BEFORE: OK, we got our power restored - our house is oddly connected to the house next door, like the power on the block comes through THEIR house to reach OUR house - perhaps this is common here in NYC where there are like 20 houses on a single block, minimum. Since none of our breakers had been tripped (I flipped a few just to make sure, it didn't help) I figured that the problem was beyond our house, it was a block problem. I knocked on one neighbor's door and his power was fine, we also texted the couple that bought the house next door, and they reported no problems, but still we just decided to report the problem to Con Edison and wait it out. Well, funny story, the neighbors DID have problems, they just weren't aware of them when we checked in. So Con Ed sent a crew, two guys that just got a tour of my Star Wars autograph collection in the basement, and they were rather impressed. Well, it is a large collection, over 120 signed photos, and while the tour didn't speed up the power restoration, I at least gave a couple of Star Wars fans a free gallery tour for their efforts. Now we'll be fine as long as there are no more winter storm events - is what I would say if I really wanted to jinx things.
Marc Gaudet carries over from "Puppy Love".
THE PLOT: A single woman looking for a suitor on a hit 1970's TV show chooses charming bachelor Rodney Alcala, unaware that the man's gentle facade hides a deadly secret.
AFTER: This is based on a true story, a serial killer DID appear on the game show "The Dating Game" back in 1978 - of course, nobody knew it at the time, as he chose not to list that under "occupation" on his form. And we know for a fact that there have been a few very dynamic, charming serials out there, like Ted Bundy leaps to mind. Women found Bundy attractive, even after he was arrested and charged and sentenced to die by execution, there were STILL women who wanted to date Ted Bundy. This maybe is part of the problem, but it's not the main part of the problem, like I get that there are lonely ladies out there and they all probably feel like they could be the ones who could "change" him, but still, not a good idea. Maybe those women had a bigger plans, like they wanted to write a book or make a movie about Bundy, but I don't know, I think the world is just made up of a bunch of lonely people who run around and bump into each other and home that the romance magic sets in.
This is the serial killer's playground, the lonely women and the serial daters, and in some cases the women who needed help moving furniture up a flight of stairs, and sure, Rodney's your man for that sort of thing, but in addition to being quite charming, Rodney wasn't wired right, he wasn't straight in the head, and eventually he would turn on women as soon as they were alone together, sometimes out in the desert after he arranged a photo shoot and told these girls how beautiful they were, or he needed a model to enter and win a photo contest, something like that. Rodney would say whatever he thought the girls needed to hear, or whatever would get them to go for that long ride out to the desert where the good scenery is. Rodney had a collection of more than 1,000 photos of women, teenage girls and a few boys, and so you wonder how many of those people also had their photos on milk cartons back in the day.
After high school, Rodney Alcala joined the U.S. Army to become a paratrooper, but served as a clerk. He was disciplined on several occasions for assaulting women, and was regarded as manipulative, vindictive and insubordinate, then in 1964 he had a nervous breakdown and went AWOL from Fort Bragg in N.C. and hitchhiked to his mother's house in California. After that he was discharged from the army, for medical reasons like BPD and narcissistic psychopathy. He later graduated from the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture, however he told people that he studied film at NYU under Roman Polanski, but that's the kind of thing that nobody would ever check. Anyway, NYU film school churns out egotists like Woody Allen, Spike Lee and Brett Ratner but not necessarily serial killers.
The incidents seen here in "Woman of the Hour" (although the flashbacks are a bit jumbled, and it's a bit tough to tell which are in the past and which are in the future) are based on actual events, like Alcala did help a flight attendant with moving furniture into her apartment on 83rd St. in Manhattan, and then strangle her, this was in 1971. Alcala was on his way up to New Hampshire to be an arts camp counselor for children, using an alias, but by this point, his photo was on FBI wanted posters in post offices, and someone in New Hampshire recognized him, which led to him being extradited to California. However, witnesses from his past crimes were either unavailable or unwilling to testify against him, so he was convicted of lesser charges rather than rape and murder, and got sentenced to three years, and paroled after 34 months.
For the next few years, we can assume that his murder spree continued, however he was probably getting good at ensuring there would be no witnesses, and no evidence to process - though later in 1978, remains of Ellen Hover, who disappeared in1977, were found on the Rockefeller estate, about 40 miles north of NYC, overlooking the Hudson River. But Alcala had already moved back to Los Angeles, was working for the L.A. Times as a typesetter, and although he was interviewed by police working on the Hillside Strangler case, he was ruled out and only arrested for marijuana possession. But in 1978 he applied for "The Dating Game", listing himself as a photographer who also enjoyed skydiving and motorcycles. Another bachelor contestant on the show later described him as "very obnoxious and creepy", though perhaps they really hated him because he was articulate and the best at answering the questions of that episode's bachelorette, Cheryl Bradshaw.
The show's prize for the winning bachelor was a week's vacation in Carmel, California. The other bachelors were awarded runner-up prizes, which were probably two week vacations in Carmel, California. The intent of the show was that the woman would select her ideal mate from the three contestants and they would go on vacation together, but Bradshaw refused to go out with Rodney later, and the vacation was a no-go because of how creepy he was, and this probably saved Bradshaw's life, on day three of that vacation Rodney probably would have reverted to type. The film depicts her getting a bad vibe from him after they went out to a diner following the taping, and Rodney suggests they exchange phone numbers so they can plan that trip together, however she gave him a bogus phone number, and he picked up on that - we don't really know if he did then follow her back to her car, or if the parking lot was too crowded for him to strike, or what happened after that.
But we do know that the killings continued, I won't list them here but you can look them up on Wikipedia, Rodney started targeting younger girls, some who were teenage hitchhikers and runaways, for obvious reasons. Girls who were not in touch with their families or on the run, and remember back then they didn't have smart phones or even cell phones, so there were a lot of miles of highway between gas stations and diners with pay phones, just saying. There was one hitchhiker who managed to get away from Alcala when he stopped to use a gas station restroom, but it's unclear if she really testified at his parole hearing like the closing credits suggest. But this incident took place in February of 1979, so that's 47 years ago. Thankfully there was enough evidence against him at this point to keep him in prison, for five murders in California, and then he finally died in prison in 2021 - but it's estimated that the true number of his victims could be as high as 130.
So yeah, I'm sorry that because of a few people like this, that dating is a nightmare for women - it sucks not knowing if the next person you date is going to be the love of your life, or the cause of your death. It sucks when you assume that the casting directors of a dating show properly vetted the other contestants, and then you find out they didn't. And it sucks when you form a connection with somebody, have a nice meal together and discuss some plays or books or music you both like, then you find out that person is a total creep who was leading you on to some degree. But unfortunately, that's part of playing the dating game (not just the show, the real human game of dating) so please, be careful out there. Smartphones and the internet have perhaps made dating easier, but not necessarily less dangerous.
"The Dating Game" did inadvertently cast one serial killer, but to be fair, they did also cast future stars Sally Field, Don Johnson and Burt Reynolds. Also, Tom Selleck, Steve Martin, Farrah Fawcett, Suzanne Somers, John Ritter, Mark Harmon, Gregory Hines, Bob Saget and Arnold Schwarzenegger, before they were famous.
Directed by Anna Kendrick (producer of "Alice, Darling" and "Stowaway")
Also starring Anna Kendrick (last seen in "Get a Job"), Daniel Zovatto (last seen in "The Pope's Exorcist"), Tony Hale (last heard in "Inside Out 2"), Nicolette Robinson (last seen in "One Night in Miami..."), Pete Holmes (last seen in "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever"), Autumn Best, Kathryn Gallagher, Kelley Jakle (last seen in "Pitch Perfect 3"), Matt Visser, Jedidiah Goodacre (last seen in "Monster Trucks"), Rob Morton, Dylan Schmid (last seen in "Horns"), Karen Holness (last seen in "Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed"), Denalda Williams (last seen in "Cousins"), Jessie Fraser, Matty Finochio (last seen in "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb"), Geoff Gustafson (last seen in "The Interview"), Max Lloyd-Jones (last seen in "War for the Planet of the Apes"), Andy Thompson (last seen in "A Guy Thing"), Nancy Kerr, James Yi (last seen in "Colossal"), Jessica Chaffin (last seen in "Desperados"), Matthew Kevin Anderson (last seen in "The Show"), Taylor Hastings, David Beairsto, Darcy Laurie (last seen in "Walking Tall"), Bonnie Hay, Michael Adamthwaite (last seen in "Black Christmas" (2006)), Jacob Woike, Jason Simpson (last heard in "The Layover"), Hannah Henney, Tighe Gill, Michael Jonsson (last seen in "Easter Sunday"), Vonnie Bennetto, Thomas Strumpski, John Herkenrath, Jeremy Radin (last seen in "The Accountant 2"), John Gillich, Cody Heller.
RATING: 5 out of 10 quarters (stolen from a laundromat)
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