The Netflix film Woman of the Hour tells the based-on-real-events story of serial murderer Rodney Alcala — better known as “The Dating Game Killer” — who appeared on the primetime game show in 1978, in the midst of a spree of violent attacks and murders of women. Anna Kendrick directs and stars in the film as Sheryl Bradshaw, an aspiring actor and Dating Game contestant who selected Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) as the winning bachelor on the show, but, like her real-life counterpart Cheryl Bradshaw, gets out of the encounter alive. Alcala died in incarceration in 2021 at age 77.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Kendrick said that she wanted the film to shine a spotlight on the misogyny that permeates every part of our culture, allowing men like Alcala to kill women for years without consequence. “I felt like the question in the air for a lot of Sheryl’s story is ‘Hang on, do you see me as human or something else?’’” she said.
With source material that’s stranger than fiction, how far did Woman of the Hour stray from actual events? Here are a few examples of plot points and details that are rooted in fact, and others that were changed in the movie’s retelling of the crimes.
Warning: spoilers ahead.
Bradshaw never went on a date with Alcala.
In Woman of the Hour, after selecting Alcala (aka Bachelor Number 3) on The Dating Game, the couple won an all-expenses-paid trip to Carmel, California. (In real life, he was Bachelor Number 1, and the prize was tennis lessons and a trip to Magic Mountain theme park.) In the film version, instead of waiting for their date, Bradshaw and Alcala go for mai tais at a dimly lit tiki bar near the television studio, during which he creeped out enough for her to cancel their Carmel date.
But there’s no evidence that the real Bradshaw ever saw Alcala after the filming of the show wrapped. Morgan Rowan, who survived being attacked by Alcala at age 13 and 16, told The Sun that Bradshaw “met him for a few minutes backstage and then she told the producer she didn’t want to go because she thought he was creepy.”
Overall, Rowan, now 72 and living in Glendale, California, was disappointed in this take on the crimes because she said that the filmmakers didn’t consult survivors, and the script wandered too far from the real story. “I don’t like the revision of history and I don’t like the fact they are giving him more fame and attention,” she told The Sun. (A representative for the film did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Rodney James Alcala
MediaNews Group
There wasn’t a woman in The Dating Game audience who recognized Alcala.
During the taping of The Dating Game, the film shifts focus from the contestants on the stage to a member of the studio audience, Laura (Nicolette Robinson), who instantly recognizes Alcala as the man who murdered her friend. She had previously reported the crime to the police, but wasn’t taken seriously, and has the same experience when she tells her boyfriend — who was also at the taping — and a studio security guard. Kendrick recently told Rolling Stone that while the character of Laura is fictional, she represents the grief and frustration of the real-life people who tried to report Alcala.
There was, however, someone who recognized Alcala on The Dating Game: a Huntington Beach, California detective investigating him for the 1979 murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe, who caught a rerun of his episode on TV shortly after Alcala was named a suspect, according to a 2021 episode of ABC’s 20/20.
Sally Field did appear on The Dating Game.
In the movie, Bradshaw’s manager convinces her to be a contestant on The Dating Game by telling her that actor Sally Field was also on the show. Later, when Bradshaw is giving herself a last-minute pep talk before walking onstage, she repeatedly reminds herself that she was following in Field’s footsteps, and that being on the game show would bring her more visibility as an actor.
Turns out, Bradshaw’s inspiration was real: Field appeared in the premiere episode of The Dating Game on Oct. 6, 1966. And she was no stranger to TV game shows in the early days of her career: Field was also a panelist on Hollywood Squares in 1968, and He Said, She Said in 1970.
Alcala wasn’t a photographer for the LA Times.
In Woman of the Hour, Alcala uses photography and his camera to seem more approachable and convince women to let down their guard and spend time alone with him posing as his model. His bona fides as a professional photographer are reinforced in the movie when he’s shown working in the photo department of the LA Times.
In reality, Alcala did work at the LA Times, but as a typesetter, not a photographer. He did, however, use his hobby as a way to spend time with women. In 1979, while investigating Samsoe’s murder, Huntington Beach police searched Alcala’s Seattle storage locker and found a cache of photos of women and girls. More than 100 of these images were released to the public in March 2010, during Alcala’s third trial. Most of the people identified in the photos were alive and well, CBS News reported.
A teenage runaway is responsible for his arrest.
In the movie, Alcala brings teenage runaway Amy (Autumn Best) to a remote part of the desert for a “photoshoot,” where he kidnaps, assaults and rapes her. She survives the attack, and the next morning asks him to keep it between them, acts like they’re a couple, and requests that he drive her back to his place. On the way, when Alcala stops at a gas station to use the restroom, Amy flees to a nearby diner and calls the police, who arrive on the scene and arrest him on the spot.
Amy’s real-life counterpart was a 15-year-old named Monique Hoyt, whose 1979 escape from the serial killer largely played out like it did on screen. The movie ends here — followed by on-screen text explaining that Alcala went on to commit additional murders and eventually died in 2021 while incarcerated. It also specifies that after this arrest, Alcala was released on bail while awaiting trial, then went on to murder a 21-year-old woman and 12-year-old girl. While he was convicted of murdering a total of seven women and girls, some estimates suggest that Alcala killed as many as 130 people.