Return of the Seluzicki

FRENZY (1972) was Alfred Hitchcock’s last film and it is as twisted a tale as he ever wrought. A sadistic serial killer is strangling women and an innocent man is accused and convicted  of his crimes. Inspector Oxford (Alec McCowen), as decent a fellow as you might hope to meet, is on the case and his selfless devotion to the truth finally leads to the apprehension of the real killer.

That a comic element often runs through even the grizzliest of Hitchcock’s films is a given. And in FRENZY the relationship between Inspector Oxford and his wife, Mrs. Oxford (Vivien Merchant), is played out over the dinner table. Each time the Inspector arrives home, he is presented with a dish by his doting wife, identified first in stilted French, and then in translation.  First a fish stew, a dreadful pastiche, then quail with grapes so overdone that the Inspector’s knife runs off of the tiny foul like it was a rock on the plate. Later a dish of pigs trotters in a sauce usually prepared for tripe provides an added dimension to the Oxford’s relationship. The Mrs. may be, it seems, as sadistic as our serial killer. She coyly taunts the Inspector with the spectre of steak, provoking a wistful litany of common pub dishes for which the Inspector yearns. When the Inspector’s colleague turns up, he is offered a margarita- not a whiskey or gin- and, again, an “exotic” preparation, misunderstood, apparently poorly prepared and certainly culturally alien, fuels an extended comic interlude.

I am not sure that a convincing case could be made for sadism on Mrs. Oxford’s part. But there is no doubt that she provokes some of the most painfully funny moments of food inspired humor in the history of cinema.
 
Charles Seluzicki