The Strangler [1964] Victor Buono

The Strangler (1964)


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058622/

The Strangler is a 1964 crime thriller, directed by Burt Topper and starring Victor Buono, David McLean, Davey Davison and Ellen Corby, with a screenplay was by Bill S. Ballinger. The film was inspired by the Boston Strangler, a serial killer of the 1960s.

Victor Buono ... Leo Kroll
David McLean ... Lt. Frank Benson
Diane Sayer ... Barbara Wells
Davey Davison ... Tally Raymond
Baynes Barron ... Sgt. Mack Clyde
Ellen Corby ... Mrs. Kroll
Michael Ryan ... Detective Mel Posner
Russ Bender ... Dr. Clarence Sanford
Jeanne Bates ... Clara Thomas, the Nurse
Wally Campo ... Eggerton
Mimi Dillard ... Thelma
Byron Morrow ... Dr. Morton
John Yates ... Intern
James Sikking ... Artist
Robert Cranford ... Jack Rosten

The film's small budget limited the number of big names that could be hired, and the main leads were subject to Allied Artists' approval. Victor Buono, who had recently received an Academy Award nomination for his role in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, was cast as serial killer Leo Kroll independently of director Burt Topper, who chose David McLean for the role of Lt. Frank Benson, the detective in charge of investigating the murders. McLean was known for his lead role in the 1960 Western television series Tate.

Veteran character actress Ellen Corby (later to become best known as Grandma Walton in The Waltons) played Mrs. Kroll, Victor's controlling mother, and Jeanne Bates was Clara Thomas, her attending nurse.

Among the unknowns cast were Davey Davison as Tally Raymond, the female lead, and Diane Sayer as Barbara Wells, Tally's colleague at the amusement park stand from which Kroll obtains a doll. Topper also drew on the "Burt Topper Stock Company" – an unoffcial group of actors he worked with regularly – to fill some supporting roles, including Baynes Barron as Sgt. Mack Clyde, Russ Bender as Dr. Clarence Sanford and Wally Campo as Eggerton.

Producers Samuel Bischoff and David Diamond originally planned to make a movie called The Boston Strangler, capitalizing on the ongoing interest in the real life serial killer of the same name. The setting was later changed to an unnamed US city. Burt Topper was hired in the wake of his work on War Is Hell (1963) and production commenced mid-September 1963.

Topper found working with Bischoff and Diamond a positive experience, but relations were not as smooth with his star, Victor Buono. Buono insisted the director change those scenes which he felt were "too suggestive" (indeed, cinematographer Jacques Marquette's main recollection of the shoot was Buono's refusal to do a scene in which Diane Sayer was supposed to be nude) and he once walked off set for a day, after an exchange with Topper over the actor's difficulty hitting his marks.