Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

DowntonR1 A strikingly shot, often with a split screen, criticised by some, but I feel it was used when it enhanced the storyline, which is also structured beautifully. Several fine performances ( George Kennedy and Henry Fonda- reliable as ever) , two excellent cameos from William Hickey and Sally Kellerman and complex, subtle one from Tony Curtis. Also, a couple of observations on contemporary life( being gay and the Vietnam War). A plea at the end of the film for more early funding for psychiatric help for people is worthy but doesn't answer the question how you identify an often hidden condition.

Coventry True crime/factual thrillers about real-life serial killers have always fascinated me immensely, and many obscure highlights in this niche belong to my all-time favorite movies, like for example "10 Rillington Place", "The Honeymoon Killers", "Deranged", "The Todd Killings" and "The Tenderness of Wolves". This "The Boston Strangler" also stood quite high on my must-see list, but I had a couple of prejudices because I read that this film was largely fictionalized (even though the real names of suspects and victims are used) and because it's allegedly a typical product of its time (with an excessive use of contemporary popular split-screens and socially relevant topics processed into the screenplay). The prejudices definitely turned out to be truthful and I even daresay that "The Boston Strangler" is more of documentary/psychological case study rather than a suspenseful hunt-for-a-serial-killer thriller, but it's still undeniably a praiseworthy and recommendable slice of late-60s cinema. In a disturbingly brief period of time, in Boston, the raped and strangled corpses of various women are discovered in their own homes. At first, only elderly and Caucasian women seem targeted, but then younger and even colored victims are found and the crime scenes are located in the jurisdictions of different police departments. Criminology professor John S. Bottomly is assigned to bring structured communication and alignment in the different investigations and to draw a profile of the killer and his modus operandi. This vague description only covers the first half of the film, mind you, as the secondly half bluntly puts forward Alberto DeSalvo as the unmistakable culprit and we follow him around to get an insight of his complex and incredible case of schizophrenia. DeSalvo is a devoted family man with a lovely wife and two children, but when his "dark side" takes the upper hand he abuses his charming looks and job as a plumber to perpetrate into the house of unsuspecting women, even if they are warned by all media not to allow any strangers into their homes. It's rather peculiar – to say the least – that the film's screenplay uses the DeSalvo's real identity even though the vast majority of the story is pure fiction. The real DeSalvo was never diagnosed with multiple personality disorder and, moreover, he died (stabbed in prison) before his guilt was 100% proved. As a fan of true crime stores, I personally like this and even consider it to be rather manipulative since you are more or less forced to sympathize with this poor guy because he supposedly commits these horrible murders unconsciously. It even seems as if director Richard Fleischer wasn't all that interested in the facts of the case, but primarily intrigued by the mass hysteria and social impact of a "maniac-at- large" situation in a metropolitan city. The split screens are often used to illustrate fragmented reactions of random bystanders prior to the discovery of another strangled victim, like a conversation between two gossipy neighbors on one half of the screen while a victim lies dead in her room on the half. Other interesting but substantially irrelevant sub themes in the script include the scenes in the Boston gay community (quite progressive in 1968) and the depiction of an entire city torn apart by the fascination for their own local serial killer as well by the nationwide fascination regarding President JFK's assassination. "The Boston Strangler" was quite an important film for many of its cast members as well. Henry Fonda once more established himself as one of the most talented actors in history, while Tony Curtis proved that he could very well handle difficult and integer roles. George Kennedy, on the other hand, proved something that he has proved throughout his entire career, namely that he was a reliable supportive actor who modestly remained in the shadows of the big stars.

Scott LeBrun This viewer, for one, knows that usually Hollywood productions based on true stories have to be taken with a grain of salt, that they won't exactly be 100% accurate. However, no matter if there is invention or fictionalization going on in "The Boston Strangler", it's still an absorbing, well-crafted film with an incredible cast just full of familiar faces. Much has been made of the documentary-style approach that it takes to its events, and deservedly so; only towards the end does it get more surreal, as it attempts to get into the head of the disturbed killer. Director Richard Fleischer does great work here, especially the way that he utilizes the Panavision aspect ratio and the split screen technique. Best of all is an unexpectedly potent performance by Tony Curtis as Albert DeSalvo, the man believed to be the unfortunately prolific Boston Strangler who murders almost a dozen women during the course of the film.As this serial killer goes about his business, the intense manhunt is launched, with law expert John S. Bottomly (Henry Fonda) drafted to lead a task force. Detectives such as DiNatale (George Kennedy), Soshnick (Mike Kellin), and McAfee (Murray Hamilton) pursue all possible leads, and consider *any* sort of "deviant" as a potential suspect. It isn't until the film is about half over that we finally get a proper introduction to DeSalvo, and see him in action, in the guise of his job as a furnace man, selecting victims. Eventually, he does get caught, and the final portion of the tale has Bottomly doing his hardest to get some kind of confession out of him."The Boston Strangler" is a little ahead of its time with a rather daring amount of explicitness, in terms of bare skin and violence. Fleischer dares to take his time moving from scene to scene, and creates the kind of procedural that is always fascinating for this viewer. Use of Lionel Newmans' score is also very spotty, adding to a respectable degree of realism. But it's that lengthy end portion with Bottomly attempting to get DeSalvo to open up that's the corker. Curtis really was a better actor than often given credit for, and he shows it here.The large list of people to watch for in this cast include Hurd Hatfield (in a poignant performance as a homosexual that counteracts the homophobia from the cop characters), Jeff Corey, Sally Kellerman, William Marshall, George Voskovec (in a funny turn as renowned psychic Peter Hurkos), Leora Dana, Jeanne Cooper, George Furth, William Hickey (sympathetic as a disturbed suspect), James Brolin, Dana Elcar, William Traylor, and Alex Rocco in an uncredited bit.This is good stuff and worth a look for those with an interest in true-crime stories.Eight out of 10.

johnnyboyz The Boston Strangler nestles nicely into a small canon of films of around about the time it was made looking at the notion of a pathological killer as an example of an immensely disturbed person, with an unbalanced psychosis, rather than a mere monster of an uncanny variety killing because it's apparently in their primal nature. Like Hitchcock's Psycho eight years before it, Richard Fleischer's The Boston Strangler is a serial killer film about such a person living locally; living normally or even, as the saying goes, "living next door". The film is a scary and unnerving ride at the best of times, an attempt at a police procedural thriller on top of a disturbing tale of a man already under and on his way further down. Like Hitchock's masterful work before it, the film takes its cue from a true to life tale; but where Psycho was, we're told, inspired by the events of a certain Ed Gein, Fleischer's work here is more an authentic retelling of a true story – a feeding off of the real case of a certain Albert DeSalvo whom molested and strangling women of varying ages during the 1960s within the titular Massachusetts city. Furthermore in addition to Psycho, the film is particularly interested in the notion of duality or the item of dual personas within somebody and while it doesn't hit the levels Psycho did in its thriller sub-genre roots, The Boston Strangler is a substantial and interesting enough piece of work by itself.The film begins with somewhat of a national celebration of some astronauts whom have returned to Earth and have been granted a parade, an item of national pride or celebration of achievement which is eerily inter-cut with a break in at an apartment which comes with a sordid murder of a woman as well. The sequence sees the film highlighting a nation's want or lust to progress scientifically, as experimentations in space travel appear to unfold with rapturous enthusiasm without realising there are certain other fields, namely human psychology, more closer to home that need just as much exploration; attention and breaking through of – the science of what's going on 'down here' highlighted as just as important as the science in trying to advance 'up there'. Several more murders happen, the film going onto document a state's ill informed reaction to such things by rounding up crooks; freaks; fetishists; ex-cons; homosexuals and other people of a generally 'ill' or unbalanced ilk. An emphasis on one of these sorts of people surely guilty of the on-going murders is established, the film's thesis coming to highlight the incorrect assumption past ideals might have resembled.The guilty party on this occasion is the late Tony Curtis' DeSalvo, a performance which has gone grossly understated as the years have rolled past, a man whom when we first observe him sits at home in a seemingly idyllic set-up with his family. His two kids play while the television is on, his wife works the kitchen over and he reads law rather than car or gun magazines like the other suspects whom were rounded up. The film bypasses most of DeSalvo's past, namely his childhood, and grants him this setup; but it is not the setup a man of DeSalvo's upbringing would have easily attained. Moreso, the film is not interested in how the killer came to be who he is, but exactly what it is that he is. Most of the murders he commits are unfolded with a split screen technique, something that shows various stages of the attack and the parties involved in the various locations those involved inhabit; that sense of distortion or a fragmented mindset via the visuals is certainly prominent, something that works well when later reveals of Albert's inability to suppress his I.D are unfolded and more than one persona raging around inside of him is explored.If the film has any kind of flailing, it's that it isn't interested in the police procedural content as much as it is the points or notions of exploration in regards to DeSalvo. George Kennedy's detective Phil DiNatale takes on the case after an entirely separate bureau is established to deal with the problem, again exploring the breakthroughs and ever-shifting actions within the field of investigation people were forced into taking so as to deal with this kind of problem: the 'straight' killer, while Henry Fonda's role as detective John Bottomly sees him partake in nothing much-bar merely tag along for the ride. These characters are archetypal, stiff and bog the film down with its having them visit one too many suspects as well as over indulge them in the drawn out documenting on future plans of action. Since it isn't as interested in them as much it is DeSalvo; the substance that comes with him and the highly effective manner in which it documents his killings, we ourselves are not as interested in them. Fleischer, feeding off of an Edward Anhalt screenplay further still feeding off of both a novel and a true to life event, directs well in the scenes where his priorities lie; the studying of DeSalvo as this monster living amidst the 'normalised' explored interestingly enough whilst the whole thing comes to climax with a harrowing self-exploratory reveal that is quite powerful.