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Frenzy (1972)
In Alfred Hitchcock's first and only R-rated film (with
some female nudity) in a post-Hays Production Code era - it was a
typical but tawdry and bleak psychological-horror crime thriller
(with elements of dark humor) about a serial killer who specialized
in gruesomely violent murders by using neckties to strangle his female
victims, while a "wrongly-convicted" and desperate fugitive was "on
the run." English playwright Anthony Shaffer's screenplay was based
upon Arthur La Bern's 1966 novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square.
It was Hitchcock's first British film
since Stage Fright (1950). Many critics praised
the film as a triumphant return to form for Hitchcock, who had suffered
a period of some decline with his previous three films Marnie
(1964), Torn Curtain (1966), and Topaz (1969). The nasty suspense
thriller was also a financial hit - its budget of $2 million resulted
in a box-office take of $6.3 million (domestic) and almost $13 million
(worldwide). It was Hitchcock's most financially successful
film for Universal. However, others criticized the macabre film for
being excessively violent, shocking, and repellently misogynistic.
- after the film's opening titles shown under aerial
views of London's Thames River and the Tower Bridge with a musical fanfare, a political rally was being
held outside London County Hall; government politician and Minister
of Health Sir George (John Boxer) was delivering a speech about
how the water would soon be clear and pollution-free
of "waste products" due to government efforts":
("All the water above this point will soon be clear. Clear of industrial
effluent. Clear of detergents. Clear of the waste products of our
society, with which for so long we have poisoned our rivers and
canals. (Applause) Let us rejoice that pollution will soon be banished
from the waters of this river, and that there will soon be no -")
- cries of alarm interrupted the official's speech
as the crowd of bystanders watched "another necktie murder" corpse
(a strangled nude female body, a "waste product") (Roberta
Gibbs) floating ashore face-down in the river - she was the most
recent and 4th victim in a string of similar murders
- Hitchcock's cameo first located the director wearing
a distinctive bowler hat in the crowd of bystanders by the Thames,
where he was notably the only one not applauding the speech of
Sir George; a moment later, Hitchcock listened
as a gray-white-bearded male crowd member (Joby Blanshard) to the left
of him compared the murder to the grisly tactics of Jack the Ripper:
("He used to carve 'em up. He sent a bird's kidney to Scotland Yard once,
wrapped in a bit of violet writing paper... or was it a bit of her
liver?"); the anxious Minister of Health was pulled
away from the murder scene as he darkly commented: "I say,
that's not my club tie, is it?"
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Hitchcock - The Only One Not Joining in Applause
For Sir George's Speech
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Hitchcock - Observing the Female Corpse Washing Ashore
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- the next sequence was a cut to the
film's anti-hero, implicating him as a possible suspect: in the
mid-morning, mid-30s ex-RAF serviceman Richard "Dick" Blaney
(Jon Finch) was tying his tie in front of his mirror in his bedroom
(located above his place of employment); the heavy-drinking, mean,
quick-tempered, low-class Blaney worked as a bartender in the Global
Public House near Covent Gardens (a district in the West End of
London); downstairs, in the saloon bar of the pub, he served himself
a brandy before the pub opened; he was promptly fired by his manager
Felix Forsythe (Bernard Cribbins), the boss' brother-in-law, who
accused him of not paying for the drink and other offenses;
pub bar-maid and 20-ish co-worker Barbara Jane ('Babs') Milligan
(Anna Massey) entered the bar, witnessed the firing of Blaney,
and attempted to defend him; Forsythe also accused Blaney of grabbing
at Bab's "tits"; she reminded Forsythe
of his own misbehavior: "And what about you? Always fingering
me"
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Richard Blaney - Global Public House Bartender
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Felix Forsythe (Bernard Cribbins) - Pub Manager
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Barbara Jane ('Babs') Milligan (Anna Massey) - Pub Barmaid
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- the scruffy and down-on-his-luck Blaney decided
to resign from his job (and thus lost his residence above the pub)
after paying for his drink and other outstanding debts, and rushed
off in a huff; he promised to send for his belongings later; his
girlfriend "Bab's" followed
him outside for a moment and offered her love, assistance, and emotional
support before being ordered to return inside to work
- as Richard Blaney walked to the nearby
Covent Garden Market, he bought a newspaper with headlines about the
latest necktie strangulation murder; he reached out
to his good-natured, suave and affable friend from the pub named
Bob Rusk (Barry Foster), a charming, well-dressed ladies man employed
as a fruit and vegetable produce wholesaler;
the side-burned Rusk suggested that he talk
to his divorced ex-wife Mrs. Brenda Blaney, and also offered Blaney
a loan; he gave him a box of Muscat grapes from his stand
- Rusk borrowed Blaney's newspaper and added
that he had a sure-thing 20-1 bet on "Coming Up" in
the afternoon's horse race: ("She can't lose. A little birdie
told me and my little birdies are reliable"), but Blaney was
broke and declined; Rusk reminded him: "Don't forget, Bob's
your uncle"; Rusk was distracted when a Sergeant appeared and
asked him to inquire if any of his lady-friends had experienced an
encounter or "near-miss with a bloke" like
the necktie killer, as Blaney quietly went on his way; Rusk revealed
his angry misogyny in his answer: "Mind you, half of them haven't
got their heads screwed on right, let alone knowin' when they've
been screwed off"
- Blaney ventured on to another pub (Nell of Old Drury
Pub) to buy a large brandy, where he half-listened to a conversation
about the latest murder between two professionals having lunch: a
Doctor (Noel Johnson) and a Solicitor (Gerald Sim), and the pub's
barmaid Maisie (June Ellis); the Doctor considered the tie-killer
a "criminal, sexual psychopath" - an example of "social misfits"; as Maisie
brought their order, she asked: "He rapes them first, doesn't
he?", the Solicitor answered: "Yes, I believe he does";
the Doctor salaciously joked: "Well, I suppose it's nice to
know that every cloud has a silver lining" - and Maisie walked
away smiling but disapproving; the Doctor finished his thought -
sexual predators were usually likeable adults
who suddenly "may revert to a primitive, subhuman level at
any moment"; he seemed pleased
with the recent crime news: "We haven't
had a good juicy series of sex murders since Christie. And they're
so good for the tourist trade"
An Overheard Salacious Conversation In a Nearby
Pub
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Doctor (Noel Johnson)
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Solicitor Mr. Usher (Gerald Sim)
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Pub's Barmaid Maisie (June Ellis)
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- as Blaney walked back toward Covent Garden, he passed
Rusk's place where he yelled down from an open upstairs window and
introduced his mother from Kent; he bragged that "Coming
Up" had won the horse race at 20-1; after leaving, Blaney unleashed
his frustrated anger about foolishly not betting on
the race by crushing the box of grapes with his hands and stomping
on them after dropping them to the street
- by the late afternoon, the slightly drunk Richard
decided to stop by and visit his ex-wife Brenda at her matrimonial
agency - The Blaney Bureau; as he entered
the upper hallway and entrance to the office, two happy clients:
a bossy and overbearing Mrs. Davison (Madge Ryan) and her mild-mannered,
short-statured meek husband Neville Salt (George Tovey) were being
congratulated and wished good-luck by Brenda's prim and uptight
secretary Miss Monica Barling (Jean Marsh) for their recent pairing
over their shared interest in bee-keeping; however, the couple
revealed that they differed considerably in size and temperament
as they departed
- Blaney sarcastically introduced himself to Miss
Barling as "ex-Squadron Leader Blaney, late of the RAF and
Mrs. Blaney's matrimonial bed" -
referring to his 10-year marriage to Mrs. Brenda Blaney (Barbara
Leigh-Hunt); once he was ushered into Brenda's
inner office to speak to his ex-wife, Brenda nervously realized that
Miss Barling could hear everything her ex-husband was loudly conversing
about; she dismissed Miss Barling since it was already 4:30 pm, to
have a more private discussion; after not seeing each other for
one year, the ex-married couple spoke about how he had often been
verbally abusive to her in their failed marriage: "l
didn't say you were violent to me. But you certainly acted the
fool and threw the furniture about a bit"; Blaney apologized
for being in a bitter and foul mood after having been fired from
his job, and for not taking advantage of a betting tip that would
have made him rich; Brenda invited him to join her for dinner at
7:30 pm at her expensive fancy Women's Club restaurant
- after dinner, he expressed some resentment for
his "filthy luck" and for failing at both his
marriage and his life; Richard was feeling sorry for himself, and
slightly jealous about her successful career and match-making service
for "lonely hearts" after divorcing him two years earlier;
he raised his voice and became brash and accusatory: "I'll
bet you're making a fortune out of that agency. And why not? lf
you can't make love, sell it. The respectable kind, of course.
The married kind!"; his tight grip on his brandy glass shattered
it in his hand and created both a mess and an embarrassing scene
- afterwards, he found overnight shelter at a Salvation
Army hostel shelter, where in the middle of the
night amongst the rows of beds, he caught the man in the next bed
reaching into his coat pocket to steal his cash; he didn't realize
- since he was broke - that his ex-wife Brenda had unexpectedly
and secretly gifted him with £ 20 (two 5£ notes and
one 10£ note) without telling him
- the next day during Monica's lunch break, the chauvinistic
Rusk abruptly entered Brenda's inner office without an appointment;
she greeted him as "Mr. Robinson" - using a fake name, under the
ominous pretext of again seeking marital advice from her; he specifically
mentioned: "You're the one I wanted to see"; since he had already
been seen and rejected, Brenda bluntly turned
him away due to his strange and creepy sexual issues - referring to his sexual
masochism: "I thought I'd already explained to you that we
cannot help you....Look, Mr. Robinson, you want women of a specific type. How shall l put
it? Certain peculiarities appeal to you, and you need women to
submit to them. Here we have, I'm afraid, a very normal clientele.
As I say, we can do nothing for you"; he
complained about the rejection and asked: "If you can fix
up a lot of idiots, why not me? Hmm?"; she regarded him as
very "different" from her other clients: "Somehow I don't think
our clients would appreciate your conception of a loving relationship"
Rusk ("Mr. Robinson") Ominously Barging into Brenda's
Office With the Premise That He Was Seeking Marital Advice
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- and then, the misogynistic and villainous Rusk
turned menacingly personal, as he approached closer to her and
loomed over her in order to corner and confront her with his commonly-used
greeting: "I like you. You're my type of woman... l'm serious. I respect a woman
like you, and I know how to treat you as well"
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Rusk: "I like you. You're my
type of woman...I'm serious. I respect a woman like you, and
I know how to treat you as well"
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- in the film's major murder sequence, a long,
vicious, agonizing and intense necktie rape-strangulation scene
by the serial killer, she sensed he was dangerous, but was stopped
in her attempt to phone the police; he then picked up her half-eaten
apple from her "frugal" lunch and bit into it, and was
able to coerce her into agreeing to have lunch with him; as she
stood up, he pushed her against the wall and forcefully
attempted to kiss her; he grabbed her and forced himself upon her,
when she suggested going to her place instead; he kept telling
her not to worry: ("You've got nothing to worry about here"),
and when she faked fainting, he draped her back onto a chair and
repeated his words: ("Don't worry. Don't worry. You've got
nothing to worry about");
she revived and tried to escape by kicking him away, but he grabbed
her leg and forcefully threw her back into her office chair and
stole more kisses; she attempted to offer him money, but he insisted:
"It's you I want. You're my type. You are. Yes. You are my
type of woman"; he even encouraged her to struggle against him
- she suffered a brutal death
(a montage composed of a flurry of brief shots); he tore off her
dress and bra (exposing one breast of a body-double), and kept
repeating: "Lovely, lovely!" as he raped her; during the lengthy
sexual assault, she began to recite passages from the 91st Psalm
("Thou shall not be afraid for the terror by night...."); when she
tried to cover up her exposed breast, he screamed at her: "You
bitch! Women - they're all the same. They are. I'll show you",
and then revealed that he was the notorious Necktie Killer by taking out his incriminating,
initialed tie-pin (and placing it on his jacket lapel) and removing
his tie to strangle her; she screamed and begged for her life as he
wrapped his tie around her neck: "My
God, the tie! Dear Jesus, help me. Help me!"; she was left
dead with her twisted tongue hanging out
The Rape-Strangulation Murder Scene of Mrs.
Brenda Blaney
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- after the murder, Rusk managed to compose himself,
and took another bite from Brenda's half-eaten apple; he also robbed
her purse of cash, picked his teeth with his tie-pin
from his lapel, pocketed the remainder of the apple, and fled from the office
- only moments later, a spruced-up Richard Blaney
entered his ex-wife's marriage-agency to thank Brenda for her gift
of cash, but found the outer office door closed (it was just moments
after her murder inside); as he was leaving the building, Miss
Barling noticed him as she was returning from lunch at 2 pm in
the alleyway; after a long pause of silence as she went upstairs,
she delivered a shrill scream when she discovered her boss' strangled
body in the inner office (off-screen)
- with his newfound money, Blaney phoned "Babs" Milligan
at the pub during her busy half-day work schedule and invited her
to gather his pub's belongings into a suitcase and then he arranged
to meet her later at 4 pm
- witness Miss Barling immediately notified Scotland
Yard of her suspicions, and was seen in the marriage agency's outer
office speaking to Sgt. Spearman (Michael Bates) and the lead investigator
Chief Inspector Timothy Oxford (Alec McCowen); she described Blaney
in negative terms, already convinced that he was the killer, and
in great detail described his tweed jacket with leather patches
on the elbows; Blaney was immediately considered to be a prime
suspect in the violent murder of his ex-wife
- Blaney and "Babs" (with his belongings
from the pub) took a taxi together to the luxury Coburg Hotel in
Bayswater where he ordered a double bed from the lobby's inquisitive
female receptionist Gladys, and were assigned to Room # 322 (the
cozy "Cupid Room"); after they registered as Mr. and Mrs.
Oscar Wilde, he prepaid the £12 pounds charges, and
arranged with the hotel's porter Bertie (Jimmy
Gardner) to thoroughly clean, spray and press his smelly pants,
raincoat and tweed jacket after a night's stay at the Salvation Army
- by the next morning, the hotel employees who checked
in the couple, and the two lovers awoke to newspaper headlines
that Mrs. Blaney had been murdered by the "Necktie
Killer," and a description of the prime suspect that identified
him as wearing a tweed jacket with leather patches; the porter
exclaimed to the receptionist: "He's the fellow the police
are looking for. Don't you see? He's the necktie murderer, and we've got him upstairs at this very
minute!...sometimes just thinkin' about the lusts of men makes
me want to heave"; he reported them to the police
- two uniformed policemen arrived soon after and were
led to Room # 322, but "Babs" and Blaney had also read
the day's news headlines and had already evaded the authorities
as fugitives, by escaping through the window and back iron stairway;
they were sitting on a bench in nearby Hyde Park, where Blaney
argued persuasively to a mostly-supportive "Babs" that
he was innocent: "Is it likely I would murder a woman I'd been married to for ten years?";
but then she caught him in an admitted lie that the £20 pounds
cash he found in his pocket wasn't a debt, but a gift from Brenda
to him; "Babs" also questioned him about the cleaning of his clothes
- something murderers often did after a sex crime; when he gratefully
hugged her for believing him, she reacted: "I must be soft in the
head lettin' a suspected strangler put his arms around me"; however,
he refused her advice to immediately turn himself in to the police
- by chance after their conversation in the park,
they were recognized by Blaney's old RAF buddy Johnny Porter (Clive
Swift), who called him "Dicko";
he invited them to his closeby high-rise apartment suite to be
introduced to his wife Hetty (Billie Whitelaw); Johnny offered
the two refuge there, but Hetty objected to his blind faith and
trust in his friend's innocence: "You're a bloody fool, Johnny,
getting yourself involved like this" - she pre-judged Blaney
due to his divorce to his wife on grounds of "extreme mental
and physical cruelty," and felt he could have murdered Brenda
in a fit of drunkenness; she questioned why he wouldn't explain
his innocence to the police; however, she gave in to her husband's
insistence to have Blaney stay the night: "Well, if you want
to be arrested for harboring a wanted man, or subverting the course
of justice or whatever, on your own head be it, Johnny"
- Johnny offered the two employment
at his English pub The Bulldog in Paris, France, so that they could
slip out of the country until the real killer was found; before "Babs"
left, Blaney proposed to her that they meet the next
day at the flower stall at Victoria Station at 11:00 am for a day
trip to France with Johnny that wouldn't require a passport
- during Inspector Oxford's preliminary investigation
at the New Scotland Yard, he had discovered circumstantial evidence
- Brenda's face powder on Blaney's £10 pound note used for
the hotel room; Oxford explained to Sgt. Spearman his theory
about the killer being impotent: "The
important thing to remember is they hate women and are mostly impotent....Don't
mistake rape for potency, Sergeant. In the latter stage of the
disease, it's the strangling, not the sex, that brings them on.
Above all, of course, they're sadists"; he
had also researched Blaney's divorce to Brenda and discovered testimony
about verbal abuse
- back in the Globe pub around mid-morning, manager
Forsythe phoned Inspector Oxford to report that his ex-bartender Blaney
was the necktie killer, who had until just recently
been employed at the pub and had a romantic overnight with
his barmaid named "Babs"; she was reportedly still alive
(her clothes were still in the pub); the
Inspector wasn't worried about locating her: "Today, ladies
abandon their honor more readily than their clothes"
- upon her return to the pub for work shortly later, "Babs" feared
that Forsythe would implicate her in Blaney's alleged crime, and
offered her immediate resignation to Forsythe; in the meantime,
Blaney had requested for "Babs" to gather up the remainder
of his and her belongings from the upstairs of the pub before their
trip to France; conveniently, after overhearing "Babs'"
resignation in the pub, Rusk appeared behind her and ominously
asked her: "Got a place to stay?"
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Rusk's Menacing and Ominous Question For Babs: "Got
a place to stay?"
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- Rusk offered his apartment to "Babs" for
the night: ("You can stay at my place
'til you get something sorted out, if you want. I won't be in your
way; I'm going up north for a few days"); when she suspiciously
asked: "No strings?", he replied: "Now, do I look
like that sort of a bloke?" -
and she answered: "All blokes are that sort of a bloke";
Rusk's calculated invitation was a ploy to further implicate Blaney
as the guilty serial killer; he offered to lead her to his place and
volunteered to go back to the Globe and pick up her belongings; she
said she would stay for one night only and then lied about going
to see her sister in Southall the next day; he encouraged her bright
future after quitting her job: "You've got the whole of your life
ahead of you"
- Rusk's second much-more restrained 'necktie' rape/strangulation
murder of "Babs" took place behind the closed doorway
of the killer's 2nd floor (1st floor in the UK) apartment; as Rusk
chillingly unlocked his door and invited "Babs" into his
place, he stated his familiar pick-up line: "I don't know
if you know it, Babs, but you're my type of woman"
- [Note: it was completely predictable that she was
being assaulted behind the door in his apartment,
so it was unnecessary for Hitchcock to graphically
show a second murder-strangulation;
he left it to the viewer's "fill-in-the-blanks" imagination;
the brilliantly-executed, incredible lengthy backwards tracking camera
shot slowly retreated from the upstairs closed door, and then proceeded
down the stairs and out into the brightly-lit street where pedestrians
were unaware of the horrors inside.]
- meanwhile, Chief Inspector Oxford arrived home to his
wife Mrs. Oxford (Vivien Merchant), who proposed her latest 'gourmet'
creation: "Soupe de Poisson"; one
of the film's running jokes to provide comic relief was that she
was continually having her long-suffering husband test and sample
her experimental - and inedible - 'gourmet' dishes, soups, and meals
as part of her coursework at the Continental School of Gourmet Cooking;
he was dismayed looking at the soup with "mystifying ingredients"
and "Quaille aux raisins" (quail with grapes) that he was being served,
as he discussed Blaney as his chief suspect for the recent murder
(and theft) case; Oxford's chipper wife was doubtful that Blaney was guilty of a "crime
of passion" after 10 years of marriage: "Look at us. We've
only been married eight years, and you can hardly keep your eyes
open at night"; as he sawed at the miniature overcooked quail
on his plate, he was hopeful to find his suspect: "We've got to find
him before his appetite is whetted again"
- after "Babs" was raped and murdered, Rusk
had stashed her nude corpse within a sack (off-screen) and in the
middle of the night, he pushed the unwieldy bag on a two-wheeled
dolly-cart to a truck where he dumped it amidst many other burlap
bags of unsold potatoes covered by a tarp; ironically, the potato
lorry-truck's load included a sack of potatoes that Rusk was also
sending to Lincolnshire 150 miles north of London; but then, back
in his apartment, after killer Rusk drank some wine and nibbled on
a piece of bread, he was picking his teeth, and as he reached for
his initialed/monogrammed stickpin (from his jacket's lapel), he
realized that it was missing; in desperation, he thought that he
might be incriminated if he couldn't locate it; he tore everything
apart in his place looking for it, including a dresser drawer where
he had stashed all of her clothes and other possessions
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A Flashback -- Rusk's Realization That "Babs" Had
Torn His Tie-Pin From His Lapel
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- then, with a quick succession
of brief flashbacked shots, Rusk remembered that his victim, barmaid "Babs" Milligan,
had struggled with him during strangulation with his purple tie, and
had torn the pin (with the initial R) from his coat lapel with her
right hand; he raced back down to the truck, released the tailgate,
and climbed inside, and began opening one of the burlap sacks; suddenly,
he realized the truck was being driven away
- in a very claustrophobic and tense sequence
in the back of the moving, jostling and swerving truck, Rusk
frantically searched in the potato sack to find his
missing, incriminating initialed/monogrammed stickpin; he must have
dumped her in head-first, since he located her right leg half-covered
in potatoes that spilled out as he dug deeper; at one point, he pulled
at her leg and it struck him in the face; in frustration, he swore
at the body: "You bitch! Where's that bloody pin?"; as
the truck driver was proceeding along and suddenly braked, one bag
of potatoes in his load (with the open tailgate) dropped off the
back and spilled loose potatoes onto the highway; a passing car called
out to alert him: "Hey, you're spilling your load!"; the driver pulled
over - and as Rusk hid behind a few sacks, the driver reset the open
tailgate and pegged it on each side, before continuing on his trip
- Rusk finally found the pin, but it was tightly
clenched in a death grip by the nude corpse
in a state of rigor mortis in the middle of her fingers; he
first tried to cut it away from her clutching fingers with a pocket-knife,
but the blade of the knife snapped in two; with no other alternative,
he was forced to loudly break most of the corpse's fingers to eventually
reveal the tie-pin and release it
The Potato Truck Sequence: Rusk's Incriminating
Initialed/Monogrammed Stickpin Clenched in Hand of the Nude Corpse
in Back of Potato Truck
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- he was relieved, but then faced the daunting task
of escaping from the back of the fast-moving truck; fortuitously, the
driver stopped briefly outside an all-night
truckers' Wally's New Cafe, where Rusk was able
to release the tailgate before falling off the truck onto the ground;
he hid in the outdoor GENTS restroom and watched as the trucker drove
off, and then entered the cafe, but was filthy, completely disheveled
and his coat was covered in potato-dust; further on down
the road, two policemen on patrol noticed the passing truck with
its tailgate open and the corpse's leg sticking out: ("Hey,
do you see what I see?"); they pursued it with their siren blaring,
and as the truck driver was alerted to them, he forcefully
braked - the nude corpse fell out onto the pavement and was nearly
run over by the police car; to the officers' and trucker's shock as
they uncovered the face of the victim, they asked themselves "Who is it?"
- the next morning as he slept on the sofa in Johnny
Porter's high-rise apartment, Hetty abruptly awakened Blaney and accused
him of killing another victim, after hearing a report on the radio:
"Brenda wasn't enough for you. You had to kill another girl too!...You
strangled her like all the others"; she ordered him to immediately
get up and leave; Johnny considered that they could provide him with
an alibi (since he had been with them from the time "Babs" left until
the present), but his disagreeable wife Hetty objected to aiding
him, arguing persuasively that Johnny would be charged with a crime
("for harboring a wanted man" and "for being an accessory after the
fact"); Johnny's offer of escape to France with him was also out of the question
- desperate to seek shelter and refuge somewhere, Blaney
unsuspectingly sought help from Rusk; he hid in his fruit/vegetable
stand and pleaded his innocence: ("You've got to believe me.
I haven't murdered anyone. This whole business is insane");
Rusk reassured him and agreed to hide him in his apartment ("Now
don't worry, you've done the right thing coming to your Uncle Bob");
the two split up, as Rusk carried Blaney's bag back to his aparment
and then notified the police to arrest him; to further the
appearance of Blaney's guilt, Rusk planted "Babs'"
clothing in Blaney's belongings
- only moments later, Blaney
was arrested for both murders and taken to the police station; when
his bag was searched, he was shocked to see "Babs" clothes stuffed
inside - and he called out: "It's RUSK!"; he had been
framed as one of Hitchcock's 'wrong-man' victims; Blaney came to
the conclusion that the treacherous Rusk was the true murderer, but
couldn't prove it
- days later at trial in the Old Bailey, Blaney was
found guilty by a jury, and sentenced to serve a term of life imprisonment
for not less than 25 years; as he was taken away to prison, he yelled
out that he was innocent and that Rusk was the guilty one: "Rusk
did it! I told you all along! Rusk! I keep telling you!"; he also
threatened to kill Rusk: "One of these days, I'm gonna get out and
kill you, you bastard!"
- doubts began to enter the mind of Inspector
Oxford, who continued to explore the possibility of Blaney's innocence;
using a "mug shot" of Rusk, he questioned Brenda Blaney's secretary
Miss Barling, who remembered Rusk as a persistent client (who falsely
identified himself as Mr. Robinson) - he wanted
the agency to find women for him who enjoyed "certain peculiarities"
("disgusting gratifications" from sexual masochism)
- feeling wronged and wishing to avenge Rusk's murders
of the two women in his life, the imprisoned Blaney vowed to escape;
he was able to succeed in injuring himself by falling down a steep
set of iron prison stairs, and was rushed by ambulance to a hospital
- meanwhile, Inspector Oxford was discussing the case
with his wife during her preparation of another formal gourmet meal;
her intuition all along was that "sexual pervert" Rusk
was the real guilty one; as she served her husband "pied de
porc la mode de Caens" (pig's feet), Oxford conjectured that
if Rusk was the murderer, he would have traveled in the potato truck
- to cut her out of the tied sack while looking for something; he
explained the breaking of the corpse's fingers in the truck, while
his wife was noisily crunching on an Italian breadstick: ("Obviously
he was looking for something....The corpse was deep in rigor mortis.
He had to break the fingers of the right hand to retrieve what they
held... It had to be something that would incriminate him. Something
that he missed when he put the body on the truck. A monogrammed
handkerchief, perhaps"); on a hunch, Oxford had already dispatched
Sgt. Spearman to the truckers' cafe in Lincolnshire (where the
potato truck driver had testified he had briefly stopped at the "pull-in"
- his only stop!)
![](sshots/frenzy85.jpg)
Gourmet Pigs-Feet Meal
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![](sshots/frenzy86.jpg)
Mrs. Oxford Noisily Breaking a Breadstick
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![](sshots/frenzy87.jpg)
Mrs. Oxford Crunching on a Breadstick with Her Husband
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- as they were discussing the case, Sgt. Spearman arrived
after his visit to the truckers' cafe, where the waitress
recognized Rusk from the photograph, and presented the officer with
the clothes brush Rusk had used to clean potato dust from his clothing;
Oxford realized: "It rather looks like we put the wrong man
away this time"; Mrs. Oxford corrected him: "What do you mean
'we'? You put him away"
- Blaney was being treated in a separate guarded prison
ward of the hospital, where he orchestrated
an escape with his fellow patient-inmates by putting sleeping pills
in the uniformed guard's tea; during the commotion to treat the drugged
guard, Blaney slipped out, hot-wired a parked car on the street,
and hurriedly proceeded to Rusk's apartment bedroom, in order to
kill him; at the Oxford's residence, the Chief Inspector was alerted to
Blaney's escape, and anticipated where he might go
- in the final sequence inside Rusk's building, Blaney
tiptoed up the stairs, entered the unlocked apartment, and discovered
a figure under the bed coverings; conjecturing that it was Rusk,
he beat the body with a crowbar, causing a female figure's arm with
bangles to dangle off the side of the bed; when he uncovered the
figure, he realized that the female (Susan Travers) was already
dead - due to the necktie around her throat; he understood that the
anonymous nude corpse belonged to the necktie killer's
next strangulation victim (murdered earlier off-screen, with contorted
features: rolled-back eyes and a curved tongue)
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Mr. Rusk's Latest Necktie Murder-Strangulation Victim (Susan Travers)
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- Oxford found Blaney at the scene - and looked like
he was fully implicated in killing the woman, but then as Blaney
protesed that he was innocent ("No, no, it's not..."),
they both heard loud thumping and dragging noises of someone else
lugging a large trunk up the stairs; the two remained quiet as the
real necktie murderer Bob Rusk entered and was found with damning
evidence in his own bed; Oxford cleverly noted to Rusk in a clincher
line of dialogue: "Mr. Rusk, you're not wearing your tie"; the guilty Rusk dropped the
trunk to the floor, and the title credits began to scroll
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Capture of the Real Necktie Killer - Rusk - by Inspector
Oxford: ("Mr. Rusk, you're not wearing your tie")
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![](sshots/frenzy.jpg)
Opening Title Credits: Aerial Views of City of London
![](sshots/frenzy2.jpg)
Minister of Health Sir George (John Boxer)
at Dockside
![](shots/frenzy2.jpg)
![](sshots/frenzy3.jpg)
![](shots/frenzy4.jpg)
The Most Recent Necktie Strangulation Murder Victim (Roberta Gibbs)
![](sshots/frenzy4.jpg)
Mirror-Reflection View of Richard "Dick" Blaney (Jon Finch)
- In His Upstairs Pub Bedroom
![](sshots/frenzy8.jpg)
Blaney with Barmaid Girlfriend "Babs" After Losing His Job
![](sshots/frenzy9.jpg)
Bob Rusk (Barry Foster) - Fruit Wholesaler
![](sshots/frenzy10.jpg)
Rusk's Horse-Race Betting Tip on "Coming Up"
![](sshots/frenzy14.jpg)
Richard Blaney's Ex-Wife's Business: The Blaney Bureau
![](sshots/frenzy16.jpg)
Miss Monica Barling (Jean Marsh) - the Blaney Bureau Secretary
![](sshots/frenzy15.jpg)
Two 'Happily-Matched' Clients: Neville Salt and Mrs. Davison
![](sshots/frenzy17.jpg)
![](sshots/frenzy18.jpg)
Mrs. Brenda Blaney (Barbara-Leigh Hunt) in Her Office With Ex-Husband
Richard
![](sshots/frenzy19.jpg)
Richard and Brenda Blaney At Dinner Together
![](sshots/frenzy20.jpg)
Blaney's Discovery of £ 20 in His Coat Pocket While Overnight
at the Salvation Army
![](sshots/frenzy42.jpg)
![](sshots/frenzy41.jpg)
After Brenda's Murder, Miss Barling's View of Richard Exiting Into the
Alley From the Blaney Bureau's Office
![](sshots/frenzy43.jpg)
Chief Inspector Timothy Oxford (Alec McCowen)
![](sshots/frenzy44.jpg)
Sgt. Spearman (Michael Bates)
![](sshots/frenzy45.jpg)
"Babs" and Richard Blaney Registering as Guests at The Coburg Hotel
![](sshots/frenzy46.jpg)
The Detailed Newspaper Headlines Regarding A Description of the Prime
Suspect For the Latest Necktie Murder
![](sshots/frenzy47.jpg)
The Coburg Hotel's Suspicious Porter and Receptionist
![](sshots/frenzy48.jpg)
Blaney and "Babs" in a Park After Fleeing From the Coburg Hotel
![](sshots/frenzy51.jpg)
![](sshots/frenzy49.jpg)
![](sshots/frenzy50.jpg)
Blaney's Old RAF Buddy Johnny Porter (Clive Swift) and His Wife Hetty
(Billie Whitelaw)
![](sshots/frenzy54.jpg)
Rusk Leading "Babs" Up the Stairs to His Apartment
![](sshots/frenzy55.jpg)
Unlocking His Apartment Door for "Babs" - "You're my type of woman"
![](sshots/frenzy56.jpg)
![](sshots/frenzy57.jpg)
![](sshots/frenzy58.jpg)
![](sshots/frenzy59.jpg)
Backwards Tracking Shot Out to the Street During Babs' Murder
![](sshots/frenzy60.jpg)
Inspector Oxford with His Gourmet Cook Wife Mrs. Oxford (Vivien Merchant)
![](sshots/frenzy61.jpg)
![](sshots/frenzy62.jpg)
An Inedible Gourmet Soup and Main Meal Prepared by Mrs. Oxford for Her
Husband
![](sshots/frenzy69.jpg)
Rusk In the Back of a Moving Potato Truck Opening a Burlap Sack
![](sshots/frenzy78.jpg)
After Retrieving His Tie-Pin, Rusk Falling Out of the Back of the Truck
![](sshots/frenzy76.jpg)
Hiding in a Trucker Cafe's Gents Room
![](sshots/frenzy77.jpg)
Police Reacting to Truck: "Hey, do you see what I see?"
![](sshots/frenzy79.jpg)
![](sshots/frenzy80.jpg)
The Most Recent Necktie Victim - "Babs"
![](sshots/frenzy81.jpg)
Blaney Forcibly Asked to Leave Johnny's and Hetty's Apartment After Discovery
of "Babs" Body
![](sshots/frenzy82.jpg)
Blaney Arrested in Rusk's Apartment by Police
![](sshots/frenzy83.jpg)
Blaney: "It's RUSK!"
![](sshots/frenzy84.jpg)
Rusk's "Mug Shot" - Used by Inspector Oxford to Gather Evidence About
Him
![](sshots/frenzy88.jpg)
Escaped Prisoner Blaney Entering into Rusk's Apartment Building
![](sshots/frenzy94.jpg)
![](sshots/frenzy95.jpg)
Blaney Implicated in the Figure's Murder When Inspector Oxford Entered
Rusk's Apartment
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