# The Boston Strangler
**The Boston Strangler** is a 1968 American crime drama directed by [Richard Fleischer](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-fleischer), based on Gerold Frank's 1966 nonfiction book about the [Boston Strangler](https://www.edgepedia.org/boston-strangler) case, in which 13 women in the Boston area were murdered, most of them sexually assaulted and strangled between June 1962 and January 1964. The film stars [Tony Curtis](https://www.edgepedia.org/tony-curtis) as the confessed killer Albert DeSalvo and Henry Fonda as Assistant Attorney General John S. Bottomly, who coordinates the investigation. Released by 20th Century Fox on October 16, 1968, it was a box office hit but divided critics over its treatment of real, recent murders as entertainment.[1](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-boston-strangler/) • [2](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-boston-strangler-1968)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | October 16, 1968 (New York opening), 20th Century Fox; 116 minutes; rated R; Panavision, De Luxe color[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22900-THE-BOSTONSTRANGLER?cp=1&cxt=Filmography3&pos=5&sid=a9a12e73-8df0-434d-b4c7-58f90ad04caa&sr=0.1425353) |
| Source | Gerold Frank's nonfiction bestseller *The Boston Strangler* (1966); screenplay by Edward Anhalt[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22900-THE-BOSTONSTRANGLER?cp=1&cxt=Filmography3&pos=5&sid=a9a12e73-8df0-434d-b4c7-58f90ad04caa&sr=0.1425353) • [4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062755/faq/) |
| Cast | Tony Curtis (Albert DeSalvo), Henry Fonda (John S. Bottomly), George Kennedy (Phil DiNatale), Sally Kellerman (the surviving victim)[1](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-boston-strangler/) |
| Signature technique | Split-screen and multiple-image sequences with up to 12 simultaneous panel images, shot by cinematographer Richard H. Kline[5](https://theasc.com/article/multiple-image-technique-for-the-boston-strangler/) |
| Box office | $17,810,894 domestic, a hit for 20th Century Fox[6](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Boston-Strangler-The) • [7](https://www.tcm.com/articles/480901/the-boston-strangler) |
| Critical scores | Metascore 66 (generally favorable, 13 reviews); 89% Tomatometer from 18 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes[1](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-boston-strangler/) • [8](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1002939-boston_strangler) |
| Historical accuracy | Highly fictionalized: the film portrays DeSalvo with a split personality, a diagnosis never ascribed to the real DeSalvo, who was never charged with the murders[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062755/faq/) |
## Spoilers
### The case behind the film
Between June 1962 and January 1964, 13 women between the ages of 19 and 85 were murdered in and around Boston, most of them sexually assaulted before being strangled, often with a nylon stocking tied into a bow around the neck. The victims lived alone and the doors of their homes showed no forced entry, leading investigators to conclude they knew their attacker, yet nothing else seemed to connect them.[9](https://elpais.com/cultura/2023-03-31/el-estrangulador-de-boston-la-mujer-de-victima-a-investigadora-en-la-nueva-vision-de-los-famosos-asesinatos-en-serie.html) • [10](https://time.com/6263276/boston-strangler-review/)
In October 1964 a woman survived an attack and gave police a detailed description of her assailant. He was identified as [Albert DeSalvo](https://www.edgepedia.org/albert-desalvo), a recent prison parolee; when his photograph appeared in newspapers, other women came forward to say he had attacked them as well. DeSalvo was charged with assault, burglary, and sex offenses, but not murder. While awaiting trial for a separate series of attacks known as the "Green Man" crimes, he told a fellow inmate he was also responsible for the Strangler killings, and subsequent conversations with police seemed to confirm his guilt: he knew details such as the color of furniture in some victims' apartments.[11](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-tenacious-women-reporters-who-helped-expose-the-boston-strangler-180981786/) According to the [Turner Classic Movies](https://www.edgepedia.org/turner-classic-movies) account, DeSalvo, diagnosed as schizophrenic and found not competent to stand trial, was committed to Boston State Hospital, where he confessed to the murders.[7](https://www.tcm.com/articles/480901/the-boston-strangler)
Forty years after DeSalvo's death, a 2013 DNA analysis conclusively linked him to the rape and murder of Mary Sullivan, the last and youngest victim associated with the case.[22](https://nij.ojp.gov/library/publications/solving-cold-cases-dna-boston-strangler-case) He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1967 for the unrelated rapes, and he was stabbed to death in 1973 after being transferred to Walpole State Prison. No one was ever officially charged with the 13 murders, and criminologists and journalists have since expressed doubts about his guilt, citing the wide range of victims' ages and ethnicities and inconsistencies in his confessions.[12](https://time.com/3881127/the-boston-strangler-photos-from-a-city-gripped-by-fear-1963/) • [7](https://www.tcm.com/articles/480901/the-boston-strangler) Forty years after DeSalvo's death, a 2013 DNA analysis linked him to the murder of Mary Sullivan, the last and youngest of the victims associated with the case.[13](https://time.com/6263843/boston-strangler-hulu-true-story/)
## From book to screenplay
Frank's book, a painstakingly researched account of the police investigation, became a bestseller, and 20th Century Fox bought the rights. Production ran into trouble early: producer Robert Fryer offered the screenplay to his friend, the British playwright Terence Rattigan, whose confused and comedic treatment bore little relationship to the book. Director Richard Fleischer, already committed to the project, recalled in his autobiography that Rattigan was wrong for the task from their first meeting. Rattigan was replaced by Edward Anhalt, who delivered a screenplay much more faithful to Frank's account.[7](https://www.tcm.com/articles/480901/the-boston-strangler)
Casting the killer was its own obstacle. Fleischer knew that studio head Richard Zanuck would not approve Tony Curtis, then typed in romantic comedies, so he advised Curtis to change his appearance. Curtis used putty to make his nose look broken, applied dark makeup, and photographed himself as though being booked at a police station; Zanuck approved the casting without recognizing the actor. Curtis then bought brown contact lenses, gained about fifteen pounds, and wore ankle weights to change his walk.[7](https://www.tcm.com/articles/480901/the-boston-strangler)
## Structure and style
The film bifurcates the story. The first half follows the police investigation through a series of dead ends, with Bottomly not introduced until roughly a third of the way through the narrative; the second half concentrates on Bottomly's probing interrogation of DeSalvo after the bureau concludes he is probably the strangler.[14](https://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/58691/1/12pdf.pdf) • [15](https://www.walterfilm.com/shop/film-category_all/crime-suspense-thriller/boston-strangler-the-1968-revised-second-draft-screenplay/)
**Split screen.** Fleischer and cinematographer Richard H. Kline used a multiple-image technique to convey the spreading panic and the parallel threads of the manhunt, simultaneously tracking the location of the strangler and his latest victim. The panels were framed at final size to avoid optical blowups, since the process already cost one extra film generation. Although the technique might seem to consume several times the normal footage, it required only slightly more film but much more shooting time: after principal photography, Fleischer spent another week shooting panel fragments, averaging about 50 setups a day, with as many as 12 images on screen at once, each changing every foot and a half of film.[5](https://theasc.com/article/multiple-image-technique-for-the-boston-strangler/) • [16](https://lib.zu.edu.pk/ebookdata/Media%20Sciences/Film/Cinematography-by%20Patrick%20Keating.pdf) The technique drew both praise, as an imaginative evocation of mass paranoia, and criticism; Renata Adler compared its effect to "flipping continuously among TV commercials."[17](https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/64362/1/Tim_Snelson_Film_Studies_article_final_TS_1_.pdf)
The film ends in the white cell of a mental institution, with a superimposed onscreen message stating that the film has ended but society's responsibility for the early recognition and treatment of the violent among us has yet to begin.[18](https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/document/34876)
## Reception
The film was a box office hit for 20th Century Fox in the fall of 1968, but critical reviews were decidedly mixed.[7](https://www.tcm.com/articles/480901/the-boston-strangler) Renata Adler of *The New York Times* called it "an incredible collapse of taste, judgment, decency, prose, insight, journalism and movie technique," while conceding it was not quite the popular exploitation film one might think, and concluded that it was "to be avoided as surely as a stranger who appears at your door and identifies himself as a plumber whom you have not called."[1](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-boston-strangler/) Roger Ebert of the *Chicago Sun-Times* was more ambivalent: he judged the film "very good" as entertainment, praising [Henry Fonda](https://www.edgepedia.org/henry-fonda) as "a subtle, sensitive lawyer," [George Kennedy](https://www.edgepedia.org/george-kennedy) as "a convincing cop," and Curtis's performance as his best in a decade, but argued that the real problem was real events being offered as entertainment, and that the film's events had been altered considerably from Frank's book, making it essentially fiction "based" on the case.[2](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-boston-strangler-1968)
Later assessments have been warmer. *Variety* called it "a triumph of taste and restraint with a telling, low-key semi-documentary style," the Austin Chronicle called it "criminally underrated" and praised its innovations in editing and structure, and a retrospective in *Senses of Cinema* credits Fleischer's mastery of tension and detail.[1](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-boston-strangler/) • [19](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2000/cteq/boston/) Curtis received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Drama for the role.[20](https://www.filmaffinity.com/en/film713720.html) Film scholars have since placed the film in a short late-1960s cycle of Hollywood true-crime pictures, alongside *In Cold Blood* and *Badlands*, whose reception split critics along generational lines over the ethics of representing real violence.[17](https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/64362/1/Tim_Snelson_Film_Studies_article_final_TS_1_.pdf)
## Legacy and the 2023 film
The title returned to screens in 2023 with *[Boston Strangler](https://www.edgepedia.org/boston-strangler-film)*, a Hulu film written and directed by Matt Ruskin, starring [Keira Knightley](https://www.edgepedia.org/keira-knightley) as Loretta McLaughlin, the Record American reporter who became the first journalist to connect the murders, and [Carrie Coon](https://www.edgepedia.org/carrie-coon) as her colleague Jean Cole. Rather than a remake of the 1968 film, it shifts the perspective to the two women reporters, who broke the story in a January 1963 series of nearly 30 articles while facing sexism in their newsroom and resistance from authorities who argued their detailed reporting could inspire copycat crimes.[13](https://time.com/6263843/boston-strangler-hulu-true-story/) • [21](https://press.hulu.com/shows/boston-strangler/) The 2023 film ends on the note of uncertainty that still attaches to the case: because of complications surrounding DeSalvo's confession, the truth of the 13 murders remains unresolved.[10](https://time.com/6263276/boston-strangler-review/)
## References
1. [The Boston Strangler, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-boston-strangler/)
2. [Roger Ebert, The Boston Strangler (1968), Chicago Sun-Times](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-boston-strangler-1968)
3. [The Boston Strangler (1968), AFI Catalog](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22900-THE-BOSTONSTRANGLER?cp=1&cxt=Filmography3&pos=5&sid=a9a12e73-8df0-434d-b4c7-58f90ad04caa&sr=0.1425353)
4. [The Boston Strangler (1968) FAQ, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062755/faq/)
5. [Multiple-Image Technique for The Boston Strangler, American Cinematographer](https://theasc.com/article/multiple-image-technique-for-the-boston-strangler/)
6. [The Boston Strangler (1968), The Numbers](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Boston-Strangler-The)
7. [Jeff Stafford, The Boston Strangler, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/480901/the-boston-strangler)
8. [The Boston Strangler, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1002939-boston_strangler)
9. [El estrangulador de Boston, El País (2023)](https://elpais.com/cultura/2023-03-31/el-estrangulador-de-boston-la-mujer-de-victima-a-investigadora-en-la-nueva-vision-de-los-famosos-asesinatos-en-serie.html)
10. [Boston Strangler review, TIME (2023)](https://time.com/6263276/boston-strangler-review/)
11. [The True History Behind Hulu's Boston Strangler Movie, Smithsonian Magazine](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-tenacious-women-reporters-who-helped-expose-the-boston-strangler-180981786/)
12. [City of Fear: Photos From the Boston Strangler Era, TIME/LIFE (2014)](https://time.com/3881127/the-boston-strangler-photos-from-a-city-gripped-by-fear-1963/)
13. [The Chilling True Story Behind Hulu's Boston Strangler Movie, TIME (2023)](https://time.com/6263843/boston-strangler-hulu-true-story/)
14. [History in the Media: Film and Television](https://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/58691/1/12pdf.pdf)
15. [Boston Strangler, The (1968) Revised 2nd Draft screenplay, WalterFilm](https://www.walterfilm.com/shop/film-category_all/crime-suspense-thriller/boston-strangler-the-1968-revised-second-draft-screenplay/)
16. [Cinematography by Patrick Keating](https://lib.zu.edu.pk/ebookdata/Media%20Sciences/Film/Cinematography-by%20Patrick%20Keating.pdf)
17. [Tim Snelson, Screen violence scholars article, University of East Anglia](https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/64362/1/Tim_Snelson_Film_Studies_article_final_TS_1_.pdf)
18. [Richard Fleischer's The Boston Strangler, UEA repository](https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/document/34876)
19. [The Boston Strangler, Senses of Cinema](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2000/cteq/boston/)
20. [The Boston Strangler (1968), FilmAffinity](https://www.filmaffinity.com/en/film713720.html)
21. [Boston Strangler, Hulu Press](https://press.hulu.com/shows/boston-strangler/)
22. [Solving Cold Cases with DNA: The Boston Strangler Case](https://nij.ojp.gov/library/publications/solving-cold-cases-dna-boston-strangler-case)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 1960s films*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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