Take My Breath Away
***This Review Contains Spoilers***
I’ve seen some films in which I’ve had to patiently wait for the main star to show up; The Boston Stranger may be the record holder in this category. It takes 57 minutes of a 116-minute film for Tony Curtis to appear.
The extensive use of split screen present in The Boston Strangler intrigues me, appreciating the planning and the huge sets of extra reels which must have gone into creating the effect. It’s not an afterthought and helps derive suspense with sequences in which each individual frame features a minimal number of cuts such as sequences which highlight the successful techniques that Albert DeSalvo (Tony Curtis) uses in order to get into victims homes and escape without detection (watching Curtis get into an apartment with ease by claiming to be a plumber sent by a super really gets under your skin). This voyeuristic style of filmmaking allows the viewer to see different perspectives on the same space, such as in a more creative instance in which we see the perspective of a TV camera which appears in the frame right next to it. On the other hand, many of the transitions and framing do come off as something a film student would do, although the attempt is early and more than admirable so I’ll give it a pass (for a flawless attempt use of split screen watch Twilight’s Last Gleaming).
The Boston Strangler is a dirty, grimy looking film full of explicit, sexual language set in an underworld of creeps and perverts while the police view homosexuality as a perversion, interviewing suspects on the basis that they are gay (“This kind of mutilation goes with the queer”). The film even plays out like a documentary at times as we see the effects the murders have on the public. The Boston Strangler was Henry Fonda’s second cop film of 1968 alongside with Madigan and along with the latter we see a world in which men still wear suits and fedoras on their daily jobs, something which isn’t present just a few years later in the likes of Dirty Harry or Serpico.
The Boston Strangler is a slow-moving film but one which is rewarding for the patient. The final third becomes very arty without coming off as pretentious and the ending in which Fonda calls out “Albert!” amongst the silence is chilling. I do have a soft spot for old mental illness dramas even if the science presented in them is out of date or disputed; if anything that’s part of their charm.
Sat In Your Lap 