The Boston Strangler is a 1968 film based on the true story of the Boston Strangler and the book by Gerold Frank. It was directed by Richard Fleischer, and stars Tony Curtis as Albert DeSalvo, the strangler, and Henry Fonda as John S. Bottomly, the chief detective now famed for obtaining DeSalvo's confession.
The cast also includes George Kennedy, Sally Kellerman, Murray Hamilton, Jeff Corey and James Brolin.
The first part of the film shows the police investigation, with some examples of the seedier side of Boston life, including promiscuity in the adult quarters of the city. The second part shows the apprehension of DeSalvo. The intention of Officer Bottomly and the law is to answer the question presented in the film's famous print ad:
Why did 13 women open their doors to the Boston Strangler?
When several middle-aged women are found strangled and sexually assaulted in the Back Bay area of Boston, the police round up numerous suspects but fail to uncover any leads. As the stranglings continue, Massachusetts Atty. Gen. Edward W. Brooke, Jr., persuades Asst. Atty. Gen. John S. Bottomly to set up a bureau to coordinate information concerning the slayings.
While women report possible suspects, an ESP expert, Peter Hurkos, is brought in to conjure up a vision of the murderer.
Elsewhere in the city, plumber Albert DeSalvo stops watching the funeral of President Kennedy on television and tells his wife that he must check on a customer's furnace. Instead, he gains access to a young woman's home and murders her. He continues his attacks but is finally apprehended when he is chased into the street by the husband of an intended victim and struck by a police car. DeSalvo is sent to Boston City Hospital for observation, while Bottomly and Det. Phillip J. DiNatale question a surviving victim who recalls that she bit her attacker on the thumb. Discovering that DeSalvo has a bite mark on his thumb, Bottomly and DiNatale check his place of employment and discover that his absences from work correspond with the dates of the murders.
Aware that DeSalvo may be a schizophrenic incapable of total recall, Bottomly places him in a room with his wife and watches from behind a glass wall as the confrontation triggers DeSalvo's subconscious and compels him to clutch his wife by the throat.
There is insufficient evidence to prove that DeSalvo is the strangler, but Bottomly is certain that he has the right man when DeSalvo later reveals additional details about the murders.
Perhaps the most obvious of all the film’s attributes is the tremendously original shooting style. When The Boston Strangler is on the screen, the screen splits into anywhere from 2-5 screens so the viewer can see the Strangler ringing the doorbell, the stairs he’s going to walk up, the door to the apartment, and the victim in the apartment at the same time. While it seems as though this would be confusing, it is spectacularly done. An haunting scene is when you see a split screen of a roommate dead on the floor in her bedroom (with the door closed) and her roommates having a very casual conversation right outside her door, unaware that their roommate is dead. I would bet that most people would feel a chill up their spine in that scene.
The second attribute that deserves a mention is the controversial issues this film brought up. This film caused quite a stir with the censors as it dealt with the most horrible sexual crimes you could possibly imagine in explicit detail (there is an explicit discussion where it was revealed that one of the victims was raped with a wine bottle).
“The Boston Strangler” can be considered the first modern serial killer procedural.
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