In early Sixties Boston, a series of murders lead police to believe they are on the trial of a serial killer.
I found it impossible to watch this movie without thinking about Zodiac.
This film is effectively the opposite of Fincher’s masterpiece.
Where that film takes pains to show the fallibility of the system, the limits of human memory, and the relentless passage of time.
By contrast, The Boston Strangler takes dramatic licence to shape the story toward a bleak but definitive close.
Like The Thomas Crown Affair, which was released the same year, it is notable for its use of split screen.
The technique largely takes the place of montage - conveys the size of the investigation (e.g. rounding up various sex offenders).
The split screen technique recedes as the film proceeds - as does its effectiveness and purpose.
Playing against type as Albert DeSalvo, the man convicted of the murders, Tony Curtis finally appears onscreen about midway through the story .
The knock on Curtis is that he could not act (being dubbed by Paul Frees in Some Like It Hot) but I never bought this line.
I enjoyed his performance - there is an understatement, a sense of simmering rage and fear to his performance that works to the film’s downbeat tone.
Even in his big scene, Curtis does not go for big histrionics. He is small and internal.
But while Curtis is excellent, it is this section of the film where it unravels - and where the comparison to Zodiac is most important.
The flaw is the attempt to build DeSalvo as having a split personality.
The final scene is powerful, as Henry Fonda’s idealistic Bottomley crossed his own ethical line to get Albert to confess.
The stakes are that he knows he is going to break Albert psychologically. While overtly about forcing the killer to confront his alternate persona, the real darkness is the idealist realising his own lack of scruples for the greater good.
It is an intriguing idea, even if it is based on bunk science.
Where is the line between honouring the truth of the events and dramatic licence?
Whereas Zodiac favours the former, The Boston Strangler is determined to ignore the limitations of investigative technologies and contemporary mistakes, and wedge this tragedy into a conventional narrative form.
Albert’s hallucinogenic blurring of realities is still disturbing and visually stunning.
But it is ruined by the postscript which appears onscreen to offer a definitive conclusion to DeSalvo’s story, and a firm resolution of the mystery. This onscreen text is tipped over into obnoxiousness when it ties improving mental health services to reducing violent crime.
Despite its surface attempts at realism, The Boston Strangler is a fundamentally conventional crime story.
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