The baby-faced Marshall Thompson ("It! The Terror from Beyond Space") stars here as Gunther Wyckoff, an escaped mental patient. In search of a particular doctor, he makes his way to a bar where he ends up holding the patrons hostage after murdering the bartender (William Conrad, 'Cannon'). Outside the bar, television crews capture all of the mounting drama.
Despite a script with few surprises to deliver, "Dial 1119" is a good, engaging "B" with effective pacing. It has some decent tension and atmosphere, and the cast plays the material for all that it's worth. This kind of story has been utilized before and since, but what makes the difference here is the fact that our antagonist is a genuinely unhinged individual, not quite a hardcore criminal (although he clearly doesn't hesitate to kill when properly motivated). This makes the casting of Thompson particularly apt since he *looks* like a pretty unremarkable individual.
But the actor does an excellent job as this deluded man with the itchy trigger finger, and he's well supported by Virginia Field ("The Earth Dies Screaming") as a saucy barfly, Andrea King ("The Beast with Five Fingers") as a lonely young woman, Sam Levene ("The Killers") as the psychiatrist, Leon Ames ("The Postman Always Rings Twice") as an unfaithful husband interested in King, Keefe Brasselle ("A Place in the Sun") as the junior bartender, James Bell ("I Walked with a Zombie") as a disillusioned journalist, and Hal Baylor ("Sands of Iwo Jima") as a cop. Barbara Billingsley of 'Leave it to Beaver' fame has a brief, uncredited bit as a secretary.
"Dial 1119" is noteworthy for making the advent of television such a big part of its presentation, when television was still a relatively new element in human lives, and for its heated exchanges between the head cop and the psychiatrist, the latter being concerned with trying to *talk* Gunther out of it, and reason with him, rather than using force. We've seen similar scenes play out between cops and shrinks in a number of films in the decades since.
Capably lit by Paul Vogel and directed by Gerald Mayer, "Dial 1119" is no classic, but it entertains pretty well for 75 minutes.
Seven out of 10.
Despite a script with few surprises to deliver, "Dial 1119" is a good, engaging "B" with effective pacing. It has some decent tension and atmosphere, and the cast plays the material for all that it's worth. This kind of story has been utilized before and since, but what makes the difference here is the fact that our antagonist is a genuinely unhinged individual, not quite a hardcore criminal (although he clearly doesn't hesitate to kill when properly motivated). This makes the casting of Thompson particularly apt since he *looks* like a pretty unremarkable individual.
But the actor does an excellent job as this deluded man with the itchy trigger finger, and he's well supported by Virginia Field ("The Earth Dies Screaming") as a saucy barfly, Andrea King ("The Beast with Five Fingers") as a lonely young woman, Sam Levene ("The Killers") as the psychiatrist, Leon Ames ("The Postman Always Rings Twice") as an unfaithful husband interested in King, Keefe Brasselle ("A Place in the Sun") as the junior bartender, James Bell ("I Walked with a Zombie") as a disillusioned journalist, and Hal Baylor ("Sands of Iwo Jima") as a cop. Barbara Billingsley of 'Leave it to Beaver' fame has a brief, uncredited bit as a secretary.
"Dial 1119" is noteworthy for making the advent of television such a big part of its presentation, when television was still a relatively new element in human lives, and for its heated exchanges between the head cop and the psychiatrist, the latter being concerned with trying to *talk* Gunther out of it, and reason with him, rather than using force. We've seen similar scenes play out between cops and shrinks in a number of films in the decades since.
Capably lit by Paul Vogel and directed by Gerald Mayer, "Dial 1119" is no classic, but it entertains pretty well for 75 minutes.
Seven out of 10.