Its a hard call.
Hitchcock certainly made "Frenzy" to keep up with the times -- the "R" and "X"'(now NC-17) ratings gave everybody freedom to include nudity, cussing, simulated sex and ultra-violence -- and Hitchocck made Frenzy accordingly.
But Hitchcock bowed to something else "in the air" -- a rejection by Hollywood of the kind of "fantastical fakery" that he lived for: matte paintings, process work, soundstage sets.
Movies in the 70's were gritty and real --and Frenzy , by Hitchcock standards, was pretty gritty and real, with a lot of outdoor location work in Covent Garden and other parts of London. (Though Hitch snuck in a great matte painting of the London skylaine at night as the psycho killer pushed a wheelbarrow with a victim in a sack on it.)
But there are clues that Hitchcock might NOT have gone "all in" on gore and sex and nudity had he kept living and working in the "R rated age."
One: His final movie, Family Plot, backed off from the R rating of Frenzy to a PG. There was some cussing, but no nudity, no sex(other than being talked about) and no ultra-violence(only one death in the movie -- accidental.) Family Plot had a score by John Williams and sounded a bit like a Spielberg movie...hardly R-rated stuff.
Two: Hitchcock died in 1980 but he lived to see the movies BACK AWAY from the hard R stuff of the 70's(Straw Dogs, Deliverance, A Clockwork Orange) and head into the more "kid friendly" work of Spielberg and Lucas. Special effects came back BIG. Matte paintings came back BIG. Process fakery came back BIG. Had Hitchcock lived and miracularouly had his old energy back in the 80s', I daresay he would have thrown out Frenzy/Brian DePalma style gore in favor of North by Northwest/Rear Window "fun."
We will never know. But what was for sure is that Frenzy would not have been at home in the era of Star Wars, Indy Jones, Harry Potter, and Marvel.
reply
share