Rod Steiger makes for an effective serial killer in this late Sixties flick, described by a police detective later in the story as displaying a 'paranoiac exhibition of mother hate'. I thought Morris Brummel's (George Segal) sixth victim ruse was pretty clever in getting the maniac to go off his stride and set himself up for capture. However in the one scene at the bar in which the disguised-as-a-woman Gill (Steiger) was picked up by the buxom saloon gal - what was Brummel's rationale in following them to the apartment next door? There wasn't any logical reason to my mind why he should have suspected anything was up with those two, even after questioning the bartender. That one didn't make sense to me.
Though never mentioned by name, I thought the reference to Christopher Gill's Oedipus complex was cleverly referred to in the museum scene with the statue of Oedipus and Antigone. The story didn't delve into Gill's background very effectively otherwise, the fact that he had inherited the family theater business didn't add much to explaining his murderous tendencies. The cops did a better job of bringing him out with planted stories of his being a sexual pervert, and of course that sixth victim business.
Keeping an eye on the street scenes during the race to Kate Palmer's (Lee Remick) apartment, I caught two marquees displaying the titles "The Born Losers" and "Pink Pussy". The first picture was a Tom Laughlin/Billy Jack movie, but I was pretty sure I wouldn't get an IMDb hit for the second. But lo and behold, it turns out that it was a 1964 Venezuelan film with New York City scenes added a couple years later for an American release. So the timing in this movie worked I guess. If you take a quick look, there's even a single review for the picture, which is probably all you need, since getting a hold of the flick is probably impossible.
Anyway, this was an okay thriller that could only have gone one way in the resolution, so you had to get some entertainment value out of the handful of humorous scenes offered. The Kupperman (Michael Dunn) confession was a sketch, but the scene that just killed was when Kate Palmer met Brummel's Jewish mother and deadpanned her way through an entire critique of Mrs. Brummel's (Eileen Heckart) 'other son Morris' - "With a son like Franklin, you don't mind having this one so much"!
Though never mentioned by name, I thought the reference to Christopher Gill's Oedipus complex was cleverly referred to in the museum scene with the statue of Oedipus and Antigone. The story didn't delve into Gill's background very effectively otherwise, the fact that he had inherited the family theater business didn't add much to explaining his murderous tendencies. The cops did a better job of bringing him out with planted stories of his being a sexual pervert, and of course that sixth victim business.
Keeping an eye on the street scenes during the race to Kate Palmer's (Lee Remick) apartment, I caught two marquees displaying the titles "The Born Losers" and "Pink Pussy". The first picture was a Tom Laughlin/Billy Jack movie, but I was pretty sure I wouldn't get an IMDb hit for the second. But lo and behold, it turns out that it was a 1964 Venezuelan film with New York City scenes added a couple years later for an American release. So the timing in this movie worked I guess. If you take a quick look, there's even a single review for the picture, which is probably all you need, since getting a hold of the flick is probably impossible.
Anyway, this was an okay thriller that could only have gone one way in the resolution, so you had to get some entertainment value out of the handful of humorous scenes offered. The Kupperman (Michael Dunn) confession was a sketch, but the scene that just killed was when Kate Palmer met Brummel's Jewish mother and deadpanned her way through an entire critique of Mrs. Brummel's (Eileen Heckart) 'other son Morris' - "With a son like Franklin, you don't mind having this one so much"!