This 1968 big screen crime drama blends documentary style storytelling with highly polished momentum detailing the story of THE BOSTON STRANGLER.
Much like his film "Fantastic Voyage" two years before, Director Richard Fleischer visually assaults you with sliding split screens, drawing your eye all over the screen as he shows scenes from different angles or multiple events at the same time.
The same year saw "The Thomas Crown Affair" with this same style that film buffs will note Brian de Palma adopted for many of his thrillers in the 70's and 80's.
Henry Fonda is a special prosecutor assigned to coordinate multiple cities efforts to capture the serial killer. The strangler's access to many women's apartments even after the city is on high alert baffles the police.
George Kennedy (Airport, Cool Hand Luke) is great as the lead Boston detective on the case, even if his accent comes and goes like the wind.
Tony Curtis appears halfway into the film as killer Albert DeSalvo, a lethal, unstable man living two lives and ramping up his seemingly random murders across the city.
This true story is well told, like a perfect Dateline episode brought to life by one hell of a cast.
Five decades have not been kind to some of the attitudes toward sexual diversity on display, but its very much of its time.
Murray Hamilton (Jaws) is very good and Sally Kellerman (M*A*S*H*) brings real power to a victim of DeSalvo's that may prove to be his undoing.
Curtis was never better in a role than he is here in a part that was originally offered to Robert Redford and Warren Beatty.
It's dated but visually clever, well acted all around and pretty suspenseful until it slides into a bit too much detail on Fonda's post arrest interviews with Curtis.
I'll give it a B-.
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