Frenzy (1972)
Director Alfred Hitchcock does it again with this gripping tale
about an innocent man tagged as a serial rapist/killer because of
circumstantial evidence.
Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), a former RAF pilot now down on his
luck, quits his job as a pub bartender when the boss (Bernard
Cribbins) accuses him of stealing drinks. Momentarily upset, he
talks with his friend, Bob Rusk (Barry Foster), a fruit and
vegetable dealer at Covent Garden in London.
Blaney then drops in on his ex-wife Brenda (Barbara
Leigh-Hunt), the owner of a matrimonial agency. His pent-up
frustration cause him to lash out at her verbally. while her
secretary (Jean Marsh) overhears from the outer office.
The next day, Bob Rusk comes to Brenda's office and is told
that her agency can not satisfy his peculiar (read 'sadistic')
tastes. In one of the creepiest and most explicit scenes Hitchcock
ever directed, Rusk brutally rapes Brenda, then strangles her with his
tie.
Scotland Yard puts out an arrest warrant for Blaney based on
Brenda's secretary's identification.
Blaney learns of his new problem from Babs Milligan (Anna
Massey), a co-worker at the pub he has just quit. He escapes from
the police with Babs and gets shelter with an old-time war buddy,
Johnny Porter (Oliver Swift).
Babs stays the night with Rusk, who rapes and kills her. He
dumps her body in a potato sack in a market lorry but, when he
realises that his monogrammed tie-pin is missing, torn off in the
struggle before the rape, he rushes back to the truck. He finds
the right sack and then coldly breaks Babs' fingers to release the
pin clenched in her fist.
Blaney goes to Bob for help but Bob frames him and, after a
quick trial and conviction, Blaney cries out that he will get
revenge on Rusk.
Inspector Oxford (Alec McCowen) hears this and checks into the
possibility of Blaney's innocence. The information begins to build
against Rusk but Blaney, impatient for revenge, escapes from
prison.
He sneaks to Rusk's room and bludgeons what he thinks is Rusk's
sleeping body but actually is the latest (dead) rape victim.
Inspector Oxford arrives and Rusk duly arrives with a trunk
intended as the coffin for the body in the bed. Oxford, surprising
Rusk, remarks, "Why Mr. Rusk - You're not wearing your
tie." Blaney is exonerated.
Anthony Shaffer's taut screenplay is based on Arthur La Bern's
novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square.
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