The Boston Strangler and more of my Tony Curtis fixation

I thought my Tony Curtis phase had finally passed, but apparently not ;)
I watched The Boston Strangler (1968) on Saturday. It's based on the true story of a series of murders that took place in Boston in the 1960s. The film takes a lot of liberties with what happened, but as some of its best moments are at the times when it takes the biggest liberties I'm not particularly upset by that ;-P Curtis plays the title role of the murderer and he's quite extraordinary in it. Apparently, he had to lobby very hard to get the part as neither the director nor the studio thought he'd be any good in it (he was a blue eyed, handsome guy who did mostly conventional leads and a lot of comedy). Of course the studio and director were wrong ;) The part is one of Tony Curtis's most acclaimed performances. He doesn't come in until about an hour into the film, but once he's in he pretty much carries the film. Here's the only clip from the film that I found on-line:

Funnily enough I didn't have much trouble picturing him doing a murderer and rapist well, but what took me totally by surprise was what he does in the closing stages of the film. After the character gets caught, he's locked up in a mental institution and interrogated there. What he does in those scenes is amazing. I don't want to spoil the film for anyone, so I won't say exactly what the diagnosis is (the real Albert Desalvo was never diagnosed with anything of the sort by the way), but it's one of the most amazing portrayals of mental illness I've seen - on the one hand very intense, but on the other there's something very simple and straight about the way he does it. Usually when one thinks of acclaimed actors doing mentally ill characters they do it "big". Think people like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind or even Edward Norton in Primal Fear. I'm not saying Tony Curtis did it "small" exactly, but it definitely was "smaller" and "more human". I loved how you could practically understand all the thought processes and feelings that were happening in the character's head during the interrogations. The way it was edited and the dialogue helped a lot of course, but there was just a beautiful clarity and simplicity in what Tony Curtis was doing.

Since I found Tony Curtis in this movie so gushworthy I'm naturally very excited about the prospect of seeing more of his films ;-P I've apparently got around 120 feature films to choose from (in the old days it was quite normal to do around 3-4 films a year and he's been at it since 1949!), but as that's a little too much even for my current level of interest in him I thought I'd make a shorter list for myself ;-P So here's a list of the Tony Curtis titles that caught my eye (including those I've already seen):

Insignificance (1985)
This sounds like some sort of very bizarre and artsy film that will be very difficult to make any sense of ;) Basically Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Senator Joseph McCarthy and Joe DiMaggio meet together in a hotel room. Tony Curtis plays McCarthy.
The only video clip I've come across is here - it's a montage of 5 films by Nicolas Roeg. Unfortunately no Tony in the clip, but the clips of Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe covered in blood look kind of weird and interesting ;-P

Casanova & Co. (1977)
I still haven't made my mind up over whether I actually want to see this one lol Basically, almost all the reviews I've come across describe it as a soft porn movie ;) Now that in itself doesn't scare me off (on the contrary, the idea of Tony Curtis doing a soft porn film seems so funny to me that I automatically want to see it ;-P - especially that he's supposed to be Casanova AND Casanova's look-a-like in the film), but most people write that the film is terrible and also it's supposed to be dubbed over (badly) in German.
Unfortunately I've found no clips on-line of this weird piece of work ;) Had I found any perhaps I would have made up my mind by now ;-P

The Persuaders (1971-1972)
This is the TV series I've already mentioned. The idea of seeing 24 episodes of Tony Curtis flirting with Roger Moore while both of them are playing cool action heroes is too good to pass on ;) I linked to clips in my previous post, but I'll repeat the links ;-P (here's one and here's another one).

The Boston Strangler (1968)
I've basically said all that needs to be said above, haven't I? :)

The Great Race (1965)
This sounds like a comedy with a totally ridiculous sense of humour. The hero (Tony Curtis as the Great Leslie) is always dressed in white and the villain (Jack Lemmon as Professor Fate) is always in black. It features the biggest pie fight ever staged and many other totally ridiculous scenes (for example this one). In fact the only films that I've ever read about or seen which sound anywhere near as ridiculous are Bollywood ones ;)

Spartacus (1960)
This one I've seen. I guess the main interest factor is that it's a Stanley Kubrick film, though I don't think it's one of his best. What it was meant to be would have probably been much more interesting than what it actually is. Still, it's a classic.
I've already mentioned the film on my blog, but as I concentrated on its gay subtexts I didn't link to the trailer which is sadly not homoerotic in the slightest ;-P

Operation Petticoat (1959)
It's a comedy which also stars Cary Grant. It takes place on a submarine during World War II and basically everything keeps going wrong. For example because they don't have enough paint, they're forced to mix red and white and paint the submarine pink (apparently there really was one pink submarine during the war for those reasons!).
Here's a hilarious pig stealing scene from the film.

Some Like It Hot (1959)
I've seen this one ages ago. I really want to re-watch it and I know I used to have a VHS tape of it, but can't find it anywhere grrrrr...
It's a great comedy which has Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon dressed up as girls and Marilyn Monroe is great and really hilarious in this as well (incidentally, I think it's the only Marilyn Monroe film I've seen, I should change that!). Oh and the closing line is unforgettable ;)
The trailer is here.

The Defiant Ones (1958)
This one I've already mentioned and seen. It's a beautiful film :) Already posted this before, but here's the trailer.

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
This is supposed to be Tony Curtis' first serious dramatic part. He plays a young guy who is prepared to do some very morally repulsive things to achieve success and money in New York.
I love the look of the two clips I found (clip no.1 and clip no.2) - the atmosphere is thick with jazz, New York and degeneration ;)

Houdini (1953)
In this one Curtis plays Harry Houdini and I think this was his first major success. I'm actually convinced I saw this film on TV when I was very, very little.
Here's the clip I found (it gives me a strong deja vu feeling).