Underplayed Gems

The Boston Strangler (1968)

The Boston Strangler poster
Directed by
Richard Fleischer
Genre
drama film, biographical film, docudrama, crime film, LGBTQ-related film
Country
United States
Runtime
1h 56m
Rated
R
Rating
6.7 of 10 from 253 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More films like thisWatch the trailer

or watch the trailer on YouTube

How it feels

This film follows the investigation into a series of murders in 1960s Boston. It focuses on the police detectives trying to catch the killer and the man who later confessed to the crimes.

tenseclinicalominousmethodicalgrittyuneasydeliberatedocumentary-like

What happens

The Boston Strangler is a 1968 American biographical crime thriller film directed by Richard Fleischer, based on the true story of the Boston Strangler and the 1966 non-fiction book The Boston Strangler by Gerold Frank. It stars Tony Curtis as Albert DeSalvo, the man who eventually confessed to being the Strangler, Henry Fonda and George Kennedy as lead investigators John S. Bottomly and Phil DiNatale, and Sally Kellerman as the composite character Dianne Cluny, one of the strangler's surviving victims. The cast also features Mike Kellin, Murray Hamilton, Hurd Hatfield, Jeff Corey, William Marshall, George Voskovec and William Hickey. The film is one of four directed by Fleischer that are based on real-life murder cases—The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955), based on Harry Kendall Thaw; Compulsion (1959), based on the Leopold and Loeb case; and 10 Rillington Place (1971), based on John Christie. It posits DeSalvo—the suspect who confessed to being the Strangler while in police custody—as being the perpetrator, and suffering from dissociative identity disorder (DID). In reality, the validity of DeSalvo's confession was disputed and later recanted, and he was never diagnosed with DID. The Boston Strangler was released in the United States on October 16, 1968, by 20th Century Fox. It was a box-office success, grossing more than $17 million, but received mixed reviews from critics, with several deriding it as an exploitation film that feature a number of inaccuracies in its depiction of the actual crimes and of DeSalvo. Curtis was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Drama. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.