MovieChat Forums > Frenzy (1972) Discussion > "Lovely...lovely....Pay! Pay!"

"Lovely...lovely....Pay! Pay!"

posted 3 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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The small but loyal group of Hitchcock fans who value his penultimate thriller Frenzy know that during the film's most grueling sequence -- the impotent rape and raging strangulation of prim Brenda Blaney by sex maniac Bob Rusk -- Hitchcock "raises the creepy factor" by having Rusk(largely offscreen) intone this as he tries to rape Brenda:

:"Lovely....lovely...lovely!"

Bad enough. And after he has finished, Rusk shifts from amorous lover(in his mind) to raging avenger:

"Women. You're all the same. I'll show you."

And then he strangles Brenda with his necktie.

Again, "lovely...lovely...lovely" which Is in the film...is bad enough.

but in Anthony Shaffer's screenplay...there is something worse.

When Rusk switches to rage and starts strangling Brenda, "lovely" turns to a raging "Pay! Pay! Pay!")

This scene -- so horrible to endure on the screen -- plays poorly on the page. Kudos to actors Barry Foster(Rusk) and Barbara Leigh-Hunt for making it all work on the screen with their human emotion.

So I will ASSUME that Barry Foster could have sold "Pay...pay...pay!" as well as he sold "Lovely...Lovely."

But Hitchcock seems to have decided: No. "Lovely" is enough. "Pay" is communicated by the strangling itself.

Later in the screenplay, in the silent flashback(with music) to Rusk strangling his later victim Babs, in the screenplay is written: "We see Rusk silently mouthing pay! pay!" That's a pretty brutal read.

But Hitchcock cut it.

I suppose with this "screenplay inside information" the nature of Rusk's psychotic murders is better revealed: He tries to be a "lover" to a woman ("Lovely") and upon failing with her, he blames HER and decides that she must "pay."

Pretty creepy stuff.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 3 years ago

Incredibly creepy. I have such a hard time watching that scene.

I like that he cut the "pay" line-- a bit too on the nose.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Yes...a bit too on the nose.

As long as I'm touching on "script versus screen" of this extremely disturbing scene, I might as well note that Hitchcock also made this change from the script to avoid "on the nose-ism."

In the movie, early on in his conversation with Brenda -- long BEFORE he attacks her, fruit seller/green grocer Rusk says:

"In my business, we have a saying: don't squeeze the goods til they're yours."

Given what happens in the scene, we can INFER: Rusk "squeezes" (strangles) the goods (Brenda) once they are his(raped.)

In the script between the rape and the strangling, Rusk says:

"I told you...I don't squeeze the goods til they're mine."

Hitchcock dropped this. Too on the nose.

By keeping Rusk's dialogue to a bare minimum, he retained a more menacing monster-like effect. As Rusk goes along, he becomes less human, more monster.