Alfred Hitchcock's 1972 film Frenzy was widely considered a return to form for the master of suspense, then in his seventh decade.  "This is the kind of thriller Hitchcock was making in the 1940s, filled with macabre details, incongruous humor, and the desperation of a man convicted of a crime he didn't commit," wrote Roger Ebert.  "We are nearly back in the days of his great English films," opined Penelope Gilliatt in The New Yorker, while Vincent Canby in The New York Times praised it as a "passionately entertaining film."  From his earliest sound films through his last - Frenzy would prove to be his penultimate motion picture, followed only by 1976's Family Plot - Hitchcock intuitively understood the power of music and how it affected and commented upon the onscreen action.  Frenzy was intended to be the great director's first pairing with Henry Mancini, but Hitch ultimately rejected Hank's score.  It proved to be the only rejected score of Mancini's career.  His replacement was Ron Goodwin, who ironically contributed a more "Mancini-esque" score than Mancini himself.  With Quartet Records' first-ever soundtrack presentation of Frenzy (available in both 1CD and 2LP vinyl formats), audiences finally have the opportunity to hear not only Mancini's "lost" score but Goodwin's work, as well.

Based on Arthur La Bern's novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell, Leicester Square and featuring a screenplay by Anthony Shaffer (Sleuth), Frenzy concerns itself with the activities of the serial killer known as the "Necktie Murderer."  He's revealed to be Bob Rusk (Barry Foster), proprietor of a produce stand in Covent Garden.  But his friend, former RAF squadron leader Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and the murder of Blaney's ex-wife Brenda (Barbara Leigh-Hunt) is pinned on him.  Blaney is convicted, and must prove his innocence and stop Rusk before it's too late.

Frenzy was filmed on location in London - only Hitchcock's third full film to be shot in the U.K. following his move to Hollywood in 1939.  His conception for the film was a dark one, though peppered with the black humor that was a trademark of his oeuvre.  It was his only movie to receive an R rating upon its original release, and turned heads with its nudity (more explicit than that in Psycho over a decade earlier) and explicit violence including rape and strangulation.  It also featured some truly remarkable set pieces, including one long tracking shot at the scene of a murder, down the stairs and across the street, and the opening helicopter shot over the Thames which ends with a shock.

With an established reputation for delicious, light-as-a-souffle comedy and unerring melodic instinct (The Pink Panther, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Great Race), Henry Mancini might not have been an obvious choice for Frenzy.  But the versatile composer also penned powerful scores for the dramatic likes of Touch of Evil and Experiment in Terror, and was eager to return to this milieu for Hitchcock.  As heard on Quartet's new presentation, Mancini crafted a score of nonstop foreboding.  Eschewing traditional themes and motifs, each cue was tense, moody, and suspenseful.  While Mancini labeled the cues with his usual sly humor ("My Tie Is Your Tie," "Big Drag for Babs"), they were some of the most atmospheric and unsettling he had ever composed.  It's a spare, subtle score leaving much to the imagination, unafraid of dissonance and chords which avoid resolution.

Hitchcock might have felt Mancini's atypical score was too dark and oppressive; some reports indicated he felt it was too similar to the work of his longtime collaborator with whom he'd fallen out, Bernard Herrmann.  The director turned to U.K. composer Ron Goodwin (Murder She Said, Battle of Britain) and gave him specific instructions as to the scoring.  Goodwin was a friend of Mancini's, and phoned him to make sure there were no hard feelings.  In his excellent liner notes, Deniz Cordell quotes Mancini at an AFI seminar: "Ron read me a detailed analysis of what Hitchcock...wanted in the music after he decided he wanted another score.  It was very interesting, because I wish I had had something like that to go by and I think it might have been a different story."  Goodwin ended up composing, to Hitchcock's satisfaction, brassy and bold melodies including the majestic main title with its bright, grand fanfare befitting a picturesque documentary about London - to make sure audiences had no idea "anything nasty was going to happen."  It wasn't all ironic lightness, though.  Goodwin threaded variations on his memorable "Frenzy" theme throughout to escalate tension, conjuring the horror of the onscreen action in somewhat more conventionally boisterous fashion than Mancini had.  His score, too, deftly shifted perspectives from character to character while Mancini's roiling, slow-burning cues were more detached, from an outsider's point of view.  Goodwin allowed himself some lyrical moments, such as "A Talk in the Park," which briefly alleviated the sense of impending doom.  Both approaches are valid, but only Goodwin's suited Hitchcock's precise vision.

Album producer/mastering engineer Mike Matessino has added a handful of bonus tracks to the two relatively brief scores.  These include two Mancini source music cues ("Tijuana on Thames" is a delightful Herb Alpert pastiche) and alternate versions of his "Prologue" and "Babs Grabs."  Goodwin's source cues "Poem" and "Juke Box" (a swaggering, rock-ish number) as well as alternates of the "Murder Flashback" and end title have been included.  Finally, "Descriptions for Alfred Hitchcock" relating to Goodwin's score are featured.  Editor John Jympson recorded these tracks to provide a description for Hitch of each sequence being scored so the director could envision the scene while listening to the cue.  They make for a fascinating coda to this release.

The CD is accompanied by a 28-page color booklet with Cordell's notes and numerous photos and film stills.  The vinyl edition, on two 180-gram black vinyl LPs, is identical in content to the CD edition other than lacking the spoken cue descriptions.  It's packaged in a beautiful gatefold with an eight-page booklet. In either format, the debut soundtrack of Frenzy is one of the most welcome film score releases in recent memory, a tribute to the collective talents of Hitchcock, Mancini, and Goodwin.

Ron Goodwin and Henry Mancini, Frenzy: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Quartet CD QR505/QRLP40, 2022) (Order CD / LP)

Ron Goodwin:

1. Main Title
2. Covent Garden
3. Frenzy
4. Arrival at Brenda's Flat
5. In the Salvation Army Hostel
6. Death of Brenda
7. Fugitive from the Coburg Hotel
8. A Talk in the Park
9. A Spree De Corpse
10. Murder Flashback
11. Escape and Retribution
12. Frenzy (End Title)
13. Poem (Source Music)
14. Juke Box (Source Music)
15. Murder Flashback (Alternate)
16. Frenzy (End Title) (Alternate)

Henry Mancini:

17. Prologue
18. My Tie Is Your Tie
19. My Kind of Woman
20. Son of My Kind of Woman
21. Exit Oscar Wilde
22. Big Drag for Babs
23. Hot Potatoes
24. Babs Grabs
25. The Inspector Thinks
26. Rusk on Candid Camera
27. Off to Rusk's Place
28. End Credits/End Rusk
29. Posh for Two (Source Music)
30. Tijuana on Thames (Source Music)
31. Prologue (Alternate)
32. Babs Grabs (Alternate)
33. Descriptions for Alfred Hitchcock (Tracks 33-45)​