Phone Call from a Stranger

Phone Call From A Stranger will be worth the watch for any Shelley Winters or Bette Davis fans. I watched the old, 1952 black and white movie on a drizzling afternoon and surprisingly, the flick made me feel real good. Why, you ask? On back of the movie packet it tells you that "A plane crash puts an end to the sufferings of three ill-fated passengers ..." With that alone, one would assume that it's a totally 'down' movie. However, it is not. It's like that old saying that my grandmother used to make, "In everyone's life a little rain must fall". Well, I guess she was right if one is to enjoy the sunny days. Which, Phone Call From A Stranger turns out to be: a sunny day after much rain.

This movie will make you feel good about yourself. I promise. I think that's what so great about older movies; no special effects to disturb the real meaning of movies: the actors and actresses.

A must-see for classic movie fans.

While Gary Merrill's main claim to fame was his brief marriage to Bette Davis, he was a minor Hollywood star on his own--playing a variety of bit parts. However, this film features him as a survivor of a plane crash who seeks out family members of victims he met on the trip. And, he does a competent job and proves he really could act. Unfortunately, he was far from a handsome leading man and once he was divorced from Ms. Davis, his career pretty much disappeared.

In addition to his excellent performance, the movie is so well-written. The vignettes where he meets the families are very touching and sometimes very ironic (such as the one he plays with Ms. Davis). It is a strange but well-executed film that deserves to be remembered.

Gary Merrill is the stranger making the phone calls in "Phone Call from a Stranger," a 1952 film directed by Jean Negulesco and also starring Shelley Winters, Keenan Wynn, Michael Rennie, Beatrice Straight, Craig Stevens and Bette Davis. Unable to forgive his wife for an affair, David Trask gets on a plane, where, due to the plane being late and an unexpected stopover because of bad weather, he becomes friendly with three passengers: a performer (Winters), a salesman (Wynn) and an alcoholic attorney (Rennie) and hears their stories. The salesman seems a happy man with a knockout for a wife; the performer has a horrid mother-in-law, a former vaudeville star with whom she competes, but she loves her husband; and the attorney has resolved to go to the DA and admit responsibility for an accident that happened a few years earlier which has destroyed his marriage. When the plane crashes, Trask is the only survivor of the four. He visits each of the victims' families to pay his condolences and possibly put some matters right. Then he learns from one of the family members the importance of putting his own life back together.

This isn't a particularly big-budget film - it's in black and white; some of these actors were under contract to Fox; others are not huge names with the exception of Davis. Her role is short but worth the entire film, though all the performances are very good and the stories heartfelt. The attorney's family story is heavy drama, with the son believing his mother drove his father away. The performer's family story is the comic relief as the mother-in-law right out of hell gets her comeuppance. And the tear-jerker is the scene with the salesman's wife. Davis is often criticized for being overblown and mannered, and yet she was always capable of giving a restrained performance as she does here and also did in "All This and Heaven Too" and "Watch on the Rhine." There are other treats as well. Shelley Winters is pretty and vivacious in a wonderful role for her, Keenan Wynn is excellent as the loud salesman, and as the attorney, Rennie is an appropriately sad and reflective figure. Gary Merrill is very likable as Trask. Though he never really made it to big star status, he was a dependable actor, very handsome and masculine. Of course he and Davis had sparks in "All About Eve" - so much so that they got married in real life - and there's a nice chemistry between them here as well. It's nice to see them when they were happy together. They also did a very good British film together, "Another Man's Poison." My only complaint is the at times overpowering musical score.

Very entertaining and highly recommended, especially for Davis fans.

Gary Merrill's plane is delayed by weather, and he waits in a small airport terminal with three strangers: Shelley Winters, Michael Rennie, and Keenan Wynn. All four have complex pasts, and, over the course of the night, they become friends and share secrets. A tragic crash leaves only one of the four alive, Gary Merrill, which is no spoiler because the advertising blurb reveals that plot point. Thus, Gary makes the "Phone Call from a Stranger" to the families of the three friends who died. Although a clever and engaging story device, the disparate stories tidy up a bit too quickly and neatly. However, the cast is entertaining, and the film is engaging throughout its 96-minute running time.

Merrill is solid as David Trask, a lawyer with his own issues, who links the stories. Shelley Winters shines as Binky Gay, an entertainer who never quite made the big time and lives in the shadow of her celebrity husband and mother-in-law. Winters's role is showy, and she plays both her character and Trask's enhanced version of her character with panache. Keenan Wynn is the perpetual clown, who grows tiresome to his friends and eventually to the audience. Beyond the four central characters, even the small parts are big in this film. A young Beatrice Straight plays Michael Rennie's wife; Evelyn Varden is Sally Carr, an aging nightclub headliner; and Bette Davis appears near the end to show her then husband, Merrill, how to face his own character's crisis.

"Phone Call from a Stranger" is not a classic, but rather a solid programmer from the early 1950's with an above-average cast and some good performances. While the film does not merit repeat viewings, except perhaps to appreciate a little known Bette Davis role, the story is told with a good pace, and any time spent in the company of these fine actors is well spent.

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.