Themes: Death of a Partner, Death of a Parent, Death of a Child
Main Cast: Shelley Winters, Gary Merrill, Michael Rennie, Keenan Wynn, Bette Davis, Evelyn Varden
Release Year: 1952
Country: US
Run Time: 96 minutes
Plot
David Trask (Gary Merrill), the sole survivor of an airplane crash, takes it upon himself to contact the families of the various victims. Though he's already formed preconceived notions of his deceased fellow passengers, he's in for quite a few surprises when he meets the relatives. His first visit is to the wife (Beatrice Straight) and son (Ted Donaldson) of a profoundly troubled doctor (Michael Rennie). His second stop is at a nightclub managed by the domineering mother-in-law (Evelyn Varden) of an aspiring actress (Shelley Winters). Finally, he meets the invalid wife (Bette Davis) of an outwardly obnoxious travelling salesman (Keenan Wynn). After his odyssey into other people's lives, Trask gains a new perspective on his own personal travails. Few studios could pull off the "multi-story film" format as well as 20th Century-Fox, and Phone Call From a Stranger is a grade-A example of that format. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Phone Call from a Stranger is the kind of studio product that Hollywood produced with considerable polish and flair up through the 1950s. It's a product, not art, and as such it tends to be very concerned with getting things right: the right mixture of character types, the right way of setting up each story so that the audience follows it clearly, the right plot turns that grow naturally out of what has come before. Nunnally Johnson's screenplay accomplishes all that it sets out to do very well and makes the movie very watchable, but there's a calculated precision to it that modern day audiences may find off-putting. It also makes for uncomfortable moments, as when Gary Merrill's character puts off telling the family the fate of one character merely as a means of creating tension in the audience. The screenplay does provide some juicy parts for its generally good cast, however, with Bette Davis turning in a memorable performance and making the most of the setpiece given to her. Shelley Winters also does very well, and Keenan Wynn is excellent as the obnoxious salesman whose blustery demeanor masks genuine tenderness. Even Gary Merrill is more convincing than usual. Phone Call is well-done and moderately entertaining but ultimately empty. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Phone Call from a Stranger is a 1952 Americandrama film directed by Jean Negulesco, who was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The screenplay by Nunnally Johnson and I.A.R. Wylie, which received the award for Best Scenario at the same festival, centers on the survivor of a plane crash who contacts the relatives of three of the victims he came to know on board the flight.
After his wife Jane admits to an extramarital affair, Iowa attorney Daniel Trask abandons her and their daughters and heads for Los Angeles. His flight is delayed, and while waiting in the airport restaurant he meets a few of his fellow passengers: troubled, alcoholic Dr. Robert Fortness, haunted by his responsibility for a car accident in which a colleague was killed, is returning home to his wife Claire and teenaged son Jerry, and plans to tell the district attorney the truth about the incident; aspiring actress Binky Gay, who is hoping to free her husband Mike from the clutches of his domineering mother, former vaudevillian Sallie Carr; and overly loud traveling salesman Eddie Hoke, whose photograph of his young, attractive wife Marie wearing a swimsuit proves to be quite different from reality. When a storm forces the plane to land en route, they continue to share their life stories via flashbacks during the unexpected four-hour layover. They exchange home phone numbers with the idea they may one day have a reunion.
Following a crash that kills his three acquaintances, Trask contacts their families by phone and invites himself to their homes. Despite Claire's objections, Trask tells Jerry the truth about his father's past, but assures him he was a good man determined to right the wrong he had committed. Hoping to change Sallie's opinion of her daughter-in-law, he tells her Binky had been cast as Mary Martin's replacement in South Pacific on Broadway and had recommended Sallie for a role. Trask's final visit is to Marie, who he discovers is an invalid paralyzed from the waist down. Marie reveals that early in her marriage she had left Eddie, who she found to be vulgar and tiresome, for another man, who deserted her after she hit her head on a dock while she was swimming. While in the hospital, she was confined to an iron lung and feeling hopeless about her future when Eddie arrived to take her home. Marie tells Trask that despite his often obnoxious behavior, Eddie was the most decent man she had ever known, and had taught her the true meaning of love.
Marie's story teaches Trask a lesson about marital infidelity and forgiveness, and he calls Jane to tell her he's returning home.
When Gary Merrill's wife Bette Davis read the script, she suggested he ask director Negulesco if she could play the relatively small role of Marie Hoke, feeling "it would be a change of pace for me. I believed in the part more than its length. I have never understood why stars should object to playing smaller parts if they were good ones. Marie Hoke was such a part."[1]
Producer-screenwriter Johnson originally wanted to cast Lauren Bacall as Binky Gay, but she was unavailable.
Broadway actress Beatrice Straight made her screen debut in this film.
Merrill and Winters reprised their roles for a Lux Radio Theatre presentation of the story on January 5, 1953. Footage from the film featuring Merrill and Davis was integrated with new material performed by Merrill and Jesse White as Eddie Hoke in Crack Up, an hour-long television adaptation broadcast on the CBSanthology series The 20th Century Fox Hour in February 1956 [2].
Critical reception
In his New York Times review, Bosley Crowther said, "So slick, indeed, is the whole thing — so smooth and efficiently contrived to fit and run with the precision of a beautifully made machine — that it very soon gives the impression of being wholly mechanical, picked up from a story-teller's blueprints rather than from the scroll of life . . . that is the nature of the picture — mechanically intriguing but unreal." [3]
Time Out London calls it "a decent, but hardly outstanding dramatic compendium." [4]
References
^Mother Goddam by Whitney Stine, with a running commentary by Bette Davis, Hawthorn Books, 1974, pg. 243 (ISBN 0-8015-5184-6)
