L'Étrangleur de Boston

Fictional account of the Boston Strangler--a maniac who killed about 12 women in the Boston area from 1962-1964. Most of the main actors just walk through their roles--Henry Fonda and George Kennedy especially. But Tony Curtis (who doesn't appear until an hour into the film) is surprisingly good as the strangler. Most people don't think of him as a good actor but as this and "Sweet Smell of Success" proved, he COULD give out a good performance. This was a very tricky role but he pulled it off. The last half hour especially--it's basically one long confession but he's excellent.

The film is exceptionally well-directed--the split screen is a bit disorienting at times but, ultimately, it helps the film. It keeps you on edge. It's also very interesting to see what Boston looked like in 1968. The only sour spot is there is some homophobia in the movie...but this does take place in '62-'64 and they did think the strangler was a gay man.

From what I've heard this film was not a big hit when released which probably explains why it took so long to get out on DVD. It's probably one of the best serial killer movies ever made and the multiple screens look great on DVD.

Well worth seeing if just for Curtis' performance.

This movie is pretty good. I'm glad I managed to catch it on AMC recently.I hope you can too. It has a great story, great acting and the great use of double screen. One scene that I like during the use of double screen is the scene were Albert De Salvo is being chased through the streets of Boston. Great use of double screen. Also a great use of sound.

Tony Curtis sure proved everybody wrong. Nobody thought he could do it and his performance was widely acclaimed. Great acting by Tony. Especially in the film's climax. Richard Fleischer had the right idea for picking Tony. One thing that I think is funny is that the real Albert De Salvo made a wallet for everyone but Curtis. Curtis said, "I guess he didn't like my performance." There is another film loosely based on the Boston Strangler called simply The Strangler. It's actor in the title role, victor Buono, was said by a reviewer to have made the real Boston Strangler proud. Too bad Tony didn't. But it doesn't matter. This movie is good and Tony is great. See this movie. Even though it might be a little hard because it's out of print.

Tony Curtis really showed his acting chops when he took on the most unlikely role of Albert DeSalvo the famous Boston Strangler of the early 1960s. Though he's only in the film literally for about half of it, what you see is a classic performance. Why he wasn't nominated for an Oscar, the Deity only knows.

13 women were found dead in the Boston area of manual strangulation and they were also sexually molested. Public concern was so great that the then Attorney General Edward Brooke, played by William Marshall, overrode local jurisdictions and prerogatives and assigned a lawyer from his office John Bottomly to coordinate the strangler investigation.

Henry Fonda plays Bottomly who takes the task on quite reluctantly because his expertise is civil litigation. My guess is that Brooke was thinking that Bottomly would be best for the job because he came in with no preconceived notions on how to do the job and would be open to anything. Turned out he was right.

Actually Fonda has more screen time than Curtis because the first half of the film concentrates on him and the investigation. He follows up every red herring thrown at him. He even hires a medium paid for with private funds by a millionaire friend of Brooke's played by George Voskevec who actually comes close in terms of geography to finding the real killer.

One of the red herrings is a gay man played by Hurd Hatfield who in those days before Stonewall was considered a likely suspect. He gets turned in by his landlady who is suspicious of his reading material. It's something he's used to, every time there's a lurid sex murder as an openly gay, or at least openly gay for that time he's brought in for questioning. This was one of the few times I ever heard the word gay used in a film made before the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969.

Curtis however dominates the film. The last 20 minutes or so is a final confrontation with him and Fonda and for those who are used to the insouciant leading man of swashbucklers and comedies, this is a real breakthrough. As much if not more of breakthrough than his part in Sweet Smell of Success.

In his memoirs however Curtis decries the fact that on this, the second of two films he worked with Henry Fonda on, he said that he found Fonda cold and forbidding as a person to work with.

The film is tautly directed by Richard Fleischer with some fine editing though I think Fleischer was a bit too fond of the split screen technique. Still it's a film worth watching.

It takes a lot of courage to take on a role as challenging as one of the most brutal serial murderers in United States history. Tony Curtis made you believe that he was Albert DeSalvo and he did it after years of playing the handsome leading man. He took a big chance and it paid off in some of the greatest reviews of his career, but when it came to an Oscar nomination, nothing. Tony Curtis is one of the greats in Hollywood. Too bad when he played the role of a lifetime the Academy forgot him. Also, Henry Fonda deserved a nomination for his role. This was probably one of the most intense roles of his career.

The other thing that made the film great was its innovative use of split screen. You pretty much got the creeps as you saw people living their ordinary lives on one side of the screen, while on the other side you saw the strangler stalking his victim. Also, I think that the director really did a good job by not really showing any of the attacks in progress, at least until the last one. This film truly was a great psychological thriller.

This highly fictionalized account of the Boston Strangler cases of 1962-1964 has some flashy direction by Richard Fleischer and boasts some great usage of multi images and split screens which is used to show, among other things, roommates going about some mundane household task in one screen while another roommate is shown laying murdered in another.

The film is divided rather neatly into two parts. The first half is a police procedural with a couple of colorful detectives checking out tips and equally colorful possible suspects as the victim count rises. Albert DeSalvo (Tony Curtis) is captured - and for that matter first appears - at the halfway point. The second half consists of a character study and psychological profile of DeSalvo as he is extensively interviewed and questioned by assistant D. A. John Bottomly (Henry Fonda).

The part about DeSalvo having multiple personality disorder as well as how he was caught is completely false, but the anecdote about the psychic was true - A psychic really was employed who gave a completely accurate description of a suspect in the case who also turned out to be totally innocent. This episode greatly embarrassed the attorney general.

Made the same year that the production code officially ended, it dealt with sex crimes quite frankly and in a way that would have been considered unthinkable just five years before. The supporting cast has a deep bench and includes George Kennedy, Sally Kellerman, William Hickey, Hurd Hatfield, Mike Kellin and in small roles people like Alex Rocco and James Brolin. If you can deal with a true crime film that has quite a few falsehoods in it for the purpose of dramatic license, I'd recommend this one.