Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy: The Last Masterpiece

(Paperback)

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After an unparalleled string of artistic and commercial triumphs in the 1950s and 1960s, Alfred Hitchcock hit a career lull with the disappointing Torn Curtain and the disastrous Topaz. In 1971, the depressed director traveled to London, the city he had left in 1939 to make his reputation in Hollywood. The film he came to shoot there would mark a return to the style for which he had become known and would restore him to international acclaim.

Like The 39 Steps, Saboteur, and North by Northwest before, Frenzy repeated the classic Hitchcock trope of a man on the run from the police while chasing down the real criminal. But unlike those previous works, Frenzy also featured some elements that were new to the master of suspenses films, including explicit nudity, depraved behavior, and a brutal act that would challenge Psychos shower scene for the most disturbing depiction of violence in a Hitchcock film.

In Alfred Hitchcocks Frenzy: The Last Masterpiece, Raymond Foery recounts the historywriting, preproduction, casting, shooting, postproduction, and promotionof this great work. While there are other books on the production of an individual Hitchcock film, none go into as much detail, and none combine a history of the production process with an ongoing account of how this particular film relates to Hitchcocks other works. Foery also discusses the reactions to Frenzy by critics and scholars while examining Hitchcocksand the filmsplace in film history forty years later. Featuring original material relating to the making of Frenzy and previously unpublished information from the Hitchcock archives, this book will be of interest to film scholars and millions of Alfred Hitchcock fans.

Reviews

After a string of flops and in need of a hit, Alfred Hitchcock returned to his native London in 1971 to make Frenzy, his darkest film since Psycho....After Torn Curtain and Topaz performed so poorly, Hitchcock was in a professional slump and desperate for material that excited him. Arthur La Berns 1966 novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square, detailing the exploits of a serial killer in London who raped and murdered young woman la a modern-day Jack the Ripper, was just such a book. Goodbye soon became Frenzy, with a screenplay by playwright Anthony Shaffer. Like many of the best Hitchcock films, Frenzy features a man on the run trying to clear his name, as well as a murder, though the strangulation of Babs Milligan with a necktie is more brutal than most Hitchcock deaths. Shooting in London represented the first time the director had returned for more than a holiday since 1939, and he took full advantage, staging several outdoor scenes. While Foerys shot-by-shot analysis of the Frenzy shooting schedule does grow tedious, it offers more new insights than the chapters devoted to rehashing Hitchcocks mastery of montage and mise-en-scene. * Publishers Weekly *
Raymond Foerys Alfred Hitchcocks Frenzy is an almost obsessively detailed history of the movie: its genesis, its casting, its filming, and its cultural impact...If youre a film buff youll probably be delighted with Foerys microscopic look at the films 13-week shooting schedule. This isnt your typical making-of book, but it is a rigorous and enlightening look at the filming of Hitchcocks neglected masterpiece. * The Chronicle Herald *
Frenzy (1972) was Hitchcocks second-to-last film, and his last great one. This ruthlessly detailed book examines the production of the film with a microscopic eye, chronicling the 13-week shoot virtually hour by hour, noting how many times the director filmed a scene, how many takes he printed, how many reshoots he did, how many setups he completed in a day, and what time the crew started work and finished for the day (and, sometimes, what time they broke for lunch). Its the kind of hyperdetailed analysis that will appeal to Hitchcock completists and rabid film buffs....Frenzy is one of Hitchs least-written-about films, and students of the directors oeuvreand film students in generalshould benefit from this comprehensive...look at the films genesis, production, and reception. * Booklist *
As a whole, The Last Masterpiece provides an engaging snapshot of Hitchcocks creative brilliance. The book also offers an absorbing insight into an intriguing not to mention highly disturbing film. * Screening The Past *

A new book throws fresh light on the directors darkest work

In Alfred Hitchcocks Frenzy: The Last Masterpiece, Raymond Foery exhaustively charts the production of the film that helped restore his fortunes and flagging spirits

Hitchcock, as Foery reminds us, had always been far less interested in the basic textual content of a story than in how that story was to be realised cinematically.

* Irish Times *
Professor Foery provides a systematic look at the development, filming, and reception of Hitchcocks next-to-last film. The book is well-researched, filled with copious notes and references, as well as correspondence and selections from the screenplay and shooting scripts * The Mystery Review *

Author Bio

Raymond Foery is professor of communications at Quinnipiac University and founder of their media production program. He also founded and edited a New York arts journal, The Downtown Review.