The Real Rodney Alcala Story Was More Gruesome Than Woman of the Hour Lets On

As a seasoned actress who’s graced the stages of Broadway and the silver screen, I can’t help but feel a strange sense of kinship with Christine Thayer Bradshaw. Here we are, two Juilliard graduates, both having dabbled on The Dating Game, albeit under vastly different circumstances. Yet, we share an unspoken bond – the struggle to be seen and heard in a world that often seems to value looks over substance.

Anna Kendrick’s latest Netflix release, “Woman of the Hour,” dramatizes a chilling true-crime tale, but it seems that the actual Rodney Alcala, also known as the “Dating Game killer,” was even more sinister than the movie suggests.

In her first film as a director, which made its debut at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, Kendrick stars as Cheryl Bradshaw – a character who had appeared on an episode of ‘The Dating Game’ back in 1978. Daniel Zovatto portrays Rodrigo Alcala, a serial murderer that was on the show only a year before he was indicted for the kidnapping and murder of his last confirmed victim, Robin Samsoe, who was 12 years old at the time. Despite numerous appeals, verdicts, and retrials, Alcala remained in prison until his death from natural causes in 2021.

During the preparations for the episode, the Woman of the Hour spends a brief moment with both Bradshaw and Alcala. However, the scenes featuring Kendrick appear to unfold in chronological order and within a compact time frame prior to filming. On the other hand, Zovatto’s timeline seems more fragmented; certain events occur in real-time, while some of the murders depicted seem to be reminiscent of attacks that occurred years before Alcala appeared on The Dating Game. As portrayed in the movie, prosecutors argue that Alcala subjected his victims to a cruel method of torture: he would repeatedly strangle and revive them.

From my perspective, while “Woman of the Hour” presents a rather grim image of Alcala, it only skims over the truly bone-chilling details of his past. Before he ever graced the dating show, Alcala had already been arrested numerous times, with charges that ranged from murder to being on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.

Before Alcala carried out his crimes, there were no national crime databases available, which means that thorough background checks on TV shows like The Dating Game weren’t feasible. At the time, the show’s producers were unaware that Alcala had already served three years in prison for molesting a child.

The initial assault attributed to Alcala took place in 1968, which was a decade prior to his television appearance on The Dating Game. Morgan Rowan, who was only 16 then, recalled the incident when he enticed her and two companions into his California residence. She recounted that he assaulted and raped her brutally. “His face turned purple,” Rowan described to People this year. “He hit me with a belt buckle between my eyes. I saw stars, and I fell to my knees.” During the attack, she stated, “I wasn’t begging for life; I was pleading for death.” Eventually, she claimed, one of her friends managed to break a window and enter the room, allowing them all to flee.

In the following weeks, Alcala persuaded Tali Shapiro to enter his vehicle and subsequently brought her to his residence. There, he brutally assaulted and raped her, according to People. It’s reported that Alcala continued his attacks on Shapiro when law enforcement arrived, but then escaped. Shapiro, on the brink of death and unconsciousness, recounts that the police had to make a difficult decision between saving her or pursuing him. She remained in a coma for over a month. Woman of the Hour, set many years later, does not explicitly discuss Alcala’s assaults on either of the girls.

The police obtained an arrest warrant for Alcala, causing him to escape to New York. As reported by the New York Post and depicted in the movie, he disguised himself as “John Berger” while attending NYU, studying film under director Roman Polanski – who ironically would later leave the country after admitting guilt for an illegal sexual encounter with a minor.

In the narrative, Cornelia Crilley, who would later be identified as Charlie in another publication, unfortunately became Alcala’s next known victim. As portrayed in the movie, she worked as a flight attendant and was moving into an apartment in Manhattan on the day that her encounter with Alcala is believed to have occurred. During an interview with CBS News’ 48 Hours, Manhattan prosecutor Melissa Mourges described the grim scene discovered at Crilley’s apartment following Alcala’s attack. Upon investigation, authorities found Crilley deceased, having been stripped naked and strangled with her own stockings, leaving a bite mark on her breast. For years, the case remained unsolved due to a lack of leads or forensic evidence.

In the summer of 1971, nearly half a year following the murder of Crilley, Alcala was apprehended in New Hampshire under an altered alias “John Burger”. He worked as a counselor at a girls’ summer camp there. Two campers identified him from an FBI poster, leading to his arrest and eventual extradition to California due to an outstanding warrant for assaulting Shapiro. However, prosecutors chose not to charge Alcala with the girl’s rape and attempted murder as her parents declined to let her testify. Instead, he served a sentence of less than three years after admitting guilt to a lesser charge of child molestation. The details surrounding Crilley’s murder are depicted in the film, but the rest of this narrative does not seem to be.

Approximately two months following Alcala’s release from prison in 1974, he was once again apprehended by the police for assaulting a girl known only as “Julie J,” according to Justia. Julie J is not featured in the podcast “Woman of the Hour.” As portrayed in the film, Alcala secured a job at the Los Angeles Times as a typesetter in September 1977, which was about a year before he appeared on “The Dating Game.” In this role, he presented himself as a fashion photographer and took photographs of numerous men and women. As shown in “Woman of the Hour,” his portfolio allegedly contained explicit nude photos, some of which featured teenage boys. On “The Dating Game,” Alcala was introduced as a photographer, as depicted in the film.

There isn’t a lot of information available about Cheryl Bradshaw in reality. Kendrick’s movie portrays her as a disillusioned Juilliard graduate who reluctantly participates on The Dating Game at the advice of her agent, as she was struggling to pay rent. As her distress on the show escalates, she repeatedly recalls that Sally Field followed the same path, implying if it worked for Sally…

Despite the movie painting Bradshaw as a rule-breaker who challenged her bachelors, the reality of that Dating Game episode involved typical flirtatious, somewhat seedy dialogue. For example, during one exchange, Bradshaw proposed a scenario where she served Alcala for dinner and inquired about his potential nickname and appearance. His reply? “I’m called the banana, and I look very appealing.” When she requested more detail, he followed up with, “Peel me.

As a movie critic, I must say that the Netflix adaptation of “The Dating Game” eerily mirrors real-life events. For one, Rodney Alcala boasted to his fellow contestants about his consistent success with women – a claim backed by Jed Mills, who revealed in an interview with ABC’s 20/20 in 2021, that Alcala made this assertion during their time together in the green room.

Despite this, Kendrick Lamar and screenwriter Ian McDonald also introduce some dramatic twists in the story. Some of these are minor, such as Alcala being portrayed as Bachelor Number Three in the film, but he was actually Bachelor Number One in real life on The Dating Game. Other alterations are more significant, like an audience member at the game show named Laura who is a friend of one of Alcala’s victims, which appears to be fabricated. Another small difference is that in the movie, Rodney and Cheryl receive a fully-funded trip to Hawaii, but in reality, the prize was only tennis lessons and a visit to California’s Magic Mountain amusement park.

However, it appears that the movie’s portrayal of events following filming is purely fictional. Contrary to the film, Kendrick’s character consents to a date with Alcala, but in reality, Shaun Cassidy, who played Bradshaw, contacted a staff member from The Dating Game to call off the date he had arranged with Alcala.

Ellen Metzger, who had been the coordinator for ‘The Dating Game’, reminisced about Bradshaw expressing his discomfort regarding a particular contestant. He said, “Ellen, I can’t go out with this guy. There’s something off about him, he’s odd. I don’t feel right. Is that going to be an issue?” Metzger reassured him by saying, “No.

Back in February 1979, I found myself confronting a chilling tale as I delved into the life of one Rodney Alcala. Prosecutors claimed that this man violated a 15-year-old girl named Monique Hoyt, who was later rechristened “Amy” in the film. He allegedly rendered her unconscious while capturing her poses for photographs – an incident that undeniably found its way into the cinematic narrative.

2024-10-18 15:54

The Real Rodney Alcala Story Was More Gruesome Than Woman of the Hour Lets On

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