Phone Call from a Stranger (1952)

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Not even bad in a good way

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

A fine flick, and a very engrossing storyline! The cast was excellent, each of them giving superb characterizations, but one is a STAND OUT!! That is the marvelous character actress, Evelyn Varden. She gave it her all in so many of the films in which she appeared.......most notably "Pinky," "The Bad Seed," "Night of the Hunter," and most especially, "Phone Call From a Stranger." She could play it "soft" or "tough," but TOUGH suited her really well! Such a fine character actress, who added tremendously to films in which she appeared! What a pity that we could not have seen her in so many other films before she passed from the scene!

Bette Davis & Gary Merrill had done another film in between ALL ABOUT EVE and PHONE CALL FROM A STRANGER...it was a British noir called ANOTHER MAN'S POISON, which airs from time to time, and it's not bad. One thing I read is that Davis' career was floundering again after EVE, and she realized her leading lady days (in the conventional sense) were now behind her. When Merrill brought the script home for PHONE CALL, she read it and decided she could have fun (and draw good notices) playing the character role of Marie. Personally, I think it's her best performance, better than Jezebel and Margo Channing and Baby Jane.Other items: this film seems to be one of those productions that pushes the boundaries of the production code. The crash of the aircraft is quite violent. In previous films like FIVE CAME BACK or DIVE BOMBER, the crashes may be fatal but they are not as explicit and most of the deadly impact takes place off screen...but in PHONE CALL FROM A STRANGER, we're shown a very harrowing collision. I do like the fact that it does not occur immediately. We get to see Merrill bonding with the casualties for some length of screen time before they're killed off. The one thing that I don't like about this film is that every person has a somewhat overdramatic set of problems they are dealing with...it would have been a refreshing change of pace if one of them was struggling with a more mundane existence, like not living up to his or her potential, which would not be too flashy or extreme, but still realistic. Not every person we are seated next to on a plane has a ton of drama in his or her life.

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.

Infidelity is not the same for men and women and not the same in all ages in life. If I'm 80 years old and my wife is 75 and is "unfaithful" with a 25 year old man, I will not react in the same way as when I'm 30, my wife 25 and the lover 25 or 30. And if the lover is 80 then that is yet another matter.Sexual intercourse is not the same for men and women. If there is no erection, then there is no sexual intercourse. This places women at an disadvantage. They are forced to make the erection come about - men are not forced to anything.Men can be raped by other men but not by women. If there is an erection, there is not truly rape just as little as there is truly rape of a woman getting an orgasm during an alleged rape.Women forgive men who are unfaithful sexually but they do not forgive men who are unfaithful financially. They cannot live with a man who squanders the family's income on other women and men cannot live with women (between 18 and 35 or there about) who give other men freely what is a token of love. Men do not show love (except late in life) through intercourse but instead by paying bills for the family (including her) or (for mistresses) by giving expensive gifts to a woman.It is amazing how little most people know about these things but one explanation is the propaganda they are receiving as in the end of this film.If it was not for that abominable ending, this film could have been a smash hit because the basic idea of a surviving man visiting the relatives of victims of a plane-crash is a very fine idea that works in all stories that are shown, except for the abominable last story in which this film turns into yet another "pretty woman".