119 Oxford Street, W1

Take a look at the building on the southeast corner of Oxford Street and Wardour Street. The elaborate wrought-iron frontage above the shops at 119 Oxford Street is the last remaining trace of the arched passageway that once ran south from Oxford Street.

Down this narrow passage stood ‘The Blaney Bureau’, the marriage agency run by Barbara Leigh-Hunt, and site of the very nasty strangling in Alfred Hitchcock’s queasily misogynistic Frenzy. It’s outside, on the passageway, that Hitchcock holds the camera still far longer than you would believe possible until we hear the scream of Jean Marsh that indicates she’s found the body.

Frenzy (1972, dir: Alfred Hitchcock)