Trivia for
Frenzy (1972) More at IMDbPro »

• Director Cameo: [Alfred Hitchcock] in the first moments of the film in the crowd - he is the only one not applauding the speaker. He can also be seen in a following scene, after the body in the river has been found, standing next to a couple discussing Jack the Ripper.
  
  
• Elsie Randolph (who plays a worker at the hotel) last appeared in a Hitchcock film 40 years earlier as the old maid in Rich and Strange (1931).
  
  
• This was the first film Hitchcock shot in Britain since The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956).
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Alfred Hitchcock] [bathroom] the killer hides in the bathroom after the potato truck sequence.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Alfred Hitchcock] The long tracking shot down the stairway while the murder is occurring.
  
  
• Midway through the film, there is a famous continuous shot in which the camera backs away from the door of Foster's upper-floor apartment and descends, seemingly without a cut, to the ground level, out the building's front door, and then to the opposite side of the street. The interiors were shot with an overhead track in a studio, and there is an imperceptible cut as a man passes by the front door, carrying a sack of potatoes. This is subtly blended into a new shot of the camera pulling away from the building exterior that was actually used on location.
  
  
• Alfred Hitchcock originally planned to do his cameo as the body floating in the river. A dummy was even constructed to do the shot. The plans were changed and a female body, a victim of the Necktie Murderer, was used instead. Hitchcock instead became one of the members of the crowd who are listening to the speaker on the river bank. The dummy of Hitchcock was used in the typically humorous trailer hosted by Hitchock himself.
  
  
• This was the first Alfred Hitchcock film to show nude scenes. Barbara Leigh-Hunt (rape of Mrs. Blaney) and Anna Massey (after she's spent the night in the hotel with Blaney) each had nude models as stand-ins.
  
  
• Several of the cast were unhappy with the lack of authenticity and Britishness of some of the dialogue. Jon Finch used to send notes to Alfred Hitchcock's secretary with suggested improvements. Hitchcock was not always pleased at this: "Jon, I said you could make alterations. I didn't say you could rewrite the whole script." However many of Finch's script amendments were indeed used in the final film.
  
  
• The role of Robert Rusk was originally offered to Michael Caine. After Caine declined the role he later mentioned in his memoirs how Hitchcock completely ignored him when they met in a hotel a few years later.
  
  
• A close-up of Barbara Leigh-Hunt's salivating tongue after she is strangled was cut by Hitchcock at the urging of his studio, Universal.
  
  
• Barry Foster was cast as Robert Rusk in this film after Hitchcock saw him in Twisted Nerve (1968), a British thriller thought by critics to be Hitchcockian.
  
  
• This is the only Hitchcock film ever to carry an '18' certificate in the UK, or receive an 'X' rating after the 'X' age restriction was moved from 16 to 18 in 1971.
  
  
• Side Five of the DiscoVision LaserDisc release has every frame encoded with Auto Picture Stop, rendering it unplayable on all but a few models of laserdisc players.
  
  
• The Pork scratchings displayed in the bar owned by Bernard Cribbins shows the prices in dual currency (1/- or 5p) along with various price lists in the market. While the UK had introduced decimal currency in February 1971, both the new and old currencies were used until around 1973 hence in some places, you would have found dual currency in use and on display.
  
  
• Hitchcock's daughter Patricia Hitchcock found this film so disturbing that she would not allow her children to see it for many years.
  
  
• Henry Mancini was originally hired to score the film. According to accounts, upon hearing the proposed score, Alfred Hitchcock yelled at Mancini: "If I had wanted Bernard Herrmann, I would have hired him!" Mancini was fired from the project. His recording of his main title to Frenzy is available on one of his compilation of film music excerpts.
  
  
• David Hemmings was originally considered for the role of Blaney.
  
  
• The Story of 'Frenzy' (2001) (V) documentary is featured on the DVD for Frenzy (1972).
  
  
• The market scenes are set in Covent Garden, London, when Covent Garden was an actual fruit and flower market. This closed in 1974 and moved to Nine Elms and the old market was slated for demolition. Most of it, including the central halls were saved and now is a listed and popular tourist destination.
  
  
• Margaret Nolan appeared as one of Rusk's potential victims though her footage was cut from the film.
  
  
• Blaney refers to Miss Barling contemptuously as "Vinegar Joe". Vinegar Joe is the nickname for the four-star U.S. Army general, Joseph W. Stilwell, known for his abrasive manner.
  
  

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