The Story of 'Frenzy' (2001 Video) User Reviews

My type of woman

[TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews · 7/10 · 21 October 2010]

This is the featurette on the DVD of Frenzy. It consists of interviews with cast and crew, clips of the film(and the trailer) and behind the scenes footage(we get to see Hitchcock direct! A real treat, to be sure... and this contains his sardonic and, in this case, morbid, wit). They talk about the emotional difficulty of the rape scene, working with Alfred, the decision to use the Goodbye Shot(one of the most outstanding and subtly effective techniques used in the film, if you ask me), how this was very experimenting(such as the bit where all the sound cuts off), and of course how direct(showing female nudity, including full frontal... note that this documentary shows this, and spoils the ending of the movie) and, at times, disgusting it is. This is an informative enough 45 minutes, if it simply isn't as interesting as several of its brethren, the others by Laurent Bouzerau. I'm not sure why that is, if it's the subject, the people(well, Bogdanovich is always worth listening to) or what. There is disturbing and violent content in this. I recommend it to fans and of the picture itself. 7/10

Three days in a truck full of potatoes . . .

[pixrox1 · 8/10 · 22 July 2013]

. . . is what Barry Foster (playing fruit seller Bob Rusk) faced during the filming of "Bob's" arduous labors to retrieve a piece of jewelry with great sentimental value from the floozy who nicked it off him. THE STORY OF FRENZY notes that this potato truck sequence is one of the funniest scenes ever put on screen by director Alfred Hitchcock, though sort of in a black humorous tone. Fortunately for stick pin thief actress Anna Massey, she was replaced by some anonymous body double for this three days in shooting hell by Sir Alfred, a man known to always be considerate of his main-line actresses. FRENZY itself may be Hitchcock's most revealing flick, since it was the final serious drama he put out for theaters, and Barry, the main character, has an occupation very similar to the green grocer profession which was Hitch's dad's own line of work. Reading between the lines, and considering the chronology that puts Hitchcock senior in the right place at the right time, it is much more likely that Pater Hitchcock was "Jack the Ripper" in real life, as opposed to the Prince of Wales candidacy insisted upon by the anti-Royalists!