Wordiezett So much average

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

SanSanSan The only thing that this movie has in common with Hitchcock's past work is his misogyny--never before displayed so relentlessly, so sleazily, and with such absence of redeeming features. Come the screen liberties of the seventies, dirty old men of the cinema could really let it rip, and finally even Hitch got to do a giant close-up of a tit. Bless! The Master of Suspense finally got his suspenders down--and oh, my eyes, my eyes!The screenplay is tragicomically bad, a cringe-fest from start to finish, both technically (if you need to teach Clunky Exposition 101, look no further) and, supremely, in content. In the first five minutes two men tell us the murder of women has a "silver lining"--they are getting raped first. Oh joy. The characterization of women, with somewhat of an exception of Babs (who'll nevertheless get raped, murdered, and humiliated post mortem), is invariably awful--they are either monsters or treated as such, even when there's no clue why that should be so (Blaney's ex-wife being a case in point. Her sins, apparently, are that she divorced Blaney AND became a successful businesswoman.) The secretary, played by Jean Marsh, is also grossly insulted by Blaney ("she should be paired up with a 700 pound Japanese wrestler to iron out her creases" WTF?), out of the blue, she did nothing to him. Even the cameo couple we see in the beginning in Blaney's wife's matrimonial office gives us the woman as the monstrous shrew and the man as her hapless prey. The inspector's pretentious wannabe gourmet-cook wife isn't a monster but a standing joke, so forced and badly played it's torture to watch their scenes.I feel bad for the many fine actors in this who were probably chuffed to work with Hitchcock, just to find themselves neck deep in a garbage truck. Definitely a top contender if not the winner in a Worst Movie By A Great Director competition.

Tweekums As this Hitchcock thriller opens a politician is standing by the Thames giving a speech about cleaning up the river… moments later a member of the crowd spots the body of a woman in the river; naked apart from the tie round her neck. She is clearly a victim of the 'Necktie Killer' who has been murdering women in the capital. We then cut to Richard Blaney a former RAF Squadron Leader who is down on his luck; fired from his job in a pub he goes to see his friend Robert Rusk, a Covent Garden vegetable seller before seeing his ex-wife, who runs a match-making agency, they have a meal together then he goes off to sleep in a hostel not realising that she has slipped twenty pounds in to his pocket. The next day Rusk visits Mrs Blaney and viciously murders her. Shortly after Blaney goes to see his wife again but leaves when nobody answers the door. As he leaves her assistant returns and discovers the body. Blaney is soon the number one suspect; all the evidence points to him and the only people who seems to believe him are Babs Milligan the barmaid at the pub he worked at and Rusk of course but he obviously can't be trusted and soon directs the police to Blaney.The most famous murder in a Hitchcock film is obviously the 'Psycho' shower scene; this manages to be more disturbing though. The murder of Blaney's ex-wife lacks any music and there are no multiple-cuts; instead it feels very real and is difficult to watch. The fact that we've seen this murder means there is no suspicion about who the killer is but that doesn't reduce the tension; because we know Blaney is innocent there is the worry that he will get arrested and the real killer go free. With such a dark subject matter some light relief is required and this is provided by scenes where we see the police officer investigating the case having to endure his wife's 'fancy' cooking. The film does show its age at times, and not just because of the way the London skyline has changed since it was made… to say some attitudes expressed by characters aren't PC is an understatement and are likely to shock modern viewers; one just has to accept that these are just character views and they were different times. The cast does a solid job; Jon Finch plays Blaney as a not entirely sympathetic manner so we can understand why people are so likely to believe he is the killer; Barry Foster is delightfully disturbing as Rusk; a sharp-suited man who it is equally easy to believe people wouldn't suspect and Anna Massey is solid as Babs. The content means that this film won't be for everybody but if you are a Hitchcock fan or enjoy gritty thrillers I'd certainly recommend this.

frankwiener While great pains were endured during the filming of Psycho in 1960 to appease the censors by covering parts of Janet Leigh's body with "flesh colored patches of moleskin", director Hitchcock was finally free in 1972 to expose the naked bodies of his female victims in the way that he always wanted to expose them. What a difference twelve years can make in the movie business.The film opens with the speech of a politician promising to "clean up the Thames for once and for all". The only person in the crowd who is not enthusiastically applauding is the director himself in one of his trademark cameo appearances. The director, of course, knows best. Suddenly, in the middle of the speech, a body (yes, naked!) washes up on the nearby river bank, and the politician is forced to interrupt his speech. The river is far more polluted than he ever imagined.Having seen this film, I've concluded that there are a whole bunch of very talented British actors out there with whom I need to familiarize myself more. I think that this cast did an amazing job with the material, and why other reviewers didn't appreciate the sideshow provided by Chief Inspector Oxford (Alec McCowen) and his very eccentric but very perceptive wife (Vivien Merchant) is beyond me. Their amusing relationship not only demonstrated the human side of Chief Inspectors everywhere but also allowed for much needed relief from the shock and terror of the awful crimes that were occurring at the same time.The theme of an innocent man being mistaken for a criminal (or a spy) is one that appears throughout Mr. Hitchcock's long and impressive career, and he handles it as skillfully as ever in this instance. Jon Finch realistically portrays the unlucky schlemiel who is falsely accused. Throughout the movie, Barry Foster as Rusk very much reminded me of Michael Caine before I learned that Caine had been offered the part but refused it because he found the character to be so reprehensible. The fact that Rusk is dressed so formally at work in a vegetable market, including a suit and a TIE, probably should have been a conspicuous clue from the start.Although this film is very disturbing and graphic at times, Hitchcock's masterful direction, with the help of an excellent cast, kept me engrossed in the action from start to finish as it almost always does.

Joropukki After seeing this impressive masterpiece for the third time I thought Sir Alfred Hitchcock's active career took place two or three decades too early with reference to his true nature. Here he was free from the constraints of U.S. puritanism of the Forties and Fifties. He was a modern here. He showed how to direct a shockingly macabre story with brilliant flair and impact, but also with a fine balance between slashing and insinuation. Frenzy was Ealing Studio stuff transported into future, as an emancipated variant of Baronets and Good Hearts – so British. Dear John (Carpenter), did you ever see this one? For some strange reason I kept on thinking of Freud all the while I was watching this. 8/10