On October 18th, 2024, a new Netflix movie was released called ‘Woman of the Hour’. This film is set in the 1970s in Los Angeles, California, as a serial killer goes on a complete murder spree. This serial killer goes by the name of Rodney Alcala who made his 1978 appearance on a popular television show called ‘The Dating Game’. Many are wondering though if this movie portrayed the real story as accurate to the current events that took place.
‘Woman of the Hour’ specifically showcased Rodney Alcala as a violent murderer who mainly targeted female victims. In the movie, Rodney Alcala is known as a photographer who would take pictures of women on the streets or in discrete spots he would bring them. Most photographs in the movie were obviously not real due to confidentiality and to be respectful towards the real victims. However, every victim he would take photographs of would be seen as deceased soon later. Alcala is also featured as an employee for the Los Angeles Times in the movie but it is unclear as to what his role is, although his inappropriate photographs are a prominent feature in his “job”.
Comparing his job to the real timeline, he was hired for the Los Angeles Times as a typesetter in 1977 and he would actually bring inappropriate photographs of women into the workplace. It is known that he quit the Los Angeles Times a couple years later after the murder of a fellow worker of the Times, Robin Chrstine Samsoe, in 1979. Unfortunately, till this day some of his victims have not been identified or recorded but it is estimated that more than 7 lives have been taken.
Continuing, in a more graphic context, he alleged killed each victim then would perform CPR to revive them and then later he would rape them. The deaths of the victims showcased in the film are real cases that took place but also limit the extent to which Rodney Alcala would take to harm each individual. ‘Woman of the Hour’ highlights about 7 murders that had been identified in the past but it is known that about 130 female victims have been taken under Alcala’s hand. The movie seems to be very accurate to the true case of the crimes but obviously some aspects had to be censored for respectful purposes and graphicness.
In the real timeline, Rodney Alcala was bachelor number 1 on ‘The Dating Game’ unlike bachelor number 3 as featured in the film. During the time of the game he already had a criminal record for sexually assaulting an 8 year old girl and murdering her. He was a registered sex offender at the time he went on the show but I am assuming that the game show did not look into his background as deeply as they should have. With that being said, in the film it shows a girl in the audience recognizing him on the show after she had a past experience with him murdering her friend. Although this scene is not true to how things went in real life, the girl in the film is supposed to represent the multiple victims and people who have reported Alcala but the cases went nowhere due to the ignorance of the public.
Similarly, in the movie it pictures a girl who is considered a “runaway”, following Alcala on a journey as she was enticed by his photography market. This girl is one of the survivors who made a real difference in putting an end to his heinous actions. The 15 year old girl, Monique Hoyt, was raped and managed to escape from Alcala after convincing him she wanted to continue the relationship and that everything was basically normal. She later called the police on him but they never arrested him for what he did to her as they didn’t truly believe. Hoyt testified against him but not until 2010, during a trial to decide whether Alcala should be executed for the murder and rape of a 12-year-old girl and four women. For these acts, he had previously been placed on death row, but the sentence was reversed on technical grounds. Hoyt was far from being collected, immediately following her attack, and even 31 years later, the thought of seeing Alcala again made her so uncomfortable that she had the assistance of an LAPD detective to accompany her in court and inform the jury that Alcala had destroyed her life.
Monique Hoyt truly put a nail in Rodney Alcala’s case as he later was arrested for life in July 1979 and added an additional 25 years onto his sentence after more crimes came out to the public eye. However, Alcala ended up passing away on July 24th, 2021 behind bars in Corcoran, California.
There are only 4 known survivors, two of those individuals being Monique Hoyt, the “runaway”, and Cheryl Bradshaw, the game show contestant.
With that being said, the movie ‘Woman of the Hour’ had a realistic interpretation of how each event truly played out and provided an estimated timeline of each incident. Although many aspects had to be censored due to the extent of violence and seriousness of the crimes, it was accurate to Rodney Alcala’s terrifying criminal history.
