A serial rapist/strangler has been terrorizing the women of London and the manhunt focuses on a cagey, alcoholic, unemployed ex-airman (Jon Finch), a perfect candidate for the crime which he so inconveniently happens to be perfectly innocent of committing. For his penultimate film, Alfred Hitchcock returned to his mother country and his favorite plot line, that of the wrong man innocently accused, for a film that leaves little to the imagination but is no less masterful than any of his finest, widely known outings. Manipulating the audience with great facility, Frenzy is a compulsively watchable, darkly funny film featuring several memorable scenes (including an early one where you gradually realize along with a principle character that she will not be able to talk her way out of a jam and a later one where her corpse presents an original and maddening problem for the killer), an enjoyably gruff performance from Finch, and a virtuoso at the top of his game at the end of an unprecedented run.
