Sketchy acting in some of the minor parts. Merely adequate until Curtis enters the frame at the beginning of the second half. He's quite unnerving and countered nicely by the calmly determined Fonda character. On the basis of this film, I'd say that split-screens are underused in modern cinema.

Great job by Tony Curtis.

Curtis gives an oustanding performance of this fictionalized recounting

Most of the film is a pretty standard whodunit as it chronicles the investigation of several leads, trying to find the strangler and in the process revealing the many weirdos and perverts in boston (which has a disturbing effect when it seems to demonize these people a bit). But in the last act, it suddenly turns into a taut, claustrophobic, psychological drama with Curtis giving a rather good performance as a schizophreniac, and that kicks the whole film up a notch.

Surprisingly brutal subject matter for the time period (some scenes and dialog might even be a bit discomfiting for an episode of SVU). Maybe the split-screen stuff gets a little tiresome quickly but I didn't mind it too much. When it shifts from police procedural to psychological drama/character study, it becomes something close to remarkable, and Curtis' chilling portrayal is a large part of that.

Tony Curtis is rather good in this film.

Despite its lapses, this is a reasonably absorbing screen treatment of the story. Curtis is convincing as the deranged De Salvo and Fonda adds to the credibility of Fleischer's documentary-like approach.

God damn this is terrible. Another one of those movies which are evidently made for (and perhaps even by) serial killer groupies. A textbook case of why I usually hate "true-crime" books and movies despite that I'm a lifelong horror fan. Also a textbook example of how for every late '60s movie like _Midnight Cowboy_ that was using the new permissiveness in American movies to do something really intriguing, there were about ten like this one that were appealing to folks' baser natures instead