Country: USA
Year: 1968
Duration: 116'
Between 1962 and 1964, twelve women are murdered in Boston. In the end, a
tenacious and patient detective discovers that the murderer is a normal family
man, who kills in a frenzy and then forgets everything. Based on a true story,
and told like a thriller and psychological drama, the film is divided into two
parts. The first part is dedicated to the investigation, while the second part
studies the assassin's mind, as Fleischer uses a split screen and almost surreal
images to create a distorted vision of reality on the screen.
"I liked this project a lot because of the technical challenge I set myself
after having visited the Universal Expo of Montreal in 1967. It was there that I
discovered projection on multiple screens and I understood its potential for
cinema. I was able to convince the studio, and Richard Zanuck in particular, to
let me film the movie using this system. Two other elements were just as
important: Edward Anhalt's screenplay and the choice of Tony Curtis, which was
very brave, because the role was the complete opposite of his usual image. […]
I think The Boston Strangler was very successful and innovative. In the second
part I tried to show the tormented interior of a person's soul, which is always
hard to bring to the screen. This film is fairly full of visual effects which
the people don't even notice, and which they aren't supposed to notice. These
effects have to 'work' on the subconscious. For example, in the last part,
slowly but surely, shot after shot, I took away all the color from the image.
The last shots are almost completely white; to obtain this effect I even had to
change Tony Curtis' clothes." (R. Fleischer)
Biography
film director
Richard Fleischer
Richard Fleischer (New York, 1916), son of producer and director Max Fleischer and grandson of Dave, a famous cartoonist of the 20's and 30's, began studying medicine but then enrolled at the Yale school of drama. After founding and directing a theatrical company, he joined RKO at the beginning of the 1940's, first as an editor and journalist, and then, starting in 1944, as a director. His medium-length film Design for Death won an Oscar in 1948, launching a long career which, in view of his ability to manage large budgets and to pass from one genre to another with great professionalism, led him to collaborate with the Hollywood majors. For RKO, he directed mainly taut and alienating B noir films, like Follow Me Quietly(1949), Trapped (1949) and The Narrow Margin (1952). He brought Jules Verne's novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to the big screen for Walt Disney (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, 1954). He directed many different types of films for 20th Century Fox, maintaining the originality and the vigor of his style, which was able to give new life to the stylistic features of the classical cinema with which he regularly confronted himself. Fleischer adapted gangster movies to Cinemascope in Violent Saturday (1955); he reconstructed turn-of-the-century New York in the melodramatic The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955) and ancient civilizations in the historical film The Vikings (1958). He dealt with psychological mystery stories in Compulsion(1959), The Boston Strangler (1968) and Ten Rillington Place (1971, produced by Columbia), science fiction in Fantastic Voyage (1966), peplum in Barabbas (1962), comedy in Doctor Dolittle (1967) and war films in Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970). During the 1970's he divided his time between the United States and England, and continued his versatile and often experimental productions, including the futuristic Soylent Green (1973), and the thrillers Blind Terror (1971) and The Last Run (1972). During the 1980's he was once again successful with the adventure films Conan the DestroyerRed Sonja (1985), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
FILMOGRAFIA
Memo for Joe (1944), Flicker Flashbacks No. 1, Series 1 (1945), Child of Divorce (1946), Banjo (Piccolo cuore, 1947), Flicker Flashbacks No. 1 (1947), Mr. Bell (1947), Flicker Flashbacks No. 2 (1948), Flicker Flashbacks No. 3 (1948), Flicker Flashbacks No. 4 (1948), Flicker Flashbacks No. 5 (1948), Bodyguard (Squadra mobile 61, 1948), Flicker Flashbacks No. 6 (1948), Flicker Flashbacks No. 7 (1948), Design for Death (Progetto di morte, mm, 1948), So This Is New York (Così questa è New York, 1948), The Clay Pigeon (Bersaglio umano, 1949), Follow Me Quietly (Seguimi in silenzio, 1949), Make Mine Laughs (1949), Trapped (1949), Armored Car Robbery (Sterminate la gang!, 1950), His Kind of Woman (Il suo tipo di donna, 1951), The Narrow Margin (Le iene di Chicago, 1952), The Happy Time (Tempo felice, 1952), Arena (1953), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (20.000 leghe sotto i mari, 1954), Violent Saturday (Sabato tragico, 1955), The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (L'altalena di velluto rosso, 1955), Bandido! (id., 1956), Between Heaven and Hell (I diavoli del Pacifico, 1956), The Vikings (I Vichinghi, 1958), Compulsion (Frenesia del delitto, 1959), These Thousand Hills (Il re della prateria, 1959), Crack in the Mirror (Dramma nello specchio, 1960), The Big Gamble (Il grosso rischio, 1961), Barabbas (id., 1962), Fantastic Voyage (Viaggio allucinante, 1966), Doctor Dolittle (Il favoloso dr. Dolittle, 1967), Think Twentieth (1967), The Boston Strangler (Lo strangolatore di Boston, 1968), Che! (id., 1969), Tora! Tora! Tora! (id., 1970), Ten Rillington Place (L'assassino di Rillington Place n. 10, 1971), The Last Run (L'ultima fuga, 1971), Blind Terror (Terrore cieco, 1971), The New Centurions (I nuovi centurioni, 1972), Soylent Green (2022: i sopravvissuti, 1973), The Don Is Dead (Il boss è morto, 1973), The Spikes Gang (La banda di Harry Spikes, 1974), Mr. Majestyk (A muso duro, 1974), Mandingo (id., 1975), The Incredible Sarah (Sarah Bernhardt - La più grande attrice di tutti i tempi, 1976), Crossed Swords (Il principe e il povero, 1978), Ashanti (id., 1979), The Jazz Singer (Il cantante di jazz, 1980), Tough Enough (Il duro più duro, 1983), Amityville 3-D (id., 1983), Conan the Destroyer (Conan il distruttore, 1984), Red Sonja (Yado, 1985), Million Dollar Mystery (Il mistero da 4 milioni di dollari, 1987), Call from Space (1989).