Frenzy

Suspenseful, disturbing, and darkly humorous, Frenzy, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is the story of a rapist-murderer, whose distinctive murder weapon has led him to be labeled "The Necktie Murderer." The film, typical of many of Hitchcock's works, focuses on a man wrongly accused, who must now find the true killer to prove his innocence. In Frenzy, Richard Blaney (Jon Finch) is accused of killing both his girlfriend and his ex-wife, along with other women in and around London. The true murderer, revealed early on in the film, is his friend, Robert Rusk (Barry Foster). The film is more brutal and overtly sexual than previous Hitchcock films, particularly Hitchcock's depiction of the murder of Brenda Blaney (Barbara Leigh-Hunt) which shows, with an almost perverse fascination, her face in tight close-up, frozen with fright and pain, as she is raped and strangled while she prays. The film is also noted for its dark humor, which includes a woman's body, hidden in a sack of potatoes, which causes Barry, the murderer, a great deal of difficulty when he realizes that the woman has his distinctive cuff link still clutched in her hand. The retrieval of the cuff link leads to a darkly comic chase behind a potato truck where the body has been hidden. Frenzy also features a tightly written, complex screenplay, adapted by Anthony Shaffer from Arthur La Bern's novel, Goodbye Picadilly, Farewell Leicester Square.