Episode 758: The Strangler (1964)

You know.

I was wondering, how can I get a message out to folks that follow the podcast. Should I put it out on Facebook, Instagram, Blue sky Oh god forbid threads?

Yeah?

No, thanks, what a cesspool. That's about as awful as X these days. But then I realized, oh gosh, I'm a man with a microphone. I can actually put this message out at the beginning of the next episode of the podcast. So here I am. I am getting ready to do another ego fest. This is Ego Fest fifteen. That is where we pull back the curtain and talk a little bit more about how the Projection Booth works.

Oh jeez, boat, it's showtime.

People say good money to see this movie when they go out to a theater. They want closed sodas hop popcorn in no monsters in the projection booths.

Everyone for ten podcasting isn't boring?

Dot it off?

What about the doll in her apartment could be a fetish? Fetish fetish can be anything any non sexual object that incites erotic feelings.

In this case of all the Strangler based on the terrifying crime wave that has gripped Boston and spread across the country.

That makes number eight for the Strangler.

Yeah it looks not money starring Victor Buono. The shock sensation of whatever happened to Baby Jane has the most baffling, the most horrifying criminal in a decade.

There wasn't rape, no evidence in maltreatment after death.

No woman is safe as long as the Strangler lives and roams at will.

There are a lot of people who don't laugh at me anymore.

They don't laugh at anymore.

Please go away, I'll go.

A strange, shocking being of unpredictable emotions. No one knows when or where he will strike again, or who will be his next victim.

Welcome to the projection Booth. I'm your host, Mike White Chimney once again, is mister Otto Bruno?

Oh I'm sorry? Does that me? Mike? Thanks? I'm sorry you woke me up. How you doing?

Mike also joining us as mister Tim Madigan, Greetings, I'm a man with a milk fetish.

I don't even want to know what he means, y'ah, you'll soon find out.

Buono Palooza continues What They Look At Victor Bono's first and few leading roles, The Strangler, released in nineteen sixty four, Bueno plays Leo Kroll, a pathetic mama's boy in the mold of Norman Bates who takes out his aggression against women, and a story modeled after the Boston Police Department's profile of the Boston Strangler and released just a few months after the confession to the murders by Albertusalvo. In other words,

It was a few years back, maybe three four years ago. And of course if I saw it that recently, it means I watched it because of mister Maddigan's obsession, and I guess partly with my own obsession with Victor Buono. And I was, quite honestly, I was impressed by it. Like you said, it's actually one of only two films basically headlined, and the other one was is it called the Butcher or something?

I saw it under the title meat is Meat, but normally known as the Mad Butcher. Oh, the Mad Butcher is the best butcher in Vienna.

That one makes this look like Academy Award level materials. So I was actually happily surprised with this movie. And I think Buono's performance is actually quite good. He doesn't play it over the top or anything. I think he gives an actually really interesting, nuanced performance. Again, at this point in time, it's not anything new to any of us. It's certainly not anything we haven't seen on.

Television a million times, even in all these years since it came out.

But now I thought, for being a low budget picture, I thought it was quite good, quite honestly, And Tim, how about yourself?

The best of my knowledge, I first saw it about two weeks ago when I was in Otto's basement and the two of us watched it together, but it did remind me of The Mad Butcher or Meat His Meat,

I believe in those days you would telegram it in telegram.

Wait a minute, believe it or not. They did have phones in nineteen sixty four.

No, I believe it.

And there's even a couple of phone calls in here. So yeah, no, definitely, especially having to call your mom and let her know that you're not coming to the hospital tonight. I saw this one for the show, had never really heard of it before. I had seen The Mad Butcher and absolutely loved it and was surprised and maybe a little disappointed we weren't doing that one. But I was glad to see The Strangler it was, yeah,

You're right.

It was like very very little fight was put up against although to be fair, Wono was an imposing figure and these most of.

The women in this are not equal to him in that respect.

Certainly, by the way, when you talk about the flatness of the look of this film and comparing to the Hitchcock, I did look as I'm sure you both probably did as well.

At the credits of the director, it is his name Topper.

Topper, Yes for Topper, And I think it's safe to say from whatever we can garner from IMDb and sources like that, that this was probably the best film he ever met, So let that speak for what it will. But yeah, again, it was definitely not an a production by any stretch of the imagination.

And Tim said the acting.

Maybe that's where the poor acting comes in that these women, maybe the director told them, don't let your death scene last more than three seconds.

Maybe the best film that he did, but not the most well known. Oddly, the most well known film he did was from nineteen sixty one with War as Hell, and that only is because of the footnote in the Kennedy assassination. That's the movie that was playing when Oswald went into the theater to hide from the cops. But he also did Soul Hustler, which I remember watching because William Bonner is in there. William Bonner, who played who went by the name of Jack Miehoff in Black Shampoo,

Yeah, maybe you could start a new podcast six Degreeze of Black Shampoo see bitch all to eventually lead back to that. And I always thought William Bonner was Billy the kid's real name.

I think that's William Bonnie. This movie definitely shines whenever Bono is on screen, and it suffers when he's not. The police procedural that goes along with this film kind of bless me a little flat, especially, I just don't care about these cops at all. I think David McLean's kind of a snooze. No wonder you're sleeping when I did your intro at all.

It's really more like a television detective show. But they're not very good detective. I feel like I said it to Tim at the time, something like, why aren't they if there's suspicions of them, why aren't they even This was because I think at the end they finally I don't even think they tail him. I think they're just staking out the amusement park thin. But if you're so suspicious of them, why aren't you even tailing him at all?

So they make dragnets seem upbeat.

These guys are really sad that there have been I think our first murder victim is the eighth murder victim, so they've definitely been kicked around a little bit. They have no leads, nothing to go on, so maybe that's why they're so depressed.

And that's why I mentioned about the milk fetish, because there's a psychiatrist or psychologist later talking about anything can be a fetish, and then you watch them they're constantly drinking milk. I didn't know if that was a subtle nod by the director, just coincidental, but it's like, what's up with all this milk? Drinking a mother's milk? Perhaps they're getting very freudy in here. It does have a CD look to it, so, which is appropriate for the film.

This exploiting the Boston strangler case, but it also feels like it's cashing in on whatever happened to Baby Jane, taking Victor Bono out of that movie. Keeping the doll thing we talked about the dolls of Baby Jane in the previous episode, but giving him this doll fetish type object where he transfers it's almost a literal transfer, like he's holding the doll and then he reaches down and touches to close the eyelids of his first victim, and

I'm like, goshim and I talked about that.

Yeah, And it feels so much like this is Victor Bono if he had gone back home to his mother in Baby Jane. She's not merely the herod in that she is in this one, but he hates his mother in Baby Jane, at least in the book Edwin Flagg just cannot stand her at all. And this one, Oh my gosh, this mother character just so awful. And speaking of Hitchcock, I seem to remember that she was the person that managed the didn't you manage the hotel where

She was the second movie that Ellen Corby and Victor Bono were in, because they were both in Four for Texas. Also, we don't know if they formed any kind of an allegiance or not. But she I thought she's excellent as a really unpleasant mother. Oh she was a terrible mother. Yeah, she was. Particularly as you mentioned, she was Grandma on the Walton, so you can't help. But it's almost like the dark side of Grandma Walton.

Grandma Walton could be a bit of a feisty old brod Leo, your.

Mother nearly died, my heart, Leo, it nearly gave out, and you didn't come.

What happened?

I don't know, dear.

They won't tell you what really happened.

I fainted and it was like there was a knife in my heart. That's all I remember.

And if Clara hadn't found me right away and given me a hypol I would have died Leo right then.

Very lucky.

Most of all, what do we remember, Tim? I remember Mama, isn't she? And I remember Mama as aunt, Yeah there as Aunt Trina. I didn't remember that she was. And I remember Mama, yeah she was.

She plays like the more meek of Irene Dunn's sisters, but she's got a pretty pretty substantial role. And I remember Mama, so that certainly is definitely the opposite of this character. I think Grandma Waltman never totally trusted her, but and Mike, you are correct, she was. She was the proprietor of the McKittrick Hotel in Vertigo, and.

You know that whole Walton family. I mean they were filled with a bunch of comedies. You had Will Greer and Ralph Wade in there, and they're both the blacklist that if memory serves, I didn't know.

I did not know about Ralph Waite, but definitely Willneer was blacklist, no question about that.

One bad influence on John Boy for sure.

Talking about six degays of separation, my very limited connection with any Hollywood fame. My mother's first cousin was an actor named Joe Connley who got a one time role in The Waltons as a storekeeper, and I guess was Earl Hamner liked him so much that he made him a regular character. I got so every I forget what day of the week The Waltons was on, but we always had to watch it, and as soon as it appear, my mother would say, there's cousin Joe.

I know what day it was on because I didn't watch it because it was on the same day as Flip Wilson and then later on the same day as Barney Miller was on Thursday nights.

You gotta have some loyalty there.

Yeah, Thursday Nights on CBS.

We must have switched over because I know I watched Barney Miller too. So we only had one TV in those days, and we have a VCR or anything.

Because Barney only lasted I think in the early slot for maybe a year or so, because then they moved it to a later slot. And I'm pretty sure that The Waltons were always on from eight to nine, but your cousin Joe was in one hundred and seventy two of the two hundred and twelve episodes, and he.

Wrote his autobiography published by the Great Bear manor Preudz. That's full circle. It all comes around. I wonder if it's just a coincidence Bono's casting in this role, or was it perhaps because of being at Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Because you say there is a definite connection with the mother obsessed, very od person who seems to have a lot of women problems.

I don't know how much stock I want to put into the audio commentary for this. It was David Delvall and David Dakoto David Dakota who did a talking cat and Sorority Babes at the Slameball bull Rama. I trust him, I don't necessarily trust del val And he was saying that after Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, where he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, that he was

About the doll in her apartment?

I've broken.

A toy.

Could be more than a toy, could be a fetish, fetish. It's not uncommon transference of emotion from one thing to another. Fetish can be anything, any non sexual object that incites erotic feelings, whether it sticks, stones, piece of clothing in this case of doll, what's a belt?

Yeah? Thanks.

Later, when the Buono character is being interrogated, he tells the psychiatrist, Oh, I love your work. You work in abnormal psychology.

What I thought was kind of sad and certainly a reflection of our own culture and the prejudices that are probably built within. But Buono is nominated for this Academy Award and what essentially is his first role in a film, and it's a major Hollywood film, and then this was the best that they could offer him after that, I thought was disappointing. And of course, when you talk about Victor Buono and Anthony Perkins, okay, they're both a playing

Maybes drop a few zero, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

There were a lot of things in that Devell commentary that was just like, what, I don't think you're right here, And then they just kept repeating himself like crazy the whole thing. DeSalvo confessed, but DNA evidence and blah blah blah. He said that three four times during the whole thing. I was like, oh my gosh, Okay, once is enough. Twice maybe just to bring it home, but like three, four times, yeah, just let's move on to another topic. Please.

Going back to the opening, you don't need a spoiler alert because you see what is the bonos characters named Leo Kroll Leo kill the eighth victim. We learned later immediately it's him, And I thought it could have been better if this was more like like the Lodger, where he's a suspect and then it turns out it's not him, because many people have said Laird Krigard, there are other people of similar build who had a good career who

They give her the cigarette lighter with the microphone in it, which is like the best microphone in the entire world that picks up every noise in her entire apartment.

And promising her they weren't. Let's just plan a microphone on her and not tell her. This is a big guy.

And these women, almost all of them are small, petite women. So yeah, the lighter, what good is that going to do. By the time you get there, he could have easily broken her neck without even breaking a sweat. When they show us right from the get go that he's the murderer, it also signals to you that, yes, this is not a mystery, this is not a suspense story. Really, it's a psychological portrait. You're going to be a character study, if you will, of this troubled mind.

And he doesn't even kill that many people. Throughout this film, I think we've got our first victim. We've got the nurse that's taking care of his mother. We've got his mother by having a heart attack when he finds when

His fellow lab worker there. I thought that scene was very interesting when she talks about the hatpin and other ways she would try to protect herself, and I thought that was foreshadowy.

Same once you talked about the acid that some ladies would carry. I'm like, oh boy, that's going to be horrific.

He yeah, and then nothing comes of it. It's interesting interplay with them. He's just seems blase or not paying attention to her, but presumably he's picking up like, oh oh, I better be carefully right. Some women might actually, especially now that I've killed eight of them, there might be some that are actually they do something to protect themselves.

They don't explore the fact that he works in a lab. They don't tell you what he works on or anything. And you're right, I didn't even think of it. But they could have made it a lot more interesting, Like he could have been a researcher working on some kind of drug that would save people's lives while at night he's going out and taking people's lives.

Even that would have been something.

And the whole idea that, Yeah, as Tim just said, you're bringing up the acid all this and you think it's going to lead to something and it doesn't. Oh, the writer, although the writer had certainly a bigger and more impressive resume than the director. But maybe I think this might have been earlier in his career, this particular film, because he went on, Hey, the guy who wrote this,

Waiting for another heavy person.

I loved Frank Cannon. He was one of my favorites. Whoever, I don't think he was.

The writer also wrote two episodes of Kolchak The Night Soccer. He wrote Firefall and Primal Screen and yeah, he wrote Canon Ironside, an I Spy episode. Yeah, this guy was all over the place. I love it.

Run for your Life.

I don't think Bono ever did do it Cannon, although it certainly would have been in He should have.

He should have.

You imagine the promo for then with Cannon on one side and Bono on the other. That would be awesome.

Now, I wonder, getting back to the writer, there's dark humor in the film, but I don't know if it was intentional or not. Like we're saying when the one doctor says, whatever, you don't tell your mother that the nurse she loves his day, you got a bad heart, net would kill her. And then when the nurse when he learns that she had saved his mother's life, and the mother's going on and on. But if not for her, I'd have been dead. And you see a fresh ships.

I thundy, I really yeah. I laughed as well. I'm just like just him trying to hold that back.

Oh it was her, That's like the Victor buono is Otto was mentioned. We know his comedic roles, and I thought that this is very funny. That was foreshadowing to the Third Light and to the mother.

Yeah, I know that was put up right up on a tee, don't tell her about the nurse could kill her.

Well, you can tell how awful this mother is because she's got pictures of herself all over her house, including right over her own bed. I'm like, what what kind of ego maniac are you?

Lady?

When we first see that scene with all the pictures of her in there, I didn't realize right away that it was her room because and then you, I'm like, oh, okay, because at first I thought, oh, is it his room and he's got this weird but no, it was like you say, it was her room, and I and you just love when she basically says him like, no one would love you except me?

That rant is just oh for brutal, that was rough, man, What.

Would any girl want you for?

Come over here?

Come on, nah, face facts, son, you're not good looking, you're fat. You know very well yourself that some people think you're funny.

Please, Mama, Even as a little boy, nobody liked you, and except for me, nobody's loved you. And you haven't any money and women want money, and don't you forget it? Why you barely make enough of a salary to keep a good looking hussy and.

Stockings that I don't after paying your hospital bills?

Son, can we just talk? Why do you have to argue?

And when she says some people think you're funny, I'm just like, oh, you mean gay? Okay.

It was a code, that's what they had to do. The relationship there empathized with them. But again because right at the beginning he's the strangler. That's why I said if there was some ambiguity as so whether or not it really was him, would have made it I think a more interesting film.

Especially that he passes the lie detector no problem, has no problem answering all the cops questions. It kind of reminded me of Ed Norton in Primal Fear, where you get convinced through the whole thing that he's this innocent victim and then find out he's this criminal mastermind towards the end of the film.

Isn't that kind of interesting too? In nineteen sixty four to present a lie detector test that and to show the audience that, yeah, you can beat a lie detector test if you have no motions, no guilt or whatever. Again, because it's twenty twenty five, we've seen so much just via our television, come into our living room, during our lifetimes. We know that there are sociopaths and psychopaths out there who have absolutely no feeling for what their actions.

Do to other people. Boy do we know that? So I thought that was interesting.

I thought maybe some people in the audience at that point in time in nineteen sixty four would actually be confused by that, because again on TV, they never showed anything like that that. I remember light detective tests. By the time I was watching all those detective shows in the seventies. What was the point of using a lie detector because it wasn't admissible in court, so they.

Rarely did it, but if they were able to do it, of course, that reminded me, speaking of TV cop shows in the seventies of Arthur Dietrich on Barney Miller when he was given the lie detector test that I was like.

Your real name is Arthur P. Dietrick and the P stands for I was never told where we were more in sergeantsy sorry to remember it. It was long long ago, the galaxy, far far away. On a kidding, I know you are, Yeah, that's the problem.

We always said on our show that he was an alien.

So I mean, we know he was at the end of the future.

Oh that's for sure. Yeah, you're the Arthur D.

Prick Richard Libertini. You people are very lucky.

Well, young man, I'd like to get a base reading here. Could you say something, just say anything. The first thing that comes to mind, I killed a bunch of people.

One at the beginning, when he's first questioned by the police and he says, we don't yet know about his home life, and says, my mother is an invalid. And then when we see him in his home when he goes home, you just expect she's going to be there, and then suddenly, wait, no, she calls, how come you're not visiting me in the hospital. That allows us to realize he's a good liar because later he says, I never said I lived with her. I just said she's an invalid.

He does make it seem because he says, I don't go out my wife or my mother is an invalid, So he makes you think that she lives with him.

And do you have an alibi? It seemed to imply my mother is an invalid. She thinks that I was all so she guess to that, but obviously she couldn't, so that that was good giving. This is a very clever guy.

It's very interesting. So you say that your mother is an invalid, so he eventually kills his mother's nurse, like we were saying again a tie into the DeSalvo case with or the Boston Strangler case, I should say, with killing of a nurse. There are a lot of nurses that were killed in Boston or worked at the hospitals. Doesn't kill her with a stocking this time, which was also the Boston Strangler's weapon of choice for quite a

That might explain a lot about those cops there it just seemed, you know what a wonderful coincident and said, because he destroys his doll and they get thinking, hey, maybe this guy's got a doll fetish. Actually, Ottaw and Eye, we had to go back to the beginning of the film because we thought that when he was peeling off the stockings and underclothing of the little doll, he was

Exactly, because it's not like they had found dolls at the other sites.

That he brings his own dolls to these crimes is pretty interesting, and it almost seems like the excuse is when he gets a doll, then a murderer happens because he does the ring toss at the beginning. I guess there's not a tie directly between that. There definitely is when the who is a Barbara the other blonde that

I felt bad for her. I liked her as a character. She had a lot of moxie.

She did have moxie.

Yeah, Victor Boro hates spunk, or I should say Leo Kroll hates spunk?

You got spunk?

Is there a Freudian element of that ring toss too? I wonderful?

Oh, I so was thinking that.

Yeah, we never actually see him successfully tossed the ring. I would have liked to put Victor to the test there, let's see he actually do that.

I think we see it at least an insert shot with the first time he's.

Still yeah, But we don't see him flinging it.

No, you never see a medium shot with both his hand and the ring that the landing over one of those pegs.

I felt cheated. You two are reprobates. I grew up with a Disney sort of mind. I don't think of these things.

I was wondering, is who was just being made for did it appear and drive in? Because on the one hand, the victims are all in their lingerie when they're killed, so there's a little cheesecake element, but it's not. There's no nudity. Even when the last one is killed coming out of the shower, you don't see anything, and I guess you wouldn't have in those early years there. But who again, who's the audience for this? Well's to see

Perhaps I don't want to sound the conspiracy theorist, but I'm wondering. I guess that this was running into some censorship problems, and I'm wondering if it's because the studio was such a small independent studio versus the last movie we watched was that Warner Brothers. So Warner Brothers, I imagine, could get away with some more things than a small place. What is this allied artist and something like that. Probably they were like, no, you can't do that, can't have this.

And again it starts out with the first victim taking her clothes off and getting down to broad panties what have you, and hate you to think, oh, here we go. It's starting off with what's gonna what are we gonna see later? And I said, no, but all you're going to see.

Yeah, it is very team of super super team when it comes to this, the murders are team to Speaking of Hitchcock again, think about the strangling scene and frenzy and just how long that goes on for and how disturbing the victim looks afterwards. It's so sanitized this whole movie. Yeah, I can't see the raincoat crowd getting involved in this one at all is Yeah, I probably see more in commercials these days.

But once you also agree, like you mentioned Frenzy, that's nineteen seventy two, so that's eight years later. I always note to my classes around the time that the MPAA instituted the letter codes and stuff, I think you saw a lot of stuff like really quickly, Like it ramped up very quickly in terms of what they showed, not like it was a gradual moving into showing newly here, showing a little more violence here. When they got that green flag, they just I think it was quite a list.

It is disturbed, and I think a lot of it has to do with almost acting. You get a census is a tortured soul. It's you get the sense that he could have been different, it wasn't inevitable. And of course when you see his mother again, guys, you got a lot of issues. That's why I mentioned earlier. It stays with you. I've seen a lot of movies or after its completely forget the blood, remember anything about the plot that one. It's been two weeks or so since

Anyway, I'm trying to remember in nineteen sixty four, I want to say, like Blood Feast was out around the same time, maybe Faster pussy Cat was around the same time. I know things like Eyes without a Face, Peeping Tom, like those that already come out, But of course they are foreign films. They live by different rules and American films. But it feels like this. It just feels television most of the time. As far as just the level of tillation. I think even about like John Gavin or Janet Lee

We didn't see the first seven, so that might have been really bad. But when you mentioned Peepee Tom. It's a good point because that is that's another very disturbing film where he sympathized with his murderer, particularly once you learned what had been done to him by his father, and the same relationship where you see him seemingly reaching out and at least somewhat having a chance to have an actual interaction with the member of the opposite sex.

When he goes from zero to sixty with her so fast. It's just oh, so, well, yeah, my mom's dead, so I wanted to marry you. Whoa, hey, we haven't even gone out one date here, Leo. Like cool your jets, And I do like the framing of some of those shots where there's the lattice work and they're looking at each other through the lattice work and it's basically like, hey, Leo, this is forbidden fruit. You're never going to be able to cross this divide here.

And when he wanted to give her his mother's ring, ohing what he had done to his mother and his mother's nurse.

It's that is creepy, the whole part of you feeling bad for him, even though you know right away that he's a murderer. So that's tough enough to pull off as it is, but I felt so bad from them, thinking, come on, dude, before, when your mother was harping on you, you would come to this place for a moment of peace or try to capture a moment of real life with a woman and someone who would be nice you. She was being nice you just because you were a customer.

But then, like you said, Mike, I almost had a problem with that because.

It seems so stupid that he didn't seem that detached. Obviously he was a psychopath, but that doesn't mean that you're you're clueless and he just you're right you talk about you said it perfectly. He went from like zero to sixty, and it was come on, that's no. How could you think she's gonna say, oh, yes, let's get married.

I was waiting for you to ask when she does turn him down, it's interesting too. How quickly he then goes to the threatening even beyond the stalk or okay, now your days are numbered effected. So again it shows the acting range that Bono had.

I wanted to go back to that lie detector scene one more time, just because I love the way that is shot, and I really like the whole thing of him being behind I guess it's one way glass and the two cops are outside talking about him while he's framed between them, and you've got the lamp kind of connecting their heads almost, that whole scene of him there with this kind of little grin on his face while the two cops are outside just talking about what it creep this guy is, and just that he has no

That seems plausible. And of course he's been interrogated before too.

Oh yeah, yeah, and he's wonderfully quietly contemptuous of them. He's like poking them like I know it, you know it, but you can't do foup it oval.

And that's the best part of this movie. For me, it is like when he is just kind of lording it over them, Hey, you guys can't catch me at all. I am just completely full of proof. I never leave any proof at these crime scenes. And then, of course, like you said, it's the doll that becomes is undoing and kind of to jump to the end real quick

And one hand, she's not real concern. Then she is real concerned, and she's just gonna leave town. But if you didn't want to leave town, whatever the case is, why would you leave her at all at that point if you're that convinced that this guy, which by that time, because doesn't he give that cop a description saying he's this big guy, so they know it's him, the illustrator.

He should get an a raise in all the prize money from the drawing of Victor Bono that he does. It's a remarkable likeness.

So, like you said, Mike, yeah, so we'll just drop you off.

And because at first she doesn't even agree to the lighter or do they sneak dead on her, I don't read it.

They drop it off in the apartment and then she looks at it and she's like, I don't know what this is, then throws it into the suitcase, then covers it up.

And yet, as you said, you could still hear everything, not.

When it's covered up, but before that, you could hear anything. Her tiptoeing across the floor, a mouse farts, it's all being picked up on there. But you throw a couple pairs of pants over it or whatever, and nobody's going to ever hear it again.

When I said, he was being quietly contemptuous, and he's acting, yeah, you're not going to catch me. I never leave any clues or anything behind. And I didn't know of really much of anything about the Boston strangler case before.

This, so I read a little bit about that.

And again, because it's made in nineteen sixty four, obviously they're not going to do this.

But he doesn't sexually assault any of them.

They don't even intimate that he does.

Oh that Bono does.

Right, that Bono does.

I'm saying, And whereas we know the Boston strangler murders, those women were sexually assaulted. That's another Obviously, again, whether it was for the time that the movie was made, but obviously that you're going to leave less clues behind because even if there was no DNA evidence back then that you could use site they didn't know how to to recognize those things. Then at least you're still doing last And all he does he comes up usually behind these women, and by the time they see him, it's

That well, you think they might hear him creeping up on him too, he was.

I would assume in an old apartment, you might hear when a three hundred pound guy is slowly come making his way towards.

You, probably panting. We saw him sweat. But getting back to the Boston strangler case, so this movie was made before there was anyone arrested. It came out and around the time Dissolvo was arrested, and there's still ambiguities about that, but I wonder if that is part of the exploitation. We know there's this strangler going around, doesn't say it's

The pilot film for Kojak wasn't that kind of a reference to the Manson murder. I think it was called the I think it was called The Marcus Nelson Murders. It was a made for TV movie, came out like in seventy four, seventy three or seventy four. Yeah, and it was essentially a pilot because it had Tedy Savalles in it, and it's pretty much I don't know if he goes by the name of Kojak or not, but it's absolutely the same character for all intents and purposes.

Yes, the Marcus Nelson Murderers. Kojak TV pilot from March eighth, nineteen seventy three, So you're on the money.

My front.

Telly Savalas was Lieutenant THEO Kojack. I did not know his first name was his brother in that one. Oh, I wouldn't be surprised. He seemed to always get his brother and stuff Stavros.

If you watched the joh you knew his name was THEO because Dan Fraser, who portrayed the Captain Frank. I can't remember what Frank's last name was, but he always called them THEO, so that's how you knew his first name. But yeah, I remember that movie, and yeah, that's a good point, Tim. I never even really thought of it. But that's very much like Manson Manson.

Delise Winder of opportunity to get these movies in the theater, at the drive ins or wherever before anybody really knows who the actual murder is her were.

Yeah, I kind of ruined it because I think DiSalvo confessed in January of sixty four, and then this came out, I want to say, April first, nineteen sixty four.

Yeah, I wonder that had the box office oull you want to exploit that fear and it's peak interest.

But then at the other hand, did they purposely because again, from what I read about the Strangler Boston Strangler murders, that's different from this. Now again, like you say, we only see what four murders or three murders.

Three murders and then his mother.

Yeah, so we see three murders.

The nurse was an outlier, but the other two are young women and you, and I believe they make you think when they're when the cops are talking early on, that it's all young women, whereas apparently the Strangler victims, the real Boston Strangler victims, were not all young women. They were women of all ages, going from twenties to eighties. I believe there was one that was even eighty.

Something, all ages. And then also that he want to say at least one of his victims was black, which was very interesting because normally you kill within your own race.

And obviously he didn't. He certainly didn't the victor or Leo Kroll in this movie as Tim or you. Someone mentioned earlier he worked with an African American woman and he didn't hurt her, and he obviously must have seen her on a daily basis.

He probably knew enough, and he'll mess with her. She'll take a headpin and stick. Yeah, she's tough. He's like coffee here, she.

Had those razor blades in her hair.

Yeah.

King George's girl found that out very quickly.

I don't like coffee, but I'd like coffee. She'll cream you. Imagining that mother obsessed killers. I emailed the two of you earlier as just reminded of and No Way to Treat a Lady from nineteen sixty eight, which you've got Rod Steiger, even by his standards, overacting about somebody who mother obsessed and killing older women, and then each time he puts on an increasingly bad accent. But that George Seagull is Rod Steiger doing a bad accent. It's hard

Think sixty eight was when the Tony Curtis Boston Strangler movie came out, so they're still making obviously you mentioned earlier. Wasn't there a more recent one? I think the latest one was twenty twenty three, so they're still beating that horse.

Well, I would just like to just a moment go off on a small tangent, and that is Mike expressed to us via the email that he might not be the biggest Rod Steiger fan in the world. And it struck me because when I was a younger, movie fan. I was very reluctant to say anything negative about someone who was supposed to be heralded. Is this great artist of whatever, whether they were a director or writer, actor or whatever. And then of course as I get older,

But it's interesting.

I've never been crazy about Stuger either, but I never really put a finger on and of course what it is he is. He's from that Marlon Brando James Dean, that tortured actor mold where every move they make it's just feels like they're like they're cutting their wrists open and bleeding out to get this performance. And whether you want to call it scenery chewing or deep method, it does take you out of stuff a little bit. You

To be fair to Rod Steiger, if you're talking about creepy performances in The Loved One, what is it mister joyboy with his mother? That is one of the most scenes in movie history. I would say I haven't seen The Loved One in years. I gotta see that movie again. Be you don't eat after you see that scene or why to Eat, it's a good appetite suppressort.

I'll say that there are performances of his that I like. I remember liking him as Reb Saunders and The Chosen and the Pawn Broke or I don't remember that being too shabby either, But yeah, you get some of these performances where I talked about running the Ero the same Fuller film and just the with Irish Southern accent that he's doing in that one, or God, I love him and the Specialist, the Celester stallone film where he's like.

The Chief of Police twenty is going to work with us on this problem, you know. I mean he was a former employee of the Say and he is an explosive sport and I think he can be a big out.

Or the Sixth Day where he's like it's another world out there, just scream into high oven. I'm like, yes, this is fantastic. So he was great scenery chewing.

I was just going to say, you're enjoying him, I think for the wrong read.

Yeah, yeah, it's very much more ironic. Yeah, bring him out, let's see him go crazy. This will be great.

I certainly like in the heat of the night. But getting back to James B. See King, that was great to see him. It had to be his earliest role that I would presume. I think it was his first credited role. Right, I was expecting to have a pipe in his mouth.

He's one of the few people that isn't smoking in this movie. So many people are lighting up, especially Bluono in the lab, in the hospital, Bono in the police department. Of course all the cops are smoking. But yeah, it was remarkable to see just how much they were smoking every place.

I get anything perfectly plausible for those days. I'm sure they were okay in the lab and even with highly flammable chemicals around, and going in to see how the mother is in her bed smoking right there.

Bono was smoking a cigarette when he couldn't get his hands on nylons to play with or a doll.

Yeah, a little bit of an oral fixation, exactly. I've praised the whole thing with the eyeball at the beginning, the way that they frame up him during the confession. I also like that great cut when he's about to throw that box at his mother's photo in the in her bedroom when he finds out that he's killed her successfully, and they cut from that from the picture to a dart blowing up a balloon and we're back at the arcade.

Yeah.

I thought that was really nice as a way to transition.

I wondered when he destroyed his mother's room, it looked like Charles Foster Kane Stroy was the wife's room. If that was deliberate or just it was a homage to that film or just coincidental. The way he moved and was knocking things around it looked very Caine like.

It's an excellent point. There's another person, Victor Buono could have played Orson Wells. They certainly had the rat pack connection in common.

For what I understand, he actually was playing Falstaff in some of these older characters when he was doing theater before they said hey, come on to Hollywood things. He was a great actor, and I just don't think that he was ever really given any chance. And of course we've talked about and we'll talk again in two weeks when we discussed Who's Mind Me the Mint? But I'm excited to see some more comedy from him because he was such a great comedic actor. He had wonderful timing.

As we talked last time, those two odd couple episodes he's in, and of course they it's not only his timing great, he just holds the screen as it were. Yeah, when you do wonder what his Shakespearean performances would have been like, because as you say, I think he was discovered doing a San Diego San Diego is that the Globe Theater? Yeah, and that's how he got into the industry. So some people saw him and saw this guy, great actor. But it's just the nature of the business, the limited

He could have gotten in and become a fixture in that whole genre, like a Christopher Lee or a Vincent Price or someone like that. As far as this comic, and I just I have to make mention of it because my life, whether I wanted it to be or not, has been ensnarled with the rat Pack. But he does these, he does He does four for Texas and Robin and the Seven Hoods with Franken Dean both and then it.

Was I found it interesting in this picture. The woman who plays Tally her name, she's got like a doesn't she have a male name?

Yeah, Davey Davison is her name. When Tim and I were watching rewatching, I was rewatching it, he was watching it for the first time. But I'm like, why do I know that girl?

Why do I know that girl? And then I looked it up on IMDb.

She was in one of the worst rat Pack movies, which I know seems redundant, but she was in a movie called Marriage on the Rocks in nineteen sixty seven that was just Frank and Dean and Deborah Carr and she plays Nancy Sinatra, who is playing Frank's daughter. In the movie, she plays Nancy Sinatra's girlfriend who is interested in Nancy Sinatra's father, French.

Your dad is Mike Cardio.

Okay, really it's a horrible movie, but it just made me think, oh, that's funny. Too bad Victor wasn't in that one too, because we would have had a trifecta for him with the Pack, but they apparently liked him.

Speaking of the rat pe, but no better than I. But I think he's in two Matt Helm films right now. He is in quite a connection there. Yes, you're right, he is in at least one, maybe two Matt Helm film. Well, that's funny. He's a yellow phase. If I'm not mistaken, I think you're right.

Yeah, the character's name is to because I'm teaching this course right now in Sammy Davis Junior. And people see these old videos now of their antics on stage at the Sands during the height of the rat pack era, and they make all these jokes, and of course people were offended by. They used to make the constant joke where Dean would pick Sammy up and he'd say, I'd like to thank the NAACP for this award. All these

Brando Brando was in. It was Brando Clift and Dean Martin. It was the war picture.

Who's I'm blanking on the name of it now, But they all said that he befriended Montgomery Cliff and was.

Like really great to him.

They've said the same thing about how much Sinatra loved working with who's the guy in Manchurian Care candidate Lawrence Harvey, Lawrence Harvey, Lawrence Harvey. And of course Dean loved apparently loved Victor Buono. He loved dom dela There were just a lot of.

People, Wait, Dom Delaize is gay.

No, I didn't say that. All right, never mind, I didn't say that. He came across that the way. That's let's say that.

There were other.

People that that didn't seen that, Paul Wynn and Charles Nelson Riley, who were both on his show A lot the wait.

Wait, Charles Nelson Riley was gay?

Come on here.

Next thing you're gonna tell me is that Liberaci was gay.

But about Rip Taylor, No, wait a minute, Liberati wasn't gay. He was a matinee idol for women in the fifties.

They like, yeah, there was a lawsuit all about that. I don't think he would help.

He was absolutely who lived with his mother probably, and he loved his brother George. I wish his brother George were here right now.

It took me so long to figure out that joke. When bugs Buddy says that when he sits down at the piano, I'm like, what what is this?

I wish my brother George was here.

At the very end when he gets shot out the window. We don't find out whether he actually killed his victims. Why when I went back to see that, it's left open. Because he does move so quickly when he strangles him, you would think we'd see her. Oh, thank goodness, she came just in time. Yeah, the move.

This movie ends so darn quickly, it just wraps up. I was almost hoping for Simon Oakland to show up and explain this case a little bit more too.

Yeah, I thought it was odd that it ended so abruptly. It really made no sense. It was like, like Tim said, we were He and I looked at each other. Okay, is that it? You're just stopping it there? It seems to every guy's we're talking about how it's like a TV detective show. Let's get a little epilogue here, man, Yeah.

There was no she should have rushed into one of the detective's arms. Yeah, because you see her him strangling her. But yeah, we don't get her a shot of her at all, and yeah, she could really be dead, And so I didn't even think about that.

Well, I know how fast he moves when he strangles. You got to give him that much. But whether that was deliberate or whether it was just bad filmmaking, I don't know. But it's is that it. That's all, folks, nothing more to see here, Move along.

It's funny. We talked last week about Feud and that whole Ryan Murphy's series. But I want to say that there was an homage to the Boston Strangler in one of those American Horror stories, because he did those right. Wasn't that where Ryan Murphy really made his bones? Yeah, because I want to say, and I watched part of the first season of American Horror Story, really liked the made character, the younger made version. And then I want to say, I watch first episode of maybe the second season,

I don't know.

I couldn't find more about that. Oh yeah, Richard Speck as well.

Yeah, it's disturbing just in general, how many of these mass murders we know of, and also that, as we've seen in recent years, Netflix and other places are just revisiting the lives and crimes of these very disturbing people. Maybe there's a reason for a remake of The Strangler. The guy who played Victor Buono in Feud, maybe this is an opening for him. If you loved him in Feud, you'll love him in The Strangler too.

This time it's personal, get dominic progress back on the phone. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and to find out a little bit more because like you guys also looked into the Boston Strangler case a little bit more as well, and this whole thing of a lot of people saying that it wasn't really DeSalvo that was the murderer for me growing up, but it

Very weird move.

And then some of the things that DeSalvo was actually up to seemed very similar to what the Boston strangler was doing. But there's all of this theorizing around, Oh no, it was actually the guy he was in lock up with who was giving him all this information. But then the cops are like, no, he was answering the questions, like immediately, there was no thinking about things, no recalling things. But yeah, I don't know what to think. But it's a pretty fascinating case. And I can't believe it went

How long was Son of Sam? Was it just for that summer? That one summer? I think it was. Yeah, we've had sadly our fair share of such awful cases here in the city of Rochester and their cities where there's murderer, or maybe it was like the Hillside Stranglers where they were cousins. Or it's sad that I even know about.

The Hillside Strangler was in LA but he was from Rochester, Chester, Yeah, exactly. But we had God, I don't remember how old I was, but boy, talk about being in the news for years. There was a guy named Arthur Shawcross who killed I think probably close to twenty women.

It was.

That was a terrible one too. And that's it now that I think of it. I don't know if they ever made.

They usually Hollywood leaves no stone unturned, especially if it's got a lot of discussing things under it.

They like to exploit it. But I don't know if they ever made a movie about about it.

As soon as I started to type in the word art it's at Arthur Shawcross, I was like, oh God, you think I'm a serial killer group also known as the Genesee River Killer.

Okay, that's why I say, sadly, we've got more than our fair share of such horrible cases. But also we learned and who killed Teddy Bear that the Juliette Prowse character was from Rochester.

Yeah, good detective work on that. I like how you're like, she sounds like she's got a Rochester accent, and then sends me a screen grab of her going well back in Rochester.

Well, some might say it's a South African accent, but we'll he could quibble over that.

Just let me say that I've lived in Rochester my entire life, and I have never seen any woman that looked like Julia Prous because I would have remembered her.

Boy, Yeah, I.

Really thought she was from the UK. Apparently born in Mumbai, India. So just so you know, nationality American, British, Indian, and South African. But with the American it doesn't say in parenthesis Rochester.

Well, I guess Strangler is a good middle ground between the two Aldrich films because all three of them are don't Gothic or if you want to describe a dark, disturbing films. And Otto and I agreed, we're glad that we're ending with who is Minding the Mint with another side of Victor Bono, the lighter side, if you will.

Well, speaking of let's go ahead and take a break and play a preview for next week's show. Right after these brief messages, bring Home the Smurfs Movie on digital now. In this fun epic adventure, the Smurf's team up with new friends on a daring rescue mission to see Papa Smurf from a league of evil wizards. By the film, critics are calling pure comedy, magic and get over. Thirty five minutes of Smurftastic extras, including new music from Rihanna

Hush Hush, Sweet Shart, don't tell anyone what happened in the summerhouse a good game.

Hush hush, Sweet Sharlotte.

Don't tell anyone how sharp the edge of terror can be.

Hush hush, Sweet Charlotte. Don't tell anyone what's wrapped in that rug. Hush hush, Sweet Sharlett.

Don't tell anyone what stands in the shadows at the top of the stairs.

Hush hush, Sweet Charlotte. Charlotte, don't you cry. Hush hush, Sweet Charlotte.

I love you till I die. Hush hush, Sweet Charlotte, Tilla die.

That's right. We'll be back next week. What they look at Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte. As Buono Palooza continues until then, I want to thank my co host for this month, Otto and Tim So Otto's keeping you business, sir.

After I talked to you last week, I got my index and everything in for my baseball book, so that's all completed and that now I'm literally working on ideas as to what I'm gonna right next.

Your subject is right here in front of your face, Victor Buono.

Yeah, Ganda, Ganda.

As I've said to Tim all these years, there's just not enough information out there about Buono. His star was too brief, and there's not enough, as we've said many I'll say it every day, not enough respect.

For these character actors.

Like we've already said, this guy was very talented, and this was one of only two films that he got.

A real starring role in, and neither of the films were so another went out there. We stumbled on Big Daddy or something like that.

I think that's a missing film. I don't know if that exists anyplace.

I would find it. There's you know, the promo board as it were, but almost like a parody see the alligators the chopping people in the swamps.

I think you're right, Mike, though I think I read somewhere that that film is nowhere to be found now.

Yeah, Big Daddy from nineteen sixty nine where he played a Lincoln beau Regard, So I imagine it was probably really chewing up the scenery, which I'm here for. Man, give me anything more with Bono.

But it had the wonderful Joan Blondell in it too, didn't it?

And Tim, what about you? What have you been up to so last we met.

I've just been dealing with the extreme heat and I'm sweating like the Strangler before he strangles someone. Five degrees here and it's a little rough, but actually I'm insconsin I air conditioned homes, so I can't really complain, just trying to beat the heat.

Well, thank you so much guys for being on the show. Thanks to everybody for listening. If you want to hear more of me shooting off my mouth, check out some of the other shows that I work on. They are all available at weitingwaymedia dot com. Thanks especially to the Patreon community. If you want to join the community, visit Patreon dot com slash Projection Booth. Every donation we get helps the Projection Booth take over the world.

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