People are voting emotionally.

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Hard-hitting when it was first released, "The Boston Strangler still remains an effective experience more than forty-five years after it was made. It is perhaps inevitable that there are a few elements that may be considered dated by some viewers. Though the movie got an "R" rating back in 1968, by today's standards the movie would get a PG-13 rating, maybe even a PG rating - which may not satisfy some viewers accustomed to stronger stuff. There are some slurs against homosexuals that are not very politically correct. And the movie's portrayal of the Boston public often makes the viewer feel that Bostonians were not in such a great panic during the murder spree when they surely were.However, the movie still has enough merit to impress modern day viewers. Though director Richard Fleischer does not sensationalize things and portray the murders as horrific as they were, the low key feel of the movie more often than not gives the movie a much more realistic edge. The police investigation is shown correctly to be a lot of hard and tedious work. Also, Fleischer's occasional use of multi images and hand held camera-work gives the movie an almost documentary feeling.The second half of the movie - when the Strangler is captured and dealt with - is also interesting because we get to see a serial killer who is not a raving maniac. We get to see someone who is truly sick and doesn't seem to realize it. In fact, the viewer may almost start to feel sorry for this pathetic criminal. Much credit for this has to go to Tony Curtis, who manages to switch his character from one believable personality to another with no stress or strain right to the end. The ending, by the way, is very powerful because it leaves the viewer hanging; "What now?" is the question that is asked. It's a question that can't be easily answered.

Surprisingly, the movie's neither gory nor especially violent, except for one segment. It is, however, chilling to the bone. Serial killer DeSalvo (Curtis) is really two dissociated personalities inhabiting one body. On one side is the ordinary blue-collar family man; on the other is a gruesome strangler of women. The odd thing is that the one time we see the killer, his low-key personality seems not too different from that of the family man. I guess I was expecting a Jekyll and Hyde. But that's definitely not the case, which makes the outcome even more unnerving. Curtis delivers a finely calibrated, low-key performance as DeSalvo, resisting temptation to over emote. Instead, he registers DeSalvo's inner state through twitches and quick grimaces. These understatements hint chillingly at an inner turmoil, in which the family man slowly comes to realize a second, unknown personality abiding murderously within. These flashes of self-recognition are very well done, pulling us along with the star-crossed DeSalvo.The movie itself comes in two parts. The first part concentrates on police pursuit of the killer as the bodies pile up. Nothing much happens, but interest is kept up by the colorful suspects that are pulled in. The second part is mainly DeSalvo and the effort to bring out his suppressed side, which a head doctor assures investigator Bottomley (Fonda) is lurking within. On the distaff side, Sally Kellerman delivers a wrenching turn as one of the victims. If the movie has a short-coming, I would think it's the otherwise anonymity of his many victims. Unfortunately, we know very little about them, except as cadavers. Then too, I'm no fan of split-screen, a frequent source of distraction. Here, however, the technique is used sparingly.All in all, it's a riveting film, made more so by the career central performance. Clearly, Curtis is a long way from the pretty boy fluff.(In passing—DNA evidence eventually incriminated DeSalvo in one of the murders though the other 10 remain officially unsolved. The killings however stopped after his arrest, and authorities have no doubt he was responsible for all of them. In 1973, he was stabbed to death by another prisoner.)

THE BOSTON STRANGLER.What a great film.I only watched this movie because it is based on a true story about a serial killer in America. I am fascinated with serial killers anyway, i am interested in what makes them kill, what makes them not care about human life.This film was really well made. The effects were not great... when Tony Curtis was driving his car, you could see so easily that he was not actually driving the car... but then this film was made in 1968... they didn't have the special effects that we have now.The story was good... it is about Albert DeSalvo. He was convicted of rape and sentenced to life imprisonment. He also confessed to the murder of 13 women...Tony Curtis did a fantastic job playing DeSalvo. He was believable. The movie also starred Henry Fonda and George Kennedy who also did a great job.The film had some really nice shots in it... a lot of the film was split screen with 2 or more pictures on the screen playing at the same time. It was really well done, but I did find that if there were about 4 or more pictures at once, it was difficult to see everything that was happening.Obviously, this is a movie based on a true story... so I don;t know hoe much of it is true and how much is made up... but it was a very entertaining movie and really well made.I will give this film 8 out of 10.I really liked it, and would watch it again.To read more of my reviews, please like my Facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ordinary-Person-Movie- Reviews/456572047728204?ref=hl

The Boston Strangler nestles nicely into a small canon of films of around about the time it was made looking at the notion of a pathological killer as an example of an immensely disturbed person, with an unbalanced psychosis, rather than a mere monster of an uncanny variety killing because it's apparently in their primal nature. Like Hitchcock's Psycho eight years before it, Richard Fleischer's The Boston Strangler is a serial killer film about such a person living locally; living normally or even, as the saying goes, "living next door". The film is a scary and unnerving ride at the best of times, an attempt at a police procedural thriller on top of a disturbing tale of a man already under and on his way further down. Like Hitchock's masterful work before it, the film takes its cue from a true to life tale; but where Psycho was, we're told, inspired by the events of a certain Ed Gein, Fleischer's work here is more an authentic retelling of a true story – a feeding off of the real case of a certain Albert DeSalvo whom molested and strangling women of varying ages during the 1960s within the titular Massachusetts city. Furthermore in addition to Psycho, the film is particularly interested in the notion of duality or the item of dual personas within somebody and while it doesn't hit the levels Psycho did in its thriller sub-genre roots, The Boston Strangler is a substantial and interesting enough piece of work by itself.The film begins with somewhat of a national celebration of some astronauts whom have returned to Earth and have been granted a parade, an item of national pride or celebration of achievement which is eerily inter-cut with a break in at an apartment which comes with a sordid murder of a woman as well. The sequence sees the film highlighting a nation's want or lust to progress scientifically, as experimentations in space travel appear to unfold with rapturous enthusiasm without realising there are certain other fields, namely human psychology, more closer to home that need just as much exploration; attention and breaking through of – the science of what's going on 'down here' highlighted as just as important as the science in trying to advance 'up there'. Several more murders happen, the film going onto document a state's ill informed reaction to such things by rounding up crooks; freaks; fetishists; ex-cons; homosexuals and other people of a generally 'ill' or unbalanced ilk. An emphasis on one of these sorts of people surely guilty of the on-going murders is established, the film's thesis coming to highlight the incorrect assumption past ideals might have resembled.The guilty party on this occasion is the late Tony Curtis' DeSalvo, a performance which has gone grossly understated as the years have rolled past, a man whom when we first observe him sits at home in a seemingly idyllic set-up with his family. His two kids play while the television is on, his wife works the kitchen over and he reads law rather than car or gun magazines like the other suspects whom were rounded up. The film bypasses most of DeSalvo's past, namely his childhood, and grants him this setup; but it is not the setup a man of DeSalvo's upbringing would have easily attained. Moreso, the film is not interested in how the killer came to be who he is, but exactly what it is that he is. Most of the murders he commits are unfolded with a split screen technique, something that shows various stages of the attack and the parties involved in the various locations those involved inhabit; that sense of distortion or a fragmented mindset via the visuals is certainly prominent, something that works well when later reveals of Albert's inability to suppress his I.D are unfolded and more than one persona raging around inside of him is explored.If the film has any kind of flailing, it's that it isn't interested in the police procedural content as much as it is the points or notions of exploration in regards to DeSalvo. George Kennedy's detective Phil DiNatale takes on the case after an entirely separate bureau is established to deal with the problem, again exploring the breakthroughs and ever-shifting actions within the field of investigation people were forced into taking so as to deal with this kind of problem: the 'straight' killer, while Henry Fonda's role as detective John Bottomly sees him partake in nothing much-bar merely tag along for the ride. These characters are archetypal, stiff and bog the film down with its having them visit one too many suspects as well as over indulge them in the drawn out documenting on future plans of action. Since it isn't as interested in them as much it is DeSalvo; the substance that comes with him and the highly effective manner in which it documents his killings, we ourselves are not as interested in them. Fleischer, feeding off of an Edward Anhalt screenplay further still feeding off of both a novel and a true to life event, directs well in the scenes where his priorities lie; the studying of DeSalvo as this monster living amidst the 'normalised' explored interestingly enough whilst the whole thing comes to climax with a harrowing self-exploratory reveal that is quite powerful.