The Boston StranglerWhat undesirable or monstrous sides of our personalities do we repress, and what evil is wrought when they spring forth? Directed by Richard Fleischer, The Boston Strangler is a procedural and psychological thriller adapted from the novel of the same name by Gerold Frank. It is about the hunt for one of the most infamous serial killers--dubbed "The Boston Strangler"--and the subsequent capture of Albert DeSalvo (Tony Curtis) at the hands of a special task force, reluctantly managed by attorney named John S. Bottomly (Henry Fonda). Despite circumstantial evidence linking Albert to the murders of thirteen women, he claims that he has no memory of the killings, leading to the implication that he suffers from multiple personality disorder.
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The Boston Strangler plays out like a story "ripped from the headlines", alternating between the killings and the subsequent police investigations; DeSalvo's story only emerges at the halfway point. Blood and gore is usually implied, and the specifics of the sexual assaults are speculated upon out loud by the detectives on the scene. Yet the ubiquitous presence of sex and violence gives The Boston Strangler the feel of a lurid tabloid--focusing on exploitative elements befitting the kind of salacious journalism that entices its readers by highlighting the provocative elements of the killings. Exploitation is a central theme in The Boston Strangler; consider how Bottomly chooses to extract a confession from DeSalvo. After a moment of deep introspection, Bottomly shares in confidence that he feels guilty about it because he enjoys exploiting his position at that moment, and considers it like a "game". John is depicted as a by-the-book attorney, and is "challenged" by his boss--the Massachusetts Attorney General, Edward W. Brooke (William Marshall)--to head up a task force intended to coordinate the disparate police jurisdictions in and around Boston in their hunt for the killer. The key members of John's inner circle includes several other detectives who have been investigating the Strangler, including Detective Phil DiNatale (George Kennedy) and Sergeant Frank McAfee (Murray Hamilton). They spend substantial time pounding pavement, investigating an assortment of documented sex offenders and homosexuals, and arranging sting operations to entrap potential suspects. The extensive manhunt which makes up the first half of The Boston Strangler is designed to underscore the "needle in a haystack" difficulties and false alarms triggered while trying to find the elusive killer. These varied scenes include walk-ons by many actors, like Hurd Hatfield as an antique collector accused of being the killer by a spurned lover, and Alex Rocco as a detective who manages the crime scene of one of the victims.
Although the plausibility of the investigations to catch the killer and get DeSalvo to confess are questionable at times, The Boston Strangler focuses on style and tone, especially in the film's signature "split-screen" compositing, which shows the action from different angles simultaneously. This heightens the tension when one frame depicts an as-of-yet-undiscovered victim, and the other shows the unfortunate people about to make the horrible discovery. The split-screen style is also reminiscent of a graphic novel or horror comic book, and this unorthodox presentation makes the perverse tableaux of sexual assaults and murders more unsettling. In a move is reminiscent of Orson Welles's fashionably late appearance in The Third Man, Albert DeSalvo doesn't even show up until the midway point; before this, the audience is as much in the dark as to the identity of the killer as the police. (This tactic appears to have inspired the similarly belated reveal of Kevin Spacey's John Doe in the procedural thriller, Se7en.) The Boston Strangler deliberately avoids revealing Albert as a brutal killer or crazy; instead, he is introduced as a family man somberly watching the burial of John F. Kennedy, genuinely moved by theevent. The first inkling that something is wrong with Albert comes after he is driving to clear his head, and catches sight of a nude mannequin--the film's frame narrows on his eyes, and he subsequently visits a woman while posing as a repairman; she quickly becomes the next victim. The Boston Strangler subverts the audience's expectations by avoiding any suggestion of an alternate personality at work--Albert might just be a devious predator. A lingering details that bothers the police is how the Strangler is able to gain entrance into the apartments and kill his targets, despite the public's high level of caution. Albert is a handyman, and he gains the trust of almost all of his victims because he also doesn't push the point following their initial resistance at letting a stranger into their homes. Ironically, this is what often leads to admittance--most people expect that a psycho killer wouldn't be so quick to accept their refusal. Albert's brand of insanity is such that he is completely unaware of the killer inside of him, and only becomes suspicious after he sees himself in the mirror, tying one of his victims, Dianne Cluny (Sally Kellerman), to her bedposts in his signature knot with the tatters of her polka dot dress. He tries to break into an apartment--wrongly thinking his would-be victim was alone--prompting her husband to race out and chase him down, which gets him arrested. Albert contends that he never tried to break into the apartment, meaning either he is a terrible liar or crazy. The presiding judge rules in favor of the latter, which gets Albert committed, and in a serendipitous break in the case, he crosses paths with Bottomly and DiNatale. The final act of The Boston Strangler is a psychological journey for Albert--with John along for the ride--where he is confronted by the darkness inside him that he didn't even know was there, through a vivid and symbolic series of sequences, building to a final, chilling shot that shows the high cost of facing down the evil within.
Recommended for: Fans of a stylish thriller and true crime procedural that begins as a manhunt and ends as a journey into the mind of a killer. The Boston Strangler uses its split-screen visuals to add an extra dimension to the psychological impact of a city on edge, and puts the audience in the skin of the killer himself.
Although the plausibility of the investigations to catch the killer and get DeSalvo to confess are questionable at times, The Boston Strangler focuses on style and tone, especially in the film's signature "split-screen" compositing, which shows the action from different angles simultaneously. This heightens the tension when one frame depicts an as-of-yet-undiscovered victim, and the other shows the unfortunate people about to make the horrible discovery. The split-screen style is also reminiscent of a graphic novel or horror comic book, and this unorthodox presentation makes the perverse tableaux of sexual assaults and murders more unsettling. In a move is reminiscent of Orson Welles's fashionably late appearance in The Third Man, Albert DeSalvo doesn't even show up until the midway point; before this, the audience is as much in the dark as to the identity of the killer as the police. (This tactic appears to have inspired the similarly belated reveal of Kevin Spacey's John Doe in the procedural thriller, Se7en.) The Boston Strangler deliberately avoids revealing Albert as a brutal killer or crazy; instead, he is introduced as a family man somberly watching the burial of John F. Kennedy, genuinely moved by theevent. The first inkling that something is wrong with Albert comes after he is driving to clear his head, and catches sight of a nude mannequin--the film's frame narrows on his eyes, and he subsequently visits a woman while posing as a repairman; she quickly becomes the next victim. The Boston Strangler subverts the audience's expectations by avoiding any suggestion of an alternate personality at work--Albert might just be a devious predator. A lingering details that bothers the police is how the Strangler is able to gain entrance into the apartments and kill his targets, despite the public's high level of caution. Albert is a handyman, and he gains the trust of almost all of his victims because he also doesn't push the point following their initial resistance at letting a stranger into their homes. Ironically, this is what often leads to admittance--most people expect that a psycho killer wouldn't be so quick to accept their refusal. Albert's brand of insanity is such that he is completely unaware of the killer inside of him, and only becomes suspicious after he sees himself in the mirror, tying one of his victims, Dianne Cluny (Sally Kellerman), to her bedposts in his signature knot with the tatters of her polka dot dress. He tries to break into an apartment--wrongly thinking his would-be victim was alone--prompting her husband to race out and chase him down, which gets him arrested. Albert contends that he never tried to break into the apartment, meaning either he is a terrible liar or crazy. The presiding judge rules in favor of the latter, which gets Albert committed, and in a serendipitous break in the case, he crosses paths with Bottomly and DiNatale. The final act of The Boston Strangler is a psychological journey for Albert--with John along for the ride--where he is confronted by the darkness inside him that he didn't even know was there, through a vivid and symbolic series of sequences, building to a final, chilling shot that shows the high cost of facing down the evil within.
Recommended for: Fans of a stylish thriller and true crime procedural that begins as a manhunt and ends as a journey into the mind of a killer. The Boston Strangler uses its split-screen visuals to add an extra dimension to the psychological impact of a city on edge, and puts the audience in the skin of the killer himself.