Frenzy
The serial killer Bob Rusk (wonderfully played by Barry Foster) strangling Brenda Blaney (Barbara Leigh-Hunt).
Frenzy was made in 1971 and released in 1972.
 |
Cast
Jon Finch... Richard Ian Blaney
Alec McCowen... Chief Inspector Oxford
Barry Foster... Robert 'Bob' Rusk
Billie Whitelaw... Hetty Porter
Anna Massey... Babs Milligan
Barbara Leigh-Hunt... Brenda Margaret Blaney
Bernard Cribbins... Felix Forsythe
Vivien Merchant... Mrs. Oxford
Michael Bates... Sergeant Spearman
Jean Marsh... Monica Barling
Clive Swift... Johnny Porter
Madge Ryan... Mrs. Davison
Elsie Randolph... Gladys
Gerald Sim... Mr. Usher - Solicitor in Pub
John Boxer... Sir George
George Tovey... Neville Salt
Jimmy Gardner... Hotel Porter
Noel Johnson... Doctor in Pub
Psalm 91
5 Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; 6 Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
11 For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
Bob Rusk
You know in my trade we have a saying. We put it on the fruit: don't squeeze the goods till they're yours. Now, that's me. I would never do that. You know that, don't you.
Frenzy (1972) titles
The Wrong Man Motif
In many Hitchcock movies an innocent man is escaping from the police (and often also the bad guys).
- The Lodger, 1926/1927
- The 39 Steps, 1935
- Young and Innocent, 1937/1938
- Saboteur, 1942
- Spellbound, 1944/1945
- Strangers on a Train, 1950/1951
- I Confess, 1952/1953
- To Catch a Thief, 1954/1955
- The Wrong Man, 1956
- North by Northwest 1958/1959
- Frenzy, 1971/1972
Strangulation motif
| The Lodger, 1926/1927 | |
| Number Seventeen, 1931/1932 | The bum is "strangled" in the bathroom by Sheldrake |
| Secret Agent, 1935/1936 | The organ player in Langenthal is strangled. |
| Sabotage, 1936 | The film the boy soon to be bombed is carrying is "Bartholomew the Strangler" |
| Young and Innocent, 1937/1938 | Christine (Pamela Carme) is strangled with a rain coat belt. |
| The Lady Vanishes, 1937/1938 | |
| Jamaica Inn, 1938/1939 | The thiefs try to hang Jem suspecting him of stealing from the goods |
| Shadow of a Doubt, 1942/1943 | |
| Notorious 1945-46/1946 | |
| Rope 1948 | David is killed with a rope. |
| Stage Fright, 1949/1950 | The murderer (Jonathan) almost succeeds in strangling Eve Gill in the theatre. |
| Strangers on a Train, 1950/1951 | Marion is strangled by Bruno. |
| Dial M for Murder, 1953/1954 | Margo is almost strangled during the murder attempt. |
| Rear Window 1953/1954 | Thorwald tries to strangle Jeff when they meet. |
| The Man Who Knew Too Much 1956 | |
| Torn Curtain, 1965-66/1966 | |
| Frenzy, 1971/1972 | The rapist serial killer uses a necktie. |
Serial Killers in Hitchcock Movies
| The Lodger | The Avenger is serial killer who targets young blonde women. |
| Shadow of a Doubt | Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) is a serial killer known as the "Merry Widow Murderer". He seduces, murders and robs wealthy widows. |
| Psycho | When his mother found a lover, Norman Bates murdered both of them. He then stole his mother's corpse and preserved the body. He takes her identity and acts, talks, and dresses as she would. In the final scene, the sheriff mentions the unsolved disappearances of two other young girls. |
| Frenzy | Bob Rusk (Barry Foster) is a fruit merchant who rapes and strangles women. |
Flashbacks
| The Lodger, 1926/1927 | The lodger tells Daisy that he promised his mother that he wouldn't rest before the serial killer who calls himself the Avenger is caught The detective sees in double-exposed images the elements apparently linking the lodger to the murders. |
| Easy Virtue, 1927 | During the trial against Mrs. Filton for misconduct in marriage there are several flashbacks. |
| Blackmail, 1929 | Alice sees the hand of the murdered artist in a flashback when she is waiting to cross the street on her way home. |
| Bon Voyage, 1944 | |
| Aventure Malgache, 1944 | |
| Spellbound, 1944/1945 | John Ballantyne (Gregory Peck) remembers the accident when his brother is impaled on the fence. |
| Stage Fright, 1949/1950 | The lying flashback, one of the most discussed flashbacks in cinema history. Can a flashback lie? (At about the same time Akira Kurosawa made Rashomon, a film depicting the rape of a woman and the murder of her samurai husband through the differing flashback accounts of four witnesses. Three of them must be wrong.) Hitchcock to Truffaut on the flashback in Stage Fright: "I did one thing in that picture that I never should have done; I put in a flashback that was a lie. [...] Strangely enough, in movies, people never object if a man is shown telling a lie. And it's also acceptable, when a character tells a story about the past, for the flashback to show it as if it were taking place in the present. So why is it that we can't tell a lie through a flashback?" |
| I Confess, 1952/1953 | When the girls tell the detectives that they saw a priest leaving the murder victim's house, we see this in a flashback. When Ruth Grandfort (Anne Baxter) is telling about her being the young Father Logan's (Montgomery Clift) girlfriend and how she later got married and met the lawyer who blackmailed her, we see all this in a lengthy and narratively weak flashback. |
| Frenzy, 1971/1972 |  When the serial killer Bob Rusk (Barry Foster) remembers where the tiepin is, he sees fragments of Babs (Anna Massey) being murdered. |
The Scream in Hitchcock Films
The Lodger
One of The Avenger's victims. |
The Ring
Screaming from fear and joy at the fairground. |
The Birds
The silent scream in The Birds is maybe the most expressive of them all. Jessica Tandy in shock. |
Frenzy
Prayer doesn't help Barbara Leigh-Hunt's character Mrs. Blaney in Frenzy when she meets the serial killer |
