Phone Call from a Stranger (1952)

What a waste of my time!!!

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Phone Call from a Stranger is directed by Jean Negulesco and adapted to screenplay by Nunnally Johnson from a story by I.A.R. Wylie. It stars Shelley Winters, Gary Merrill, Michael Rennie, Keenan Wynn, Evelyn Varden, Warren Stevens, Beatrice Straight, Ted Donaldson, Craig Stevens, Helen Westcott and Bette Davis. Music is by Franz Waxman and cinematography by Milton Krasner. Lawyer David Trask (Merrill), leaving his family troubles behind, survives a plane crash and decides to call on the families of the people he made friends with during the trip... Utterly lovely drama, a film that boasts quality across the board. How great to see a picture that affords characters time to breath and impact on the story, impact that becomes four fold come the wonderfully humanistic finale. Story is structured as a two play piece, first act lets us into David Trask's pain and builds three characters around him as the so called "Four Musketeers" become friends during a troubled aeroplane journey. We get to know them and wonder what their home life is like, their secrets and tribulations, and then the walls come tumbling down and the story shifts into sombre tones to lead us down paths adorned with thoughtfulness and intelligence. There's a hint of contrivance and some moral grey areas, yet this rises well above the minor quibbles to become a film of dramatic emotional strength. Beautifully performed by the principal players, it forces us to question that things may not always be as they first appear. It also has meditations on grief, second chances and that out of pain can come good, the human interest value here extraordinarily high. Yes! This is a most under seen and under appreciated bit of classic era cinema, its rewards just waiting to be discovered by more film loving fans. Go on, seek it out, come the finale you will feel better for it. 8/10

Four strangers on a plane meet, reluctantly bond, yet are doomed by destiny. The survivor of the plane crash that kills three of them steps in to reach out to their survivors, realizing the next step in his own future thanks to the lessons he learned along the way.Gary Merrill stars as the embittered lawyer who has left his wife for mysterious reasons, with Shelley Winters, Michael Rennie and Keenan Wynn the three people of different lives who encounter him and let him in on their lives. Rennie seeks legal help for a drunken car accident which killed a colleague; Winters is a failed Broadway musical comedy performer with a vindictive mother-in-law and weak husband; Wynn is an obnoxious and overly jokey salesman who brags about his wonderful sex-pot wife. The truths about them are revealed in different moods that range from touching to comical to a truth revealing final that shows what is on the surface isn't always whats in the heart.Evelyn Varden, best remembered for her character parts in "Pinky" and "The Bad Seed", is truly a monster as the Sophie Tucker like vaudevillian, once a Palace headliner, who resents daughter-in-law Winters and presents herself as an angel while the truth is the complete opposite. Taking on a really noble small role, Bette Davis is touching as Wynn's widow who reveals her own sins while learning the truth about her husband's inner character that is hidden by his outward brashness.The flashback scene between Varden and Winters (with Varden clad as if she was the Maharenee from "The Rain's Came") is presented comically with Winters a gum-chewing tramp made to appear crass. It is funny to see the truth really come out as Merrill tells Varden a hysterical lie that ends up exposing her for the crude witch she is in her son's eyes. Rennie's storyline involves a wife who stood by him yet became emotionally distant afterwards, having had to lie to save him from further alcoholic degradation, and deals with a teenaged son who totally misinterpreted the entire situation between his parents. Merrill's participation in the lives of these widowed people may at first seem intrusive, but he ends up giving a Mr. Jordan like assistance to the survivors to help fast forward these people past their grief while using his survival from the crash as a lesson to move on. It is this lesson which helps this multi-tiered story become an enjoyable drama that is both enlightening and entertaining.

Phone Call from a Stranger (1952)Well, the studio system is crumbling, and the great Golden Age stars like Bette Davis are finding new kinds of roles, but veteran directors like Jean Negulesco are still able to use all the great talents of Hollywood to put together what is a classic kind of movie. It's not a great movie at all, but it's tightly constructed, filled with twists, is dramatic and poignant in turns (and funny, too), and all in all makes for an entertaining and interesting movie. Not mind-blowing adjectives, I know, but appropriate.The key player here is a strong and silent type, Gary Merrill, a really steady and impressive actor every time I've seen him, though he usually plays secondary roles. But he calmly holds together a series of stories (there are four main threads here, with a unifying link that is quite a surprise). All the other actors have brief roles, as the movie is really broken into sections a little like A Letter to Three Wives from three years earlier (a better movie, but sharing a nice sense of interweaving stories). But this means Bette Davis, whose name appears in big letters as a star, appears fairly briefly. But she's fabulous, even in this limited role.There a some odd flaws, like an odd shift to soft focus on an actress for some close-ups of but not others. And the story for all its strengths feels a little forced, too, which you just go along with. But if you are glass half full person you'll see the strengths of acting and filming here (cinematographer Milton Krasner is among the best) as well as the music (Franz Waxman), and you'll really enjoy it start to finish.

About halfway through, I realized I didn't care about these characters in the least; however, I watched a bit more anyway. Regrettably, I came back the next day and finished it. I shouldn't have bothered.If you know *anything* about the film beforehand, you know that the lead character will be a plane crash survivor - and the title gives you a pretty good idea of what's gonna happen afterward - he's gonna get on the phone and call people about it! That was almost as bad as "Snakes on a Plane" (another bad aviation catastrophe flick).I realize this is an old film, and the acting style in those days was much less naturalistic than today. But even by those standards, the acting was embarrassing. These weren't characters, they were stereotypes. I suspect this movie was, more than anything, an attempt by Bette Davis to help her husband's (Gary Merrill) career. To no avail however - I have seen oak trees display more genuine emotion than he did.Davis' playing the happy cripple (i.e., a non-glamorous role) was probably looked on as an edgy and bold career move. It wasn't. It was just boring. She was a kind of Tiny Tim in the film, making Trask (Merrill's character) see the truth about love and forgiveness (although she was less winsome than Tiny Tim), calmly dispensing wisdom about life and relationships without a hint that her beloved husband had just died.The final scene, where Trask calls his wife back in Iowa to reconcile, was so affected and over-acted on both ends of the phone line, I almost cringed. I had to remind myself that these people actually got paid for what they were doing in this film.I noticed a lot of people seem to have enjoyed this movie. If you found it uplifting , that's great. But frankly, I just found it bad. There are plenty of old movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood that were far better written and acted.