Word: desalvo
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Without a dissenting vote, the Texas House of Representatives passed a resolution last week praising one Albert DeSalvo for "noted activities and unconventional techniques involving population control and applied psychology," which had made him "an acknowledged leader in his field." It also applauded his "dedicated devotion to his work." Introduced by Representative Tom Moore Jr. of Waco to demonstrate how thoughtlessly state legislators often vote on obscure and special bills, the resolution honored a man now serving a life sentence for armed robbery and assault-and more commonly known as the self-proclaimed "Boston Strangler...
According to defense experts, Jack Ruby was suffering from a "psychomotor variant" seizure when he killed Lee Harvey Oswald. But prosecution witnesses answered that Ruby's brain waves were "normal," with only "very slight" aberrations, not enough to suggest seizures. "Boston Strangler" Albert DeSalvo was an extreme schizophrenic under an irresistible impulse at the moment of his alleged crimes, defense witnesses said; the equally impressive prosecution allies testified that DeSalvo was suffering a "defect of character but not a psychosis...
...salesman" by the police, sheepishly confesses that he has slept with about 300 different women in the last six months. "My, you've been a busy little beaver," a detective quips. Not to be outdone, his sidekick adds, "Find out what diet he's on and have it mimeographed." DeSalvo himself becomes a deadpan comic--as deadpan as only Curtis can be. Posing as a plumber, he tells a victim that "you're on my list," to gain entrance into her apartment. And then, after his first on-screen assault begins, one can almost hear the cameraman calculating...
Once the comic opera and the skin scenes are out of the way, it's time to have the confrontation between DeSalvo and John Bottomley, the dogged law-professor-cum--special investigator, (Henry Fonda plus moustache) who has been commissioned to track the killer down. Aside from a brief interlude in which Bottomley confesses his secret worry--"I'm beginning to like this"--to his wife, the interrogation and, predictably and inevitably, the breakdown of DeSalvo takes place against a searingly white background. Once you've mulled for six or seven seconds over the symbolic significance of the white...
Throughout the interrogation, Fonda portrays Bottomley as a subtle mixture of priest and detective, probing DeSalvo to extract the confession that he wants. Unfortunately, the finesse in the interrogation ends there. The camera cuts in for overly searching closeups of Curtis, whose baggy faces droops a millimeter or two as he finally coughs up the secrets of his "other self." To let even the dullest know what's happening, a hand-held camera stumbles behind the strangler re-enacting--in the psychic presence of Bottomley--one of his slayings. A few multiple image projections here, as throughout the film, serve...