MovieChat Forums > Frenzy (1972) Discussion > Was Brenda Blaney's Character Raped?

Was Brenda Blaney's Character Raped?


Brenda Blaney was wearing a dress and it got torn at the top. Her breast were fondled. She was clearly wearing pantyhose to the end. I do not see that that she was unless in England the consider roughing up a woman Rape? Hitchcock did not seem to imply she was rape. Just saying?

Sincerley

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Difficult subject, but yes, she was raped.

More important, in a way, is the fact that Rusk couldn't be "satisfied" by sex, he couldn't ejaculate and had to do it himself immediately after the, er, penetration.

Thus the "Bloody women, you're all the same" (I'm paraphrasing) comment.

In his twisted mind he's transferring his inability to "perform" with women by making it their fault, hence the consequent strangulation.

And he was bonkers, remember...



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I think actually he was angry because she wasn't screaming or showing distress.
Remember that psychopaths get particular enjoyment out of causing fear or distress in victims. He said to her beforehand ''I'd like you to struggle''.
So because he clearly wasn't getting this reaction from her, he decided to take it up a level by strangling her.
At least that is my perception.

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What the hell? Of course she was raped. Was she consenting to sex? Not at all. Hence "rape".

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Yes, she was raped, several characters mention it. She was still wearing a pantyhose because, I think, a full view of female (or male, for that matter) genitalia would have gotten the movie an X-rating.

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Yes it was definitely rape, she clearly didn't want anything to do with Rusk, that is why she tried to fight him off and he forced her back in to the seat.

It was rather weird with the pantyhose, in one shot you see him pulling them down and at the end it looks like they are still up.

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My problem is not with her panty hose but with his pants! His pants were not down or open. I can see them not wanting him to have them down but they at least should have been open to confirm that she was indeed raped.

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Different era...and Hitchcock was into "impressionism."

Seems to me the different cuts to clothing being ripped are "clues" to more being done that we can't see. And there are close-ups on the faces of the actors during the period in which clothes would be "re-arranged."

But it was not exact. All stylized. And I'm glad for that.

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[deleted]

What happened here is taken up later by Inspector Oxford when he is describing "the aggressive sexual psychopath" to his assistant Sergeant Spears:

"Don't mistake rape for potency. In the latter stage of the disease, it is the strangling, not the sex, that brings them on."

Oxford is "quoting the textbook" so to speak:

Rusk TRIED to rape Brenda, but couldn't get it going. In his rage, he moved to strangle her...and THAT's when he got satisfaction.

And evidently, Rusk repeats this pattern with every female victim, every time. He is in "the latter stage of the disease."

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If Rusk were impotent, there would be no semen in the vaginas of his victims. What would make the police think the women had been raped?

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I have always thought that during his assaults Rusk could achieve an erection and could penetrate the woman but that he couldn’t sustain the erection until a climax; hence his fury. The act of strangling, exerting total power over his victim, made him erect again, and sometime during the murder he would ejaculate. The use of the word “rape” in the script was, if you like, a euphemism, for the fact that semen would be present on the body, chair, bed, and floor or wherever. That is how I interpreted the sexual aspect of the murders.

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It all seems a bit of a stretch. In other words, it was the semen on the floor that led Inspector Oxford to conclude that the necktie strangler was impotent. That is not the conclusion I would have drawn. In any event, what made the police think the woman in the Thames had been raped, since the semen would have washed off?

For my money, I thought Rusk reached the heights of ecstasy when he climaxed. His fury afterwards was just an expression of his hatred for women, something not uncommon among rapists. Consider, for example, either version of Cape Fear, where Max Cady attacks the woman after he has sex with her. I have never heard anyone suggest that Cady was angry because he was impotent.

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Although today people are accustomed to seeing something more explicit, I think the scene went just as far as Hitchcock wanted it to go.

By Hitchcock standards it is very graphic.




Hair today. Goon tomorrow.

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Can't say but I loved her tits.

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[deleted]

Just to be pedantic - Brenda Blaney was the name of the (Barbara Leigh-Hunt's) character. I believe a body double was used so the tit compliments belong to some unknown. It wasn't Anna Massey's butt either.

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>>> I believe a body double was used so the tit compliments belong to some unknown. It wasn't Anna Massey's butt either.

damn i luv it when u talk dirty


It should be against the law to use "LOL" unless you really did LOL!

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I think OP is asking because there was no thrusting involved. I had that same thought. What he was doing was obviously sexually assaulting her (ripping her clothes and fondling her breasts) but I think he was asking if he penetrated her, which is questionable. And the scene certainly shocked me. I've seen worse but not in a Hitchcock film.

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Yes. The "lovely" was substituted for visual thrusting. You can hear how he starts talking normally, then getting more intense every time he says it (as he reaches climax) then a softer "lovely" once more after.

Film rules used to be very strict. You couldn't even show a married couple in the same bed (ever noticed how they always show two single beds in one bedroom? ) .

Hitchcock got his point across in clever way. Whilst making the scene just as shocking.

That image of her tongue out must have left quite an impression on 70s audiences!

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The "lovely" was substituted for visual thrusting. You can hear how he starts talking normally, then getting more intense every time he says it (as he reaches climax) then a softer "lovely" once more

And this:

https://moviechat.org/tt0068611/Frenzy/612bd65f2ae9663a06ef437e/LovelylovelyPay-Pay

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Although today people are accustomed to seeing something more explicit, I think the scene went just as far as Hitchcock wanted it to go.

By Hitchcock standards it is very graphic.

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The "new freedom of movies" arrived with the ratings code in November of 1968, with these categories:

G
M
R
X

Hitchcock sought to do something in the "R" range, but his first "post-code movie" was 1969's "Topaz," which was given an M (a PG today) and had little to justify even that, except -- I would suggest -- a man and wife who cheated on each other but stayed together at the movie's end.

Hitch wanted to go farther and kept reading properties (often one-page memo "coverage") -- 1500 of them, he said -- until he found the book that became Frenzy.

It had a psycho. It had a wrong man. But mainly..it had a psycho who was a sex maniac. Hence nudity and rape and sexual violence. Hitch got his "R" movie, and because he was still such a great artist and story teller, he knew how to make that R hurt and sting and create emotion in his audience. Frenzy isn't built for sexual titillation, it is built for sexual disgust and emotional despair(the innocence of the women Rusk kills.)

In 1960, one critic called Psycho "the sickest movie ever made." And it was -- among American studio films. By 1972, Psycho had a lot of competition. But Frenzy was, indeed, even SICKER than Psycho because that R rating bought Hitchcock the ability to bring sex directly into the psychopathic homicide.

In a profound way.

PS. As if to repent for the R-rated sexual violence and ugliness of Frenzy, Hitchcock's final film was light-hearted, almost free of violence and horror. Family Plot. Not as well made a film as Frenzy, but decidedly nicer. PG. I think Hitchcock wanted to out that way.

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