375

Hitchcock's Frenzy Brenda (Barbara Leigh-Hunt) Signed PR Neck-Tie Strangulation Photo

Currency:USD Category:Memorabilia / Movie - Memorabilia Start Price:50.00 USD Estimated At:100.00 - 200.00 USD
Hitchcock's Frenzy Brenda (Barbara Leigh-Hunt) Signed PR Neck-Tie Strangulation Photo
Hitchcock's Frenzy Brenda (Barbara Leigh-Hunt) Signed PR Neck-Tie Strangulation Photo - Not long after Alfred Hitchcock's last masterpiece "Frenzy" (1971) begins, a fruit merchant, Robert Rusk (Barry Foster) tries to seduce a middle-aged matchmaker named Brenda Margaret Blaney (Barbara Leigh-Hunt). She turns him down, so in a sudden shocking horrific act that only Hitchcock could have orchestrated, Rusk rapes Brenda, then strangles her with a necktie. What follows is one of the most imitated brilliant shots in a Hitchcock film, in which the camera backs away from the door of Rusk's upper-floor apartment and descends the staircase, seemingly without a cut, to the ground level, out the building's front door, and then to the opposite side of the street to show that although pure horror is happening inside, the innocent peaceful world outside is oblivious to it. Among the directors who gave homage to this amazing sequence was Brian De Palma who "borrowed" the exact same scene in his remake of "Scarface" (1982), with the chain-saw dismemberment of Pacino's brother in an apartment bathroom. He has his camera also go out the window to the streets of Miami where life goes on peacefully. Besides the astonishing and unsettling traveling shot in "Frenzy" one can never forget the extreme close-up of Brenda being strangled. No film has ever shown before such graphic long-held detail of this gruesome act. In fact, the lingering shot of her salivating tongue after she is strangled was finally reluctantly cut by Hitchcock at the extreme urging of Universal Studios. However, the strangulation still burns in the minds of everyone who watched it, very much like the stabbing death of Janet Leigh in "Psycho". For Barbara Leigh-Hunt, a classically trained actress straight out of the Old Vic Company in London, the role and this specific scene was a mixed blessing. It gave her immortality, but also was all anyone ever wanted to talk about. And for someone who started as an actress in 1959, and is still active, this has become somewhat of a burden! In fact, she reportedly rarely will talk about it, and rarely will signed her name, especially to anything connected with this spine-chilling iconic moment in Cinema History. That is why this signed Universal Studio photo is so very rare and collectable. It shows Barbara's famous close-up as she is being strangled by the neck tie, and is signed by her! It took the urging of a well known London collector of Hitchcock memorabilia to make it happen! It comes with a Letter of Provenience from the collector. B&W, 8"x10".