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Two Boston Stranglers, One Psycho, and a Frenzy

posted a year ago by ecarle (14979)
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As I post this(May 2023), the Hulu Streaming channel is offering two approaches to the same subject: The Boston Strangler, a real life killer who terrorized Boston in the early 60's. Evidently, 13 murders were attributed to the Boston Strangler -- all women who lived alone(or with roomates gone at the time), some old, some young and ALL who opened their door to a man who showed up claiming to be representing the building superintendant to make repairs.

"The Boston Strangler" became a best selling non-fiction book in the mid-sixties(I remember the paperback sitting around the house and houses of friends' parents -- it was creepy looking, and even the author's NAME seemed creepy: Gerold Frank; it seemed like a misspelling out of order) and "prestige" 20th Century Fox movie in 1968. Tony Curtis famously played against type(and with a putty nose) to play Albert DeSalvo, the man chased, caught and put away as The Boston Strangler. Henry Fonda played the lawyer, John Bottomly, put in charge of the investigation and interrogating DeSalvo.

There is a book by John Gregory Dunne(brother of Dominick, partner of Joan Didion) called "The Studio" from the late sixties. In it , Dunne watches various movies go into production at Fox. One was "The Boston Strangler," and we have the REAL John Bottomly being told that Henry Fonda will be playing him; Bottomly asks "can't it be Gregory Peck?" and is told, "no our director wants Fonda and what he wants he gets."

The director was one Richard Fleischer, son of the cartoon mogul Max Fleischer and in the 60s , 70s and 80s the maker of everything from Fantastic Voyage to Dr Doolittle(both for Fox; they loved him) and from Mr. Majestyk(Charles Bronson) to Mandingo(race trash.) Plus Soylent Green(a lil' bitty classic of 1973 set in 2022!) and Amityville 3-D in the 80s. He was most famous perhaps for Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; but he did EVERYTHING.

The movie of The Boston Strangler was a "prestige production" with two fading stars(Fonda and a going-for-broke Curtis) and one new one (George Kennedy, newly Oscared for Cool Hand Luke as the Top Cop on the case, and rather the guy we most relate to in this movie -- Fonda is his usual robotic self and Curtis just can't really pull off his psycho.)

The film came out at the end of 1968 but I think right before the R rating officially arrived. Nonetheless it WAS a "new R" with the kind of fumbling, peek-a-boo approach to sex and nudity that the first batch of studio Rs had (see also The Detective, The Kremlin Letter, Secret Ceremony -- an X.)

The movie of "The Boston Strangler" had two problems: (1) The turning of RECENT sex murders of women into "entertainment" and (2) its stolid, clunky approach -- to avoid exploitation, they told this movie of a serial killer not as a thriller, but as a rather boring DRAMA, practically sucking all the suspense out of it.

Roger Ebert wrote "it is a well made movie that perhaps should not have been made at all." Fair enough -- all of the female victims were REAL PEOPLE. NYT critic Renata Adler(not there very long) went out of her way to attack the whole movie, start to finish, everything about it, with a rage that I expect came from her female perspective on the material.

I didn't see The Boston Strangler on release. It wasn't like "Psycho" as an actual FORBIDDEN film -- but it was one of those new R rated films, my parents had no interest in seeing it, just impossible for me to see.

So for a few years in the 70's, I watched the edited version of The Boston Strangler on the ABC Sunday Night Movie and (a) I was unimpressed and (b) they cut out any of the (not much) violence and nudity anyway.

Flash forward to 2023: Hulu has bankrolled a NEW movie called "Boston Strangler"(no "The" at the front) which shifts the viewpoint to two Boston FEMALE reporters and has only one scene (minor) for John Bottomly and barely lingers on DeSalvo once he is caught.

"Boston Strangler" is interesting in one particular way: only a few months ago a movie made it to theaters(briefly, I saw it in one) called "She Said," which was ALSO about two female newspaper reporters -- on the New York Times, who helped break the Harvey Weinstein case.

The team in "She Said" is two young ones(Zoe Kazan, so tragic and lovely in "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs"/Carey Mulligan, of Promising Young Woman and other movies.) The team in "Boston Strangler" is one "younger newbie"(Keira Knightly doing a Boston American accent) and one "older(but not old) veteran" (Carrie Coon.) Seeing the two movies only a few months apart, I could see how each one set out to show "women not getting respect from the men" but of course it is worse in the early 60s-set Boston Strangler(they keep getting called "the girl reporters" and Knightly has to fight her way out of a beat reviewing new kitchen toasters.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

The poster for "She Said" matches a photograph of Redford and Newman in "All the President's Men," I'm surprised no one picked up on that. "All the President's Men' haunts both She Said and Boston Strangler. But BOTH movies are also about "women avenging women." The Boston Strangler "goes all the way" and kills his victims; Harvey Weinstein's predation was not murderous but evil enough as it was. Both of these movies say: "Let the WOMEN help get these guys."

Boston Strangler uses Hitchcock's "they won't believe me!" formula(see: The Lady Vanishes) to build up a lot of suspense as reporter Knightly tries to convince her bosses AND the police that seemingly random murders of women are all linked to the same man: a serial killer IS terrorzing Boston, and the cops don't want to say that and the newspaper bosses don't want to force them to("I will not use this paper to attack the police" says a Top Boss.)

Eventually, "the girls" convince the cops and their bosses that there is a "Boston Strangler" and the movie heads to DeSalvo and then ends with its own twist(conjecture, evidently): some OTHER guys opportunistically HID their own killings of troublesome women AMONG the Boston stranglings.

All of which makes 1968's THE Boston Strangler a bit of a whitewash now. THAT movie says: Albert DeSalvo done 'em all.

Hulu went ahead and added the 1968 THE Boston Strangler AND the 2023 Boston Strangler on their menu. I watched both and its an interesting cruise through movie history really. Frenzy(which could be called The London Strangler) is most on point here but Psycho has a surprising role to play.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

"Psycho" enters in rather heavily in The Boston Strangler 1968:

About 2/3 of the way through, Tony Curtis as Albert DeSalvo is captured and placed in an all white futuristic cell with a two way window to be viewed like a gorilla in a zoo cage -- its all very Art Film and Kubrickian (1968 was, after all, the year of 2001) where a fair amount of interrogation by Fonda, unfortunate psychodrama and "acting out" by Curtis will occur to the end of the movie.

But first, a psychiatrist dutifully appears to brief Fonda on what makes Curtis tick:

"When the mind houses two personalities," the shrink opines, "there's always a conflict, a battle. In Albert's case, the battle is over, and the dominant personality has won."

Just kidding. The shrink does not say those WORDS, any of them. But he says pretty much exactly the same thing, expresses exactly the same theory. Also, the dominant personality has NOT won yet.

The shink warns Fonda that if he pushes too hard, probes too deep into Curtis' psyche, "He could collapse into a catatonic state. I've got of ward of them here."

The other difference: in The Boston Strangler 1968 , the shrink (who lacks Simon Oakland's bombastic flash -- this is a generic white haired guy who ALWAYS played doctors) points out that DeSalvo "has no idea of his killer personality." He literally commits the murders and never remembers doing it. And as with Norman, he "comes out of a deep sleep" to his normal self.

Now Norman always KNEW about the killer - but thought it was another person(Mother.) Albert does NOT know about the killer at all. Fonda's mission is to make "good Albert" recognize and confront "bad Albert"(uh oh -- they don't say THAT, either. Sounds like Fat Albert.)

This leads a several confrontations with Albert -- the scariest is when his wife and child are sent into the white room to meet him and Albert almost strangles the wife -- and then to a long stretch of "Fonda vs Curtis."

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Which is interesting, really. Fonda and Curtis had starred together in a fluffy 1964 RomCom called "Sex and the Single Girl"(which Fonda called "the worst movie I ever made; I fired my agent") but Fonda and Lauren Bacall were kind of support to Curtis and Natalie Wood.

Here, the girls are gone, everything's dead serious and it is interesting to see Henry Fonda put his decades long gravitas and seriousness of tone against a "toned down" Tony Curtis -- whose thick Bronx accent here seems to work against his attempt to play a Boston workingman psycho. Still, if "a movie star is a product," its hard to imagine two more DIFFERENT products on the same table as Fonda and the younger Curtis.

Fonda pushes and pushes and pushes Curtis to REALLY remember what he was doing on certain days, certain lunch hours, and why he has a big gash on his hand(bite marks from a victim who got away but could not identify him, played by Sally MASH Kellerman.)

And then we get the "big finish" of The Boston Strangler 1968, as Curtis "re-enacts" one of his murders, start to finish, in pantomime hand movements and some dialogue. We had seen the start of the murder -- Curtis grabbing a particularly pretty woman in her home - but the camera cut away. Now we "see" the crime, start to finish but "she's not there."

NYT critic Renata Adler found this sequence "ludicrous," and I have to agree. For all the chills of imagining a horrible murder that wasn't filmable even in 1968(the victim was a REAL PERSON), Curtis having to 'play act" the whole thing is more dumb than insightful, more silly than terrifying. Still, the movie ends with Albert now evidently aware that he is a monster. (He was sent away to an institution; his confession could not be used thanks to a plea deal.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

What director Richard Fleischer, the writers and the actor in The Boston Strangler fumbled in this final scene of Curtis strangling a victim without her being seen, a man named Alfred Hitchcock got RIGHT four years later when he filmed the key shock scene of Frenzy.

Sick as the Frenzy scene was, it was "couched" in elements that removed the grimness and silliness of Curtis' pantomime.

The victim -- Brenda Blaney -- is a fictional character. This isn't a real murder being depicted.

Actually SEEING the strangulation(after seeing a less graphic attempted rape) brings the act into focus and drops the "pantomime" idea.

Importantly: Hitchcock further couches his horrible rape-murder in all sorts of STYLE: the killer's MO isn't the banality of a workman knocking on the door; THIS psycho is a well-tailored, dapper, suave guy who is a CUSTOMER of Brenda Blaney's "Marriage Bureau" and only slowly reveals his true madness.

And of course, the motif of the necktie. Not in the source novel of Frenzy, not the Boston Strangler's MO. It is a measure of the sophistication of Frenzy that we understand that Brenda at first THINKS she will only be raped. Then she sees the tie and GETS IT -- its HIM! ("My God, the TIE!")

This is how -- even with unpleasant material -- Hitchcock with "Frenzy" turned "The Boston Strangler" elements into an entertainment. (And further couched those elements with comedy during the Oxford dinners and at Scotland Yard.)

The record shows that Hitchcock was actually OFFERED The Boston Strangler to direct, and turned it down. He probably knew it was all too grim for entertainment. But we can figure The Boston Strangler case informed his decision to make Frenzy and "borrow some elements."

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Indeed, this: As Hitchcock's final two "psycho thrillers," Psycho and Frenzy have some things in common, some things not. This is a "not": NOBODY knows about Norman Bates' murders until he is tracked, trapped and hauled in to the authorities. EVERYBODY knows about "The Necktie Strangler." He is in the press, a showboater with a motif and a nickname.

And there is this: The Necktie Strangler, like the Boston Strangler, only kills women, so men in the movie need not fear him and men in the audience aren't scared.

But Mrs. Bates killed a tough MAN(Arbogast) and thus men watching that movie COULD feel frightened. ("I could get killed even as a man.") That said, it seems that Norman/Mother only murdered women before then. These were sex crimes, too.

One last thing about The Boston Strangler 1968. 10 years later when Jamie Lee Curtis "debuted" (sort of) in the horror film "Halloween," her mother's famous shower was NOT the only thing mentioned. She was heralded as "the daughter of Janet Leigh, who was the victim of a psycho killer in Psycho, and Tony Curtis, who PLAYED a psycho killer as the Boston Strangler.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Segue to Boston Strangler 2023.

Big problem: the whole thing was photographed so DARK that one could barely see. I've also been watching a 2022 true crime short dramatic series on Hulu called "Candy" and IT is photographed so dark that one can barely see. In Boston Strangler 2023, at least they are trying to suggest Boston as a dark, dank, prison of a city to all who live and work there , but "Candy" was set in sunny TEXAS.

Digression: the same true crime story that "Candy" is based on is providing the premise for a 2023 short series on HBO Max called "Love & Death" -- not to be confused with "Love AND Death," the 1975 Woody Allen movie. I'm watching both series in alternating episodes. Soon the experiment will end. Candy is done in five episodes; Love & Death in 7. Its like watching Psycho and Van Sant's Psycho at the same time!)

But back to the main issue: both Boston Strangler 2023 and Candy are shot WAY TOO DARK and if that's a trend, it should end. A few years back many TV dramas used shaky cam even for dramatic scenes in offices. Now THAT is mercifully over. So let's nip this in the bud, eh? (It like critics all said about Clint Eastwood's movies: "Its like he forgot to pay his electric bill.")

If you can manage to actually SEE Boston Strangler 2023, you'll get the treat of Carrie Coon as the "senior partner" of the girl-reporter team(I kid.) I"ve seen Coon in a few things in recent years and I "like her style." She's in some ways an older looking, less sexy version of Aubrey Plaza. She's in some ways a younger looking, MORE sexy version of...Walter Matthau. Its that DEADPAN approach.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

We are shown in Boston Strangler 2023 the home life of both women and young Keira finds herself with a supportive husband who slowly gets LESS supportive as her career overtakes his and "somebody has to take care of the kids." Not to mention somebody making dirty phone calls to the house and death threats etc thanks to the Boston Strangler coverage. The movie makes that accidental case that sometimes "you can NOT do it all" and such couples better hire child care quick!

One motif that is quite terrifying that Boston Strangler 2023 affects for the murder scenes: they are almost all off-stage, and instead we are placed with isolated neighbors who HEAR muffled screams and noises next door and SEE their walls shake and photographs move on the wall as somebody is thrown against the wall. Then more muffled screams then nothing. The motif returns a few times and it is chilling and again, THIS Boston Strangler is no more an "entertainment" than the 1968 film. This is grim stuff.

Taking together The Boston Strangler 1968, Boston Strangler 2023, Psycho and Frenzy, I'm reminded that though one critic called Psycho "the sickest movie ever made" and surely Frenzy surpassed it...Hitchcock in undertaking fictional stories with style and set-pieces and "props"(the Haunted Mansion in Psycho; Covent Garden and its wheelbarrows in Frenzy) and removed some of the guilt that comes with watching a "true murder" story and being "entertained" by seeing real people killed(even in fiction).

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Psycho was rather tenuously based on the real crimes of Ed Gein, which were off the charts sick(and unfilmable) but Robert Bloch converted Gein's story into something stylish and Hitchcock refined it further.

Ed Gein didn't live in a Gothic mansion next to a motel he operated. Ed Gein surely didn't look like young beautiful Anthony Perkins. Ed Gein didn't kill a motel customer in her shower. Ed Gein didn't bury his victim's body in a swamp near the motel. Ed Gein was not approached by a wily private investigator and forced to engage him in a battle of wits -- and later kill him.
ALL of that was flavorful, fun MOVIE stuff.

The Necktie Strangler in Frenzy is compared to Jack the Ripper in the movie ("But 'e used to CARVE 'em up, didn't 'e?") -- which ties him in to Hitchcock's The Lodger -- and based on a few real British killers(John Christie and Neville Heath among them -- you could look it up.)

Indeed, the John Christie case was made into a movie released the year before Frenzy, as 1971's Ten Rillington Place. Richard Attenborough's John Christie was no flamboyant Bob Rusk, but rather a bald, mousy little man who nonetheless committed many sex murders and allowed the wrong man to hang.

And guess who directed "Ten Rillington Place"? Ta da ...Richard "The Boston Strangler" Fleischer. LLike The Boston Strangler, Ten Rillington Place is grim and realistic and no fun at all to watch. But good.

Still, Frenzy took the psycho banalities of John Christie and Ten Rillington Place and dressed 'em up: Covent Garden(all those worker bee men in aprons and caps); Neckties; Potatoes. And the dead-eyed realism of Ten Rillington Place was replaced with all those sound experiments and visual set-pieces in Frenzy, in the Hitchcock tradition.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) a year ago

[–] swanstep (2628) a year ago

Segue to Boston Strangler 2023.
Big problem: the whole thing was photographed so DARK that one could barely see.

The "underlighting of scenes" madness needs to end. We are agreed. The funny thing is that, back in the day, you could as a DP or as a film-maker be assured that almost all of your audience would see your show in a darkened cinema, i.e., under very close to ideal lighting conditions, but these days *most* people will see your work under *all sorts* of lighting conditions. If anything, then, things need to be shot with more light in the frame than they used to be.

That said, lots of problems also occur at the level of dvd/blu-ray presentation suggesting that preferences for different lightness and saturation levels and color standards are widely shared. A slightly obscure movie that I like to illustrate the problem with is The Tree of Wooden Clogs, a Cannes-winning, Italian peasant village drama from 1978 (which i first saw on VHS). That film was always famously very earthy/brown/and you could definitely see what was going on (no secrets in village life!). A typical interior (in a church) frame from the film as it's always looked:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/1/the_tree_of_wooden_clogs_blu-ray_/960_tree_wooden_clogs_tree_wooden_clogs_large_tree_wooden_clogs_clogs05_blu-ray_blu-ray_blu-ray.jpg

Enter Criterion's blu-ray:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film6/blu-ray_reviews_74/the_tree_of_wooden_clogs_blu-ray_/large/large_tree_wooden_clogs_04_blu-ray_.jpg

What does one even say to a change that big in (simultaneously) color, saturation, brightness?

[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) a year ago

You're a lot harsher on the 1968 Boston Strangler than I am. It's not amazing and the ending sequence is indeed ludicrous (the last title card made me roll my eyes too-- what moralistic tripe), but I thought at least 75% of it was a solid film and that Curtis did fine in the part (Fonda was phoning it in though). I particularly found its use of split screen interesting-- it's a gimmick Hollywood seemed fond of in a few 1967-1968 releases, but it does lend the movie some flair. Not a great film, but a minimum 7/10 title for me. (However, I'd much rather watch something like No Way to Treat a Lady, a way out there 1968 serial killer film with a wig-obsessed Rod Steiger. Not directed as colorfully, but then again, the characters and plot in that one are off the wall.)

I did hear about the new Boston Strangler via ads on IMDB. I like Knightley as an actress and I'm sure it's solid. There's just such a glut of movies out there that I never seem to have time to watch them all-- the perpetual burden of movie lovers everywhere.

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

But back to the main issue: both Boston Strangler 2023 and Candy are shot WAY TOO DARK and if that's a trend, it should end. A few years back many TV dramas used shaky cam even for dramatic scenes in offices. Now THAT is mercifully over. So let's nip this in the bud, eh?
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Ugh yes, all that is awful. I also hate the "run and gun" style that took over movies in the 2010s. Had a film professor who loved it and found it "gritty." No thanks. It ruined several movies for me, like The Bourne Ultimatum.

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Yes..what's terrible is, it seems like once SOMEBODY decides on a "visual style"(particularly in episodic television, with multiple episodes ruined)...it takes FOREVER for the powers that be to abandon it.

I saw Boston Strangler and Candy pretty much back to back so they "conspired to irritate me" with their dark invisibility. I give SLIGHT points for Boston seeming dank and claustrophobic but...movies were meant to be SEEN.

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

What director Richard Fleischer, the writers and the actor in The Boston Strangler fumbled in this final scene of Curtis strangling a victim without her being seen, a man named Alfred Hitchcock got RIGHT four years later when he filmed the key shock scene of Frenzy.
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I find Fleischer wasn't much of a thriller director anyhow. I liked his 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

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Its rather funny(maybe typical?) about how Fleischer's most famous hit(and kinda/sorta classic) came way back in the 50s -- 20,000 Leagues -- but he just kept on going for DECADES. He was entrusted with the big budget musical Doctor Doolittle, but later took the reigns of such dreck as Mandingo and Amityville 3-D.

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and the campy glory that is The Vikings

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I had a young friend who really liked that movie(on TV, this was even before MY time as a release). He also liked Marvel comics and Conan the Barbarian and felt that ONLY The Vikings really got their style. So...ahead of its time.

I like The Vikings for its positioning of Janet Leigh as the star of Psycho. Here she is with over the title billing, loving her real husband at the time(Tony Curtis) , fighting off rape from a villainous Kirk Douglas. With Ernest Borgnine along for the ride. A true camp adventure classic.

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(I saw the biblical drama Barabbas a long time ago, but remember almost nothing about it),

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All I remember is that Barabbas was always on the CBS Friday Night Movie, but I never watched it. I never watched MOST movies on the CBS Friday Night Movie or NBC Saturday Night at the Movies, or the ABC Sunday Night movie. But I watched the commercials FOR the movies! Actually, all of these series became more watchable as more current titles came on (True Grit and Butch Cassidy and Bullitt, etc.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

but both his thrillers I've seen (The Boston Strangler and See No Evil) are plagued with saggy middle acts and a lack of engaging characters.

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I remember that See No Evil was sold as "a thriller in the mold of Wait Until Dark" (Mia Farrow played blind) but...it was disappointingly minor and listless in comparision to that GREAT thriller of the 60s. I WANTED another Wait Until Dark but...no.

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I do like TBS a bit more than See No Evil, but both show how far Fleischer was from Hitchcock's level. Then again, few filmmakers are.

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I'm always of two minds about this. As an "in demand journeyman director," Richard Fleischer was evidently JUST as important to Hollywood studios in the 60s as Hitchcock, maybe moreso. Here was Fleischer being given important projects like Doctor Doolittle and The Boston Strangler while Hitchocck was playing in a minor key in Marnie, in Torn Curtain(even with big stars) and in Topaz.

And yet Hitchcock was HITCHCOCK. A big deal from the 20s through the early 60's, a famous person and TV star AND a better director(of style at least) than journeyman for hire Richard Fleischer.

I think this drove people in Hollywood nuts. Its one reason Hitchcock couldn't win Oscars. He was not really a "player" (RICHARD FLEISCHER was a player), but he kept being BETTER than the rest.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

You're a lot harsher on the 1968 Boston Strangler than I am.

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Oh, I guess I could revisit it. It is certainly EXACTLY of its time -- 1968 as the American studio film tried to grow up with the R and X rating. (Note in passing: it was 70's moviemakers who really knew what to do what that rating and sex -- Carnal Knowledge, Don't Look Now, Chinatown -- even a wacky modern Western called Rancho Deluxe comes to mind.) Same with the split screens.

An unfortunate advance: The Boston Strangler has scenes in which cops George Kennedy and Murray Hamilton interview gay men and lesbians -- it was now allowable -- but the scenes are condescending and Kennedy calls the men "fa--gots" in passing. It was R rated to be allowed to SAY that word, but it is not a word said anymore.

--It's not amazing and the ending sequence is indeed ludicrous (the last title card made me roll my eyes too-- what moralistic tripe),

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Old Hollywood meets Young Hollywood mores. I don't think it is much of a spoiler to reveal that DeSalvo was alive and in an institution when TBS came out, but killed in prison a few years later -- THIS is covered in the new Boston Strangler movie which goes past 1968 to the 70's.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

but I thought at least 75% of it was a solid film and that Curtis did fine in the part (Fonda was phoning it in though).

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I was never sure what to make of Henry Fonda's stardom. A pretty man when young(daughter Jane, and not son Peter, was his lookalike), a very handsome man when old -- a classic "movie star voice you can imitate"(like his pal James Stewart) and yet...I always just found him -- robotic. Its a word I chose early on and it has stuck. He MOVES like a robot. He TALKS like a robot...even when emotional. His stardom is clearly there -- a lot of classics on the resume. But just something about him. Also: he took off a lot of the 50's to work on the stage, was never much of a box office draw. Remember, Warners wanted William Holden or Marlon Brando to play Mr. Roberts.

As for Curtis here, I'm not sure its a BAD performance. It just seemed like he couldn't shake his "Tony Curtis stardom" (which was real; Tom Hanks was a big fan.) A pretty boy even with a fake nose on; that rather liquid and mushy Bronx accent. I suppose part of the problem is that Curtis didn't get to play his psycho for any cinematic fictional FUN. Think Tony Perkins in Psycho, Roberts Mitchum and DeNiro in Cape Fear, Alan Arkin in Wait Until Dark, Rod Steiger in No Way to Treat a Lady, Kathy Bates in Misery, even Barry Foster in Frenzy.

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CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

I particularly found its use of split screen interesting-- it's a gimmick Hollywood seemed fond of in a few 1967-1968 releases, but it does lend the movie some flair.

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Yes. Thomas Crown Affair from 68 also used it; then Brian DePalma TRIED to keep it going in the 70s and 80s.

I dunno. It seems "anti cinematic" to me. You cant keep your eyes on all the screens at the same time -- you MISS information.

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Not a great film, but a minimum 7/10 title for me.

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OK. It does capture a time and a place. By the way, the movie poster posed a great question: "Why did 13 Women Open Their Door to the Boston Strangler?" Great question. I can understand them opening the doors before word was out about a killer,, but once EVERYBODY knew about The Boston Strangler's MO, you'd figure they'd never open the door again. I guess those victims didn't read the paper or watch TV news.

Also: a few of the victims are shown letting the killer in to "repair things." But sometimes just the slight opening of the door allows him to ram his way in. THAT was him at his worst.

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(However, I'd much rather watch something like No Way to Treat a Lady, a way out there 1968 serial killer film with a wig-obsessed Rod Steiger. Not directed as colorfully, but then again, the characters and plot in that one are off the wall.)
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THAT one (from a novel by Wiliam Goldman), incorporated Portnoy's Complaint style New York Mother humor(via George Segal's Jewish cop and his mom) with Hitchcockian psycho horror -- fun enough, a tour de force for Steiger(in disguises to kill), a sexy Lee Remick(in see through nightie) for love interest...and the classic climax: Steiger comes to visit Remick -- can Segal save her in time?

CONT

[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) a year ago

I dunno. It seems "anti cinematic" to me. You cant keep your eyes on all the screens at the same time -- you MISS information.
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That is true, but I always kind of liked it. It creates a sense of "real time" in an odd, artificial way and reminds me of comic books-- the earliest use of it I can think of dates back to the silent era, in a 1913 thriller called Suspense, in which a housewife has to hide from a home invader. That only had three split screens in one scene and it was easy to follow. Thomas Crown and Boston Strangler were a bit more ambitious in their use and I suppose you could say they tried biting more than they could chew... but I still like the effect. I think it's interesting, though, yes, very gimmicky.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) a year ago

I think Fonda was great as the "straight man" in The Lady Eve with Barbara Stanwyck and I loved him in Young Mr. Lincoln, both of which were made when he was very young. I also liked him in his later, "noble individual" parts like 12 Angry Men and Fail-Safe. But I get being cold to him. My mom doesn't care for him either, much for the same reasons you give. In TBS, he's just... there. Like he was ready for his paycheck.

I guess his appeal was that he personified a "goodness within the everyman" ideal?
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As for Curtis here, I'm not sure its a BAD performance. It just seemed like he couldn't shake his "Tony Curtis stardom" (which was real; Tom Hanks was a big fan.) A pretty boy even with a fake nose on; that rather liquid and mushy Bronx accent. I suppose part of the problem is that Curtis didn't get to play his psycho for any cinematic fictional FUN. Think Tony Perkins in Psycho, Roberts Mitchum and DeNiro in Cape Fear, Alan Arkin in Wait Until Dark, Rod Steiger in No Way to Treat a Lady, Kathy Bates in Misery, even Barry Foster in Frenzy.
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I guess they opted out of "fun" because they wanted a docu-drama style, but I agree. He's not half as memorable as any of the performances you listed.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) a year ago

Oh, I guess I could revisit it.
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You don't really need to-- it's hardly a lost classic. I just found it "meh with some interest" rather than horrible.
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An unfortunate advance: The Boston Strangler has scenes in which cops George Kennedy and Murray Hamilton interview gay men and lesbians -- it was now allowable -- but the scenes are condescending and Kennedy calls the men "fa--gots" in passing. It was R rated to be allowed to SAY that word, but it is not a word said anymore.
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Ugh, I forgot about that part. Yes, that was terrible. Sadly common in films of that time (Valley of the Dolls from 1967 also loved the "f-g" slur).

It's interesting how movies in the late 60s revelled in their newfound freedom. Sometimes you got mature films and othertimes you got the cinematic equivalent of a 12 year old spouting out 4-letter words just because mom and dad aren't around.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) a year ago

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

I had a young friend who really liked that movie(on TV, this was even before MY time as a release). He also liked Marvel comics and Conan the Barbarian and felt that ONLY The Vikings really got their style. So...ahead of its time.
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Honestly, your friend was right.

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That guy saw the future! I saw him at a reunion a few years ago during Marvel madness and I told him: "You saw it all, man!"

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Especially when you read the old school Marvel comics of the 60s and 70s, they loved them some camp and melodrama (my sister collects old Iron Man comics and boy they can get as heated as any soap opera).

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And that's the thing. This friend of mine clung to movies like The Vikings as "the best we can get right now" to get some Marvel feeling(Thor comes to mind.)

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Ernest Borgnine is freaking awesome as that movie.

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As the lusty warrior dad of BOTH Douglas and Curtis(the latter courtesy of a conquest rape off sceen.)

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I treasure the scene where he leaps to his death with sword in hand, crying "ODINNNNNNN!"

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Odin. Odin! Thor!

You know, I was never entertained by Ernest Borgnine on the screen as much as by, say, Richard Boone, but let's face it: what a career. Bad guys(Fatso Judson.) Good guys(Marty -- Best Actor Oscar.) TV sitcom(McHale's Navy.) Violent classic(The Wild Bunch.) Mega blockbuster(The Poseidon Adventure.)

And...The Vikings. And...Willard. ("Look at all the RATS!") And...Ice Station Zebra...

What a career.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) a year ago

Don't forget Disney's attempt at Star Wars gold, The Black Hole. And then there's also Spongebob Squarepants, where Borgnine played recurring character "Mermaid Man."

I like Borgnine a lot. He's a damn treasure.

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Don't forget Disney's attempt at Star Wars gold, The Black Hole.

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I saw that movie in 1979 and I recall noting that two of the stars were Anthony Perkins and Yvette Mimieux, each introduced to us in the banner year of 1960 -- Psycho for Perkins; The Time Machine and Where the Boys Are for Mimieux -- and by 1979 they seemed sadly "out of date." Ah, the cruelties of Hollywood(but Perkins had Norman Bates waiting as an 80's/90's lifeline.)

The Black Hole ALSO starred Maximillan Schell(Best Actor of 1961 for Judgment at Nuremberg) and THAT fit with Perkins and Yvette, too.

I'm sure Ernest Borgnine made a movie or two in 1960, but he never really seemed to lose his star power like Perkins and Yvette did. Still, "The Black Hole" could qualify as a fine movie in 1959 -- it could have been cast the same, less Robert Forster.

And: The Black Hole was made under the auspices of the "old" underfunded, near-B studio Walt Disney Pictures. The transformation into a BIG studio was still years away.

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And then there's also Spongebob Squarepants, where Borgnine played recurring character "Mermaid Man."

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With Tim Conway as his sidekick voice -- a loving tribute to McHales Navy. About which. Borgnine did that silly sitcom for a few years(delighting American veterans with WWII nostalgia) and then CAME BACK as a more major movie star than before. The Dirty Dozen, The Wild Bunch, Poseidon...all AFTER McHale. Amazing.

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I like Borgnine a lot. He's a damn treasure.

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In his time, I took him for granted -- though sometime in the 80's and 90s, I noticed that a lot of his peers were dying off -- Richard Boone, Lee Marvin, Wild Bunch saddle buddy William Holden -- but the hefty Borgnine kept on working into his 90's(he gives me hope for overweight survival to that age. On the other hand, Borgnine was pretty rich, that keeps you healthy.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

And so, Ernest Borgnine is rather "reinvented" in my mind. I value him as a "bigger deal" in all those movies he did, whether as bad guy(Fatso Judson -- what a name) or good guy(Marty) or somewhere in between. I always felt that his character in The Wild Bunch MIXED Fatso(in his savagery towards innocents in his robberies) and Marty(in his loving buddy comradeship with Holden.)

Boone had more flash to his style, more flamboyance, more humor in his voice. But Borgnine's voice became identifiable over time, too, his body more hefty than "fatso."

BTW, there's a 1968 movie called "The Split" (based on one of those Parker novels) where Jim Brown comes to test the mettle of a bunch of great character guys to join his caper: Donald Sutherland, Warren Oates, Jack Klugman...and Ernest Borgnine.

To "test" Borgnine -- the owner of an LA gym -- Brown engages Borgnine in a sudden mano-y-mano fight all over Borgnine's office. There are some stunt guys mixed in, but Borgnine is believable as a guy who can give Jim Brown hell(as he did in Ice Station Zebra the same year.) Gene Hackman is also in The Split. Recommended.

This is the problem with Ernest Borgnine: there's always ANOTHER movie to remember, another scene. One-armed Spencer Tracy beating him up with karate in Bad Day at Black Rock. A ruthless movie producer in The Legend of Lylah Clare....a slow-witted worker stranded in the desert after a plane crash in Flight of the Phoenix. Oh..I'll stop.

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

I did hear about the new Boston Strangler via ads on IMDB. I like Knightley as an actress and I'm sure it's solid. There's just such a glut of movies out there that I never seem to have time to watch them all-- the perpetual burden of movie lovers everywhere.

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Yes. Especially with streaming.

Here is an example: I just started watching "Love & Death" on HBO Max -- it isn't finished yet, you can't binge it. But I learned that "Candy" last year is on Hulu NOW. Five episodes. Bingeable. So I watched "Candy." And now I'll watch the rest of "Love & Death" to contrast and compare("Love & Death is already the winner -- it wasn't shot in darkness like "Candy;" its clear as a best and has better overall production values.)

But here's the thing: I'm FINALLY watching "Candy" a YEAR after it was broadcast the first time. I catch up when I can.

"Candy" stars Jessica Biel(Vera Miles in "Hitchcock" about Psycho, on point) and I also found Biel on a crime series called "The Sinner" on streaming from even LONGER ago. Jessica Biel is the subject of Season One; Carrie Coon is the subject of Season Two -- and that series is from a few YEARS ago. Meanwhile, Carrie Coon is in "Boston Strangler" right now (2023.)

I catch 'em when I can catch 'em.

I have to give Hulu points for putting The Boston Strangler 1968 up for free right next to Boston Strangler 2023 on their menu. Compare and contrast. The two female reporters are not mentioned at all in the 1968 film, the cops are barely mentioned in the 2023 film. Put them together -- you MIGHT get the full story...

PS. The investigating officer in "Candy" is Justin Timberlake, Jessica Biel's husband in real life. I found it fun stunt casting.

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

I think Fonda was great as the "straight man" in The Lady Eve with Barbara Stanwyck and I loved him in Young Mr. Lincoln, both of which were made when he was very young.

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Yes, he made his stardom then, and his big speech in The Grapes of Wrath is the stuff of greatness. I GET his stardom, but he just seems to be so ..robotic..maybe only in movies he doesn't care about. But wait:

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I also liked him in his later, "noble individual" parts like 12 Angry Men and Fail-Safe.

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12 Angry Men is my favorite movie of 1957, Hitchcock's The Wrong Man is my favorite movie of 1956 and Fonda IS great in them. The robotic quality is there(moreso in 12 Angry Men, where his supercool calm seems calculated to play off Lee J Cobb and Ed Begley screaming away) but so is a lot of real emotion. He's WRENCHING in The Wrong Man, often without saying a word(Hitchcock liked it that way) even with his great voice. (Hitch tried to get Young Fonda for Saboteur and Lifeboat but failed.)

Fonda's duet with interpreter Larry Hagman(!) in Fail Safe is certainly "the President we wish we could have"(imagine our CURRENT crop in that scene). I guess I'll back off and note that Henry Fonda was mighty fine in certain great movies but...something just a bit off.

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But I get being cold to him. My mom doesn't care for him either, much for the same reasons you give. In TBS, he's just... there. Like he was ready for his paycheck.

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Yes. Maybe they should have granted the real lawyer's wish and cast Greg Peck!

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CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

I guess (Fonda's) appeal was that he personified a "goodness within the everyman" ideal?

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Sure, him and Jimmy Stewart , both. And yet Stewart could play "righteous rage" and Fonda famously played a sadistic child-killing outlaw in Once Upon a Time in the West(NOT his first villain -- that had been opposite Stewart in Firecreek two years earlier.)

Which reminds me: there's a 1970 pairing of Stewart and Fonda called "The Cheyenne Social Club" in which Jimmy inherits a frontier cathouse (a cross between Disney and Hefner) and saddle buddy Fonda comes along to help. Stewart wants to close the place down; Fonda rather likes the services. Stewart looks elderly and rages and flails and does his late Jimmy Stewart thing; Fonda looks handsome and cool and calm and partakes believably of all the girls in the house. A fun movie...to watch Fonda...not Stewart.

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Segue to Boston Strangler 2023.
Big problem: the whole thing was photographed so DARK that one could barely see.

The "underlighting of scenes" madness needs to end. We are agreed.

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You're an ally to have on this, swanstep!

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The funny thing is that, back in the day, you could as a DP or as a film-maker be assured that almost all of your audience would see your show in a darkened cinema, i.e., under very close to ideal lighting conditions, but these days *most* people will see your work under *all sorts* of lighting conditions. If anything, then, things need to be shot with more light in the frame than they used to be.

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Also agreed. I first started watching "Candy" in daylight and it was hard to see, so I turned it off and waited for darkness in the house and...it was STILL hard to see. The light in the room made no difference.

It works AGAINST the story when we see scenes of "suburban family dinners" (mom, dad, kids) in which everything is so dark you wonder how the kids can see their food!

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I know we have Gordon Willis as the "original Prince of Darkness" but the two main Godfathers managed to keep the faces visible and the rooms a mix of dark and color(brown, red.) But sometimes ol' Gordon bugged me too. I recently rewatched the 1975 Paul Newman detective film "The Drowning Pool" and Gordo photographed it gorgegously (in New Orleans) BUT seems to have been told to turn up the lights this time.

Clint Eastwood as a director ALSO dug on darkness("Didn't pay his electric bills" said the critics) and I daresay his "dark films" aren't as pleasing to watch as Don Siegel's well lit Dirty Harry (save the nighttime shots , where you can STILL see.)

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CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

On-topic contrast: one of my favorite series of shots in all movie history is "Arbogast in the foyer" in Psycho. Coming through the door, standing there, looking around. He is in a VERY scary room -- and it is VERY brightly lit. Which somehow seems to light him up as a target and victim. I would NEVER want to see that foyer in semi-darkness; it would NOT make the scene more scary. The foyer is very much a "movie room" to be enjoyed in all its clarity(the white curtains on the door behind Arbo; the fern to his left.)

When Van Sant re-staged Arbogast in the foyer in the remake, it was NOT dark(thank God) but it was DARKER, in color(browns and blacks), not quite as well-angled as in the original. Lighting was a BIT worse in the remake for the foyer.

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

"When the mind houses two personalities," the shrink opines, "there's always a conflict, a battle. In Albert's case, the battle is over, and the dominant personality has won."

Just kidding. The shrink does not say those WORDS, any of them. But he says pretty much exactly the same thing, expresses exactly the same theory. Also, the dominant personality has NOT won yet.

The shink warns Fonda that if he pushes too hard, probes too deep into Curtis' psyche, "He could collapse into a catatonic state. I've got of ward of them here."

--
A detour here:

When TBS went into this discussion and Tony Curtis started enacting his "battle" with his other personality, I started thinking: honestly, after all these years, do we really BELIEVE that split personalities are a thing?

We just had an M. Night movie a few years ago called "Split" that thought so.

But you know, David Thomson in his 2010 50-th anniversary book called "The Moment of Psycho" basically called out the split-personality twist as "rigamarole" and said he didn't think even Hitchcock believed in it.

Well, that seemed ridiculous. Hitchcock AND THE MOVIE believe in the split personality twist and it was up to us to believe it too.

But what about real life? There seem to be lots and lots of modern murderers acting like "split personalities" when the cops haul them in; psychiatrists have to figure out if its real or not. (Haven't there been some MOVIES where the killer faked a split?)

I think we have two real-life cases -- both filmed -- where the subjects had non-killer splits: The Three Faces of Eve and Sybil. True stories? I've never read enough on them to know.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Which brings us back to the Boston Strangler. The 1968 movie posits a split -- "good Albert" has "bad Albert" inside him. It was evidently enough to get a confession out of him that was NOT usuable in court, but his behavior put him away for other reasons.

I honestly don't think we will ever have a definitive answer on "real" split personalities.

But they sure have been good for the movies!

[–] telegonus (728) a year ago

My favorite movie with a Boston Strangler motif is the low budget 1964 Victor Buono vehicle (as it were) The Strangler. It was very well made, set safely in L.A., thus not having to be held "accountable" for mimicking the Boston case; and overall, it worked for me, and time had been kind to it. Buono's playing of the title role is Master Class.

If Allied Artists been able to find a better director for the film, which is, for what it is, quite well made, they might have had a cult classic on their hands, and Buono enjoyed a better than "novelty" career. The quality of the work he got declined in the second half of the 60s. My sense is that he did have star quality, and with careful handling enjoyed greater success as a character star.

[–] roger1 (2445) a year ago

My favorite movie with a Boston Strangler motif is the low budget 1964 Victor Buono vehicle (as it were) The Strangler. It was very well made, set safely in L.A., thus not having to be held "accountable" for mimicking the Boston case;

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It occurs to me that The Strangler was likely well within the timeframe of the Boston murders but...so apart from the reality of it all that neither the public nor the critics got the connection.

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and overall, it worked for me, and time had been kind to it. Buono's playing of the title role is Master Class.

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It has often been noted that Norman Bates in Robert Bloch's 1959 novel is quite an overweight man. Rod Steiger has been suggested for proper casting but...perhaps Victor Buono could have done THAT version of Norman as well. Alas, then Norman would have lost the sympathy of the audience (and the motherly lustful love of female audience members) that Tony Perkins brought to the role (Hitchcock eschewed the heavy guy from the book and SAW Perkins in the role, having long wanted him in a picture.)

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If Allied Artists been able to find a better director for the film, which is, for what it is, quite well made, they might have had a cult classic on their hands,

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There are a lot of "Psychos" made in the 50s and 60's -- but not by great directors like Hitch(or good ones like Robert Aldrich) and hence...they are lost to us as not much more than Bs.

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and Buono enjoyed a better than "novelty" career.

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He was a "go to" TV series villain in the 60's -- I loved his Count Manzeppi(twice) on The Wild Wild West, and he was King Tut on Batman. I'm sure he did The Man From UNCLE, too.

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CONT

[–] roger1 (2445) a year ago

The quality of the work he got declined in the second half of the 60s.

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He did two good things in 1972 that I remember:

A TV movie called "Goodnight My Love" with Richard Boone. Boone and Buono's fellow WWW villain Michael Dunn(a witty little person), played a Mutt and Jeff team of 40's private eyes in LA. Buono played the Greenstreet role, quite nicely in a white suit.

And a movie-movie called "The Wrath of God" with Robert Mitchum. It was a rather cult period action movie set in ...South America? Mitchum formed a "mini-magnificent seven" with Buono and some other guy; Buono went out in a blaze of glory, saving the day.

But that's all.

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My sense is that he did have star quality, and with careful handling enjoyed greater success as a character star.

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Well...he could have been another Sydney Greenstreet. (His voice, BTW was great...it could sound in Shakespearean elegance and then suddenly coarsen into a New Yawk squawk.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 10 months ago

Ecarle is also roger1 due to computer issues.