Ending.
Does the main perpetrator gets arrested?
share"Mr. Rusk..you're not wearing your tie."
Yes...
MovieChat Forums > Frenzy (1972) Discussion > Ending.
Yes he does.
Hitchcock sure knew how to make a great ending. I love how brisk and funny this one is-- reminds me a little of the end of DIAL M FOR MURDER, where Tony Wendice congratulates Inspector Hubbard and then offers everyone a drink, or the end of the remake of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH where Jimmy Stewart just blithely says, "Hey, Hank's back."
Hitchcock sure knew how to make a great ending. I love how brisk and funny this one is-- reminds me a little of the end of DIAL M FOR MURDER, where Tony Wendice congratulates Inspector Hubbard and then offers everyone a drink, or the end of the remake of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH where Jimmy Stewart just blithely says, "Hey, Hank's back."
--
Yes, this is one of those "quick, boom and out" endings that Hitchcock sometimes did so well. He didn't do this with the big finale of North by Northwest on Mount Rushmore(and a honeymoon train), and he couldn't do it with the chilling ending in the cell of Psycho.
But sometimes, Hitch and his writers decided just to end the movie "on the perfect quick note." Like here.
Some notes:
Actor Barry Foster(Rusk) said that on the first take, Alec McCowen BARKED the line "Mr. Rusk, you're not wearing your tie" loudly. Hitchcock directed McCowen to "take it down a notch" and do it cool and quiet. Foster had lowered his head in shame on being confronted; Hitchcock said "serial killers don't have shame." So Foster just stares and sputters. Thus, Hitchcock made a great scene BETTER.
Also:
The line in one version of the script was "Mr. Rusk..you don't have your tie on."
The line in the movie is a bit more elegant and to the point, yes?
AND:
I always felt that given how sadistic and brutal Rusk had been in killing innocent women, he got off rather easy with a "Dial M for Murder" quick joke. I wanted to see Rusk PUNISHED.
So I have (in my mind) an "ending after the ending" to Frenzy:
Right after the trunk hits the floor and after "THE END" -- Blaney crosses the room with that tire iron and smashes Rusk's kneecaps, groin, and jaw. Doesn't kill Rusk, mind you -- but hurts him real bad, like he hurt those women.
I agree. Too often villains get off too easy and so did Rusk here. I give it a pass because it’s not a deadly serious film (despite the hideous rape/murders) and has a sense of humour so a ‘jaunty’ ending kinda worked.
shareI take your point, certainly.
Hitchcock himself said he set out to make Frenzy so that it MIXED rough horror with deadpan British comedy; it rather finds a way to alternate the two (and mixes them together in the potato truck scene.)
Indeed, the ending as we have it is indeed perfectly jaunty(great description) and fits the smallish British drollness of the film.
Still, I like to imagine Blaney putting some real pain to Rusk with that tire iron, so I have THAT pleasure in my mind.
But also this: I think it is possible that Frenzy is the last time in studio movie history that an evil villain(particularly a killer) was only arrested at the end of the movie. In the decades thereafter, one thing audiences come to see is the villain getting KILLED at the end. Think of Lethal Weapon or Die Hard or Speed.
In the original Cape Fear(1962) psycho Max Cady (Robert Mitchum) is only captured at the end (and he killed a cop)
In the remake, psycho Max Cady(Robert DeNiro) dies.
But also this: Hitchcock didn't kill off psycho killer Norman Bates at the end of Psycho, either. Which allowed for Psycho II, III, and IV , all with Anthony Perkins.
Where's that Frenzy sequel? Oh, well, Barry Foster has been dead for years.
I thought the wrong man was going to be convicted again and the guilty one get away with it. That would have been a cynical, nihilistic and imo a better ending. But I guess it would have been too dark for the times. But then again, The Wicker Man came out a year later.
shareThat dark ending would have lined up with Chinatown and other 70s downers..but Hitchcock was old fashioned and often stated that his audience needed relief after suspense..a happy ending. Though neither Frenzy nor Psycho have truly happy endings. The killer is caught, thats all. Innocent people have died horribly and loved ones will feel the pain forever. By the way, screenwriter Anthony Shaffer wrote both Frenzy in 1972 and The Wicker Man in 1973, Frenzy from a novel.
share