Word: strangler
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FILMING PARTS of The Boston Strangler in Cambridge last spring created a minor diversion to spark up the otherwise dull life of many a resident of the City. Middle-aged men and women gathered around a small drugstore near the eastern end of Cambridge St. to vie for walk-on parts in the film, strolled past Simeone's for a glimpse of Tony Curtis slurping a plate of spaghetti, and gossiped endlessly about the trial of a self-confessed strangler--Albert DeSalvo--in an East Cambridge courtroom. But now that the completed film blares out on the screen...
Some call the film "tasteful." Granted, it refrains from showing the strangler's work in all the gory details, but an honest camera shot of one of the corpses would be preferable to the straightfaced but inwardly leering remarks of the police officers who discover the bodies. After an hour, one is thoroughly tired of the discovery scenes, the interviews with terrified old ladies, and the slapstick arrests of suspects seemingly chosen at random from the sexual underground by Boston police...
Joking, frequently punning, becomes an obsession in the dialogue, not to relieve tension or to underline the callousness present in those following the strangler, but simply, it seems, to flesh out a weak plot with vaudeville routines that would have left the Old Howard crowd stone cold. One suspect, a wholesale grocer who is termed a "pickle 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...
...Although Defense Attorney F. Lee Bailey admitted in court that DeSalvo was the strangler, DeSalvo's new attorney has denied it, and recently requested an injunction to block the film's release because his client might suffer irreparable harm. A federal judge denied the request...
...Boston Strangler should have been as fascinating to view as it was to read, but the film is afflicted with its own kind of split personality. Early on, Director Richard Fleischer opts for the comic touch, in the style of No Way to Treat a Lady. A parade of men's room queens, peepers and certified nuts pass in review, and the film mocks them all. But after it has squeezed its last smirks from a lisping fetishist who makes love to women's handbags, the movie abruptly shifts direction. The downhill half is a quasi-documentary, reminiscent...