Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut presents the horrific true story of a serial rapist and murderer’s appearance on a saucy ‘70s dating show.
, a game show where—in the original incarnation that ran from 1965 to 1973—a wholesomely attractive “bachelorette” would choose her favorite from three unseen polyester-suited bachelors by means of saucy-ish questions laden with clunky double-entendres provided by the producers. Then they, along with a chaperone, would be sent off on a vacation.
A 1978 episode became retroactively notorious when it emerged that one of the bachelors, a “successful photographer” named Rodney Alcala, had appeared on the show even after serving two terms for “molesting” two girls under 13, including an 8-year-old whom he had raped and beaten. Also, unbeknownst to the police at the time, Alcala had raped and murdered five women in the months before the broadcast.
Alcala did work at the L.A. Times in 1979, but as a typesetter, not a photographer. He was frequently hired as a wedding photographer by customers who were as ignorant of his record as a registered sex offender as theproducers. Kendrick’s choice to play Alcala is considerably more dour and dumpy than the original, who was handsome and by all accounts charming.
In the film, a woman in the show audience has a panic attack and flees after recognizing Rodney as the man who had approached her and her friend on a beach the day before her friend was found raped and murdered. She tells a security guard she urgently needs to speak to the show’s producer, whereupon the guard tells her to wait in an office and the producer will be with her shortly. Naturally, no one turns up except, eventually, a custodian.
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