bern. The film stars Jon Finch, Alec McCowen, and Barry Foster and features Billie Whitelaw, Anna Massey, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Bernard Cribbins and Vivien Merchant. The original music score was composed by Ron Goodwin.

The plot centres on a serial killer in contemporary London and the ex-RAF serviceman he implicates. In a very early scene there is dialogue that mentions two actual London serial murder cases: the Christie murders in the early 1950s, and the Jack the Ripper murders in 1888. Barry Foster has said that, in order to prepare for his role, he was asked by Hitchcock to study two books about Neville Heath, an English serial killer who would often pass himself off as an officer in the RAF.

Frenzy was the third and final film that Hitchcock made in Britain after he moved to Hollywood in 1939. The other two were Under Capricorn in 1949 and Stage Fright in 1950 (although there were some interior and exterior scenes filmed in London for the 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much). The last film he had made in Britain before his move to America was Jamaica Inn (1939). The film was screened at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the main competition.

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Jon Finch, Alec McCowen, Barry Foster, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Anna Massey, Vivien Merchant, Bernard Cribbins, Michael Bates, Jean Marsh, Madge Ryan, Elsie Randolph, Gerald Sim, John Boxer, Jimmy Gardner, Pauline Chamberlain
Screenplay by: Anthony Shaffer
Production Design by: Syd Cain
Cinematography by: Gilbert Taylor, Leonard J. South
Film Editing by: John Jympson
Costume Design by: Julie Harris
Art Direction by: Robert W. Laing
Music by: Ron Goodwin
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: June 21, 1972