On Loca­tion: The door from Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy

Even by his own macabre stan­dards, Alfred Hitch­cock sur­passed him­self in his penul­ti­mate fea­ture, Fren­zy. Mark­ing a sense of home­com­ing for the direc­tor, the film’s dark Lon­don set­ting ren­ders the film as one of his most shock­ing and unfor­giv­ing. There’s a dis­turb­ing sense of recog­ni­tion through­out due in part to Hitchcock’s use of some very recog­nis­able loca­tions, albeit when cen­tral Lon­don was a place of mar­kets and indus­try. The very char­ac­ter of the city comes to haunt Fren­zy, as if its sheer grimy opu­lence and messi­ness aids the vicious crimes com­mit­ted by its chief villain.

In the film, the swing­ing opti­mism that gripped the city in the pre­vi­ous decade has dis­solved into nihilism as the streets are plagued by a spate of sex mur­ders, the killer’s sig­na­ture being stran­gu­la­tion by neck­tie. The sex­u­al rev­o­lu­tion com­bined with the patri­archy has formed a social, psy­chot­ic monstrosity.

We fol­low Richard (Jon Finch), a down-and-out ex-ser­vice­man who appears at first to match the killer’s descrip­tion and behav­iour. When his ex-wife Bren­da (Bar­bara Leigh-Hunt) is found dead moments after Richard was spot­ted vis­it­ing her, the man is forced to go on the run through the gut­ters of Lon­don. How long will it be before the police catch him or, more impor­tant­ly, before the real killer can­not resist his urges and strikes again?

In the open­ing shot, Hitch­cock uses Lon­don for a mag­nif­i­cent­ly under­hand ploy. A heli­copter shot slow­ly fol­lows the Thames along through Tow­er Bridge, the dock­lands of the city still look­ing atmos­pher­ic but the music and a post­card mark in the cor­ner mark­ing it as a seem­ing­ly pic­turesque, pleas­ant film.

This turns sharply and shock­ing­ly towards the actu­al real­i­ty of the film with­in moments when the body of a naked woman is found float­ing in the river’s murky water. The city in Hitchcock’s film is vile but also breath­ing and excit­ed­ly alive. Every wall seems stained, crum­bling or marked, the booz­ers and pubs are grim and filled with greasy drinkers, and the streets are lit­tered with rub­bish and lost souls.

It’s as unfor­giv­ing a por­trait of the city as cin­e­ma has ever dared pro­duce. With­in this is essen­tial­ly the crux to Hitchcock’s film and Antho­ny Schaffer’s script too. Some of its casu­al, light dia­logue feels incred­i­bly dis­turb­ing in today’s light but it aids the film, not least in that so many of the men on screen express the same sort of misog­y­ny that they only per­ceive as legit­i­mate­ly man­i­fest­ing as vio­lence via the neck­tie mur­der­er. As one char­ac­ter know­ing­ly sug­gests, ​“All blokes are that sort of bloke…” Mal­ice is on every street corner.

Film­ing exten­sive­ly around Covent Gar­den when it was still a func­tion­ing mar­ket, Hitch­cock was, in a way, revis­it­ing his own per­son­al expe­ri­ences. Being the son of a green­gro­cer, he would have undoubt­ed­ly had expe­ri­ence of the mar­ket and its vibrant, bustling char­ac­ters. Fren­zy cap­tures its last gasp before it was even­tu­al­ly moved to the oth­er side of the Thames to Nine Elms only a few years lat­er. Being at the cen­tre of the film allows the direc­tor to sketch and cre­ate small dra­mas around the area, a place of tran­sit and work­ing peo­ple that is a far cry away from its sta­tus today as a square of lux­u­ry brand­ed shops and tourist friend­ly street performers.

One scene from the count­less uses of this set­ting stands out, per­haps ulti­mate­ly as a last hur­rah for the director’s inno­v­a­tive eye before his decid­ed­ly aver­age final film, Fam­i­ly Plot. We see the real killer about to strike again, the pathos for the view­er unbear­able as Richard’s only hope and true friend Babs (Anna Massey) is unsus­pect­ing­ly lured into the killer’s flat. We instant­ly cut to a set show­ing the dingy build­ing, fol­low­ing the pair upstairs.

Before we can fol­low them fur­ther, the cam­era tracks back down the stairs and out of the build­ing. For a film that has some of Hitchcock’s most relent­less­ly voyeuris­tic, gra­tu­itous scenes of the vio­lence towards women, the deci­sion to not show the killing reveals an unusu­al but refresh­ing reserve on the director’s part.

The cam­era con­tin­ues on through the set until ini­tial­ly out of the door­way and a clev­er­ly angled edit on the shoul­ders of a pass­ing walk­er cuts to the real Covent Gar­den loca­tion. It’s a tech­nique Hitch­cock used through­out his career, from the trav­el­ling car shots of The 39 Steps to the var­i­ous cuts that weave togeth­er seam­less­ly in Rope. The shot here adds to the sense built through­out the film that behind London’s closed doors is a qui­et but end­less­ly lurid poten­tial; that dark secrets are hid­ing almost in plain sight, masked unnerv­ing­ly well by the every­day archi­tec­ture and char­ac­ter of the city.

The house still stands today at 3 Hen­ri­et­ta Street, right on the cor­ner of Covent Gar­den where once a hub of Vic­to­ri­an pub­lish­ing hous­es sat along­side the mar­ket. The major­i­ty of the stalls have gone and the atmos­phere has changed beyond recog­ni­tion but the build­ing is exact­ly as it was. Next door is a branch of the celebri­ty favoured restau­rant, The Ivy, and even the build­ing next door is now a lux­u­ry clothes shop.

In spite of this, there’s still some­thing eerie about the build­ing, ulti­mate­ly because the direc­tor showed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of some­thing hor­rif­ic lying in wait, even behind the most earnest and respectable of facades.

With thanks to Polaroid Orig­i­nals.