Don't Talk to Strange Men

With a small cast of unknowns, black and white film when colour was becoming the normal, only a couple of sets, and really just the one exterior, the outside of a call box in a quite country lane, shot just out of London i would guess, and all probably filmed in a matter of a few days i should think? This is a film that shows what can be done with a good basic story, decent writing and sound acting. It is a kind of public notice almost a public service in it's clear warning, well most teenage girls even in 1962 would of known better, but then it is all about how cleaver, attractive, and plausible a Psychopath may be. Soundly entertaining throughout, if just a dash dated but in a very good way i found the film very entertaining, just a programme filler of it's day maybe, but it impresses and makes you long for those good old days when the B film might just be better than the A picture.

DON'T TALK TO STRANGE MEN is one of those intriguing, forgotten thrillers that's a great for fans of British cinema. It's about a lively and beautiful young girl who randomly answers a ringing public phone and soon finds herself entranced by the voice on the other end: the man sounds attractive and is willing to meet up with her. However, can he be trusted?

There were a few films with similar themes that came out around the same time (like Hammer's NEVER TAKE SWEETS FROM A STRANGER) and they do feel ahead of their time. The use of a telephone for sinister communication here brings to mind the later chills of BLACK Christmas and WHEN A STRANGER CALLS and of course the whole stalking-style plot line would eventually transform into the slasher genre of the 1980s.

DON'T TALK TO STRANGE MEN is quite a dated film, with a slow and sedate pace, and nothing much really happens until the very end. However, it's richly atmospheric and also quite realistic in the depiction of the average British family and their lives. It might not be the most entertaining film out there but it's a curio worth checking out nonetheless.

I do not remember if I first saw this at the local cinema or on TV,however I have always remembered this because of the isolated phone box.I have just seen this on TV and I have to say that it manages to sustain a genuinely creepy atmosphere throughout.It never puts a foot wrong.For one thing we never get to see the face of the murderer which helps make him see even more sinister.Conrad Phillips,who recently died,was the only well known face in this,apart of course from Dandy Nicholls,just a few years away from fame on TV.Difficult to believe that such a giant of the cinema,Jack Cardiff was Director of Photography on what was essentially a B film.

A rather eerie little drama that feels as if it began life as a radio play, and would certainly make a good one.

It begins like the ambush by the airplane in 'North by Northwest' on a roadside in broad daylight. (The voice at the other end of the line doesn't sound like a maniac, but what would a maniac sound like?) And there's a wonderful punchline right at the very end casually delivered by Janina Faye.

Christina Gregg is waiting for the bus to pick her up at the stop, when the phone rings in the telephone booth. That's all there is, besides her and the road and a few empty fields, so she picks up the phone and tells the cultured sound man on the other end that he has the wrong number. He thanks her, and admires her voice. They chat for a bit, and he asks if she will answer the phone if he calls the number at the same time tomorrow. She says she will. When she goes home, she high-hats her old, worn-out parents with her sophisticated secret admirer.

It's one of those middle-class "Your daughters are in danger!" thrillers that nowadays the Lifetime cable channel turns out by the score. This is very early in the evolution of the form, so there's lots to admire in early examples of what will become standard tropes while they are new and fresh. Miss Gregg is quite good. The overwhelming normality of everything and everyone about her, from her parents, who don't know what she is going on about, to bus conductress Dandy Nichols, to kid sister Janina Faye, who just wants her sister to go the movies with her, make this an early and effective example of the genre.