User Reviews

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.

About halfway through, I realized I didn't care about these characters in the least; however, I watched a bit more anyway. Regrettably, I came back the next day and finished it. I shouldn't have bothered.

If you know *anything* about the film beforehand, you know that the lead character will be a plane crash survivor - and the title gives you a pretty good idea of what's gonna happen afterward - he's gonna get on the phone and call people about it! That was almost as bad as "Snakes on a Plane" (another bad aviation catastrophe flick).

I realize this is an old film, and the acting style in those days was much less naturalistic than today. But even by those standards, the acting was embarrassing. These weren't characters, they were stereotypes. I suspect this movie was, more than anything, an attempt by Bette Davis to help her husband's (Gary Merrill) career. To no avail however - I have seen oak trees display more genuine emotion than he did.

Davis' playing the happy cripple (i.e., a non-glamorous role) was probably looked on as an edgy and bold career move. It wasn't. It was just boring. She was a kind of Tiny Tim in the film, making Trask (Merrill's character) see the truth about love and forgiveness (although she was less winsome than Tiny Tim), calmly dispensing wisdom about life and relationships without a hint that her beloved husband had just died.

The final scene, where Trask calls his wife back in Iowa to reconcile, was so affected and over-acted on both ends of the phone line, I almost cringed. I had to remind myself that these people actually got paid for what they were doing in this film.

I noticed a lot of people seem to have enjoyed this movie. If you found it uplifting , that's great. But frankly, I just found it bad. There are plenty of old movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood that were far better written and acted.

The fate of four people from different walks in life come together as they travel to Los Angeles on the same plane. The weather plays tricks along the way, so they divert to unexpected destinations where all get a chance to know each other a little bit better. The viewer gets to know their troubled lives in flashbacks, a device mainly used to fill in the blanks in cinematic terms. After an accident ends the lives of three of these newly found friends, it is the task of the survivor to go see the families that were left behind, trying to piece together the puzzle in his mind.

Directed by Jean Negulesco, this Twentieth Century Fox entry of 1952, showed on a classic movie channel recently. The film is not often seen these days. The scenario by the great Nunnally Johnson is based on a story written by I.A.R Wylie. There are good appearances by the interesting cast that was put together. The actresses have the best parts in the movie. Shelley Winters, Beatrice Straight, and Bette Davis are perfectly cast. Gary Merrill, Michael Rennie, Keenan Wynn do a fine job for Mr. Negulesco.

It isn't often that I run into a Bette Davis film that I haven't seen, but when I do, it's a real treat. This time, however, Davis is only part of an ensemble, and the actors and actresses put together a wonderful story.

The premise is rather simple -- a husband (Gary Merrill) who has walked out on his adulterous wife is on an air flight which has to make an emergency landing overnight (wow, was air travel primitive in 1952!) and gets to know three other passengers fairly well -- a stripper (Shelley Winters), a disgraced doctor (Michael Rennie), and a somewhat overbearing jokester salesman (Keenan Wynn). The next morning, after taking off again, the plane crashes, and of the four, only Merrill survives. Merrill then decides to contact each of the other's closest relative to tell them about their loved one's last hours. Rennie's son has run away thinking that his mother didn't love his father and drove him out...he solves that issue. Winters' second rate son-singer (Craig Stevens) and mother-in-law (Evelyn Varden)...well, let's just say that this segment is done in a very entertaining way. And finally, Keenan Wynn's wife is now a bedridden cripple...and she helps Merrill save his own marriage.

I remember Gary Merrill mostly as a good television actor. The last time I saw him in a film ("Another Man's Poison), I thought he was so bad that I gave the movie a "1" rating. But here, in this film, I thought he was great, and of course, at the time he was married to Bette Davis. I've never been a fan of Shelley Winters, but she does "okay" here). I always felt Michael Rennie was underrated as an actor; he's good here. I never cared for Keenan Wynn, but he does his job here. Evelyn Varden is a hoot here! Beatrice Straight is a character actress I usually enjoy, but here I felt there was something forced in her performance as Rennie's wife. This film demonstrates why Craig Stevens was never much more than a B actor, despite his good looks. Bette Davis -- who doesn't get top billing here -- is good, although I did not find this to be one of her memorable roles. Interestingly, Hugh Beaumont (the father in "Leave It To Beaver" has a small, uncredited -- though important -- role here; I never understood why he wasn't a more successful character actor.

I liked this film quite a bit. In a sense it was one of the very early disaster films!

With a title such as "Phone Call From a Stranger" you may be expecting a Thriller or Noir. Even with the DVD box that was included in the "Bette Davis Centennial Collection", a major spoiler I give you is that the box and even the picture of the film poster here is very misleading. She is in the film, but not the main star and her screen time is very short.

The film centers around Gary Merrill and the passengers of a plane. There is some very interesting character study here in the film, as the outcome of the plane ride leaves a man consuming his time to try and do good. The characters all have their personalities that make them charming, worth while, and even down right vulgar and annoying. This is actually a good idea for a plot centered around a drama, but in a way it feels rushed as a B movie and I hate feeling like they could have put more in it.

Overall this isn't a bad movie, but it's certainly not a classic either. 6 out of 10.

The iconic Bette Davis was married to Gary Merrill, the star of Phone Call from a Stranger, at the time the film was made. She decided to forgo top billing and take a much minor part in this film because she felt the part was worthwhile.

Merrill plays an attorney from Iowa David Trask who has just separated from his wife after learning she had an extramarital affair. He's in an airport restaurant before flying to Los Angeles where three strangers end up seated at his table and have coffee together.

The offbeat plot develops as we're introduced to the strangers: an aspiring actress Binky Gay (Shelley Winters), Robert Fortness (Michael Rennie), an alcoholic physician and the loudmouth traveling salesman Eddie Hoke (Keenan Wynn).

Binky is seated next to David who tries to calm her down as this is her first flight and there's a great deal of turbulence. Binky reveals she had a failed audition in New York City for a part in South Pacific.

Due to a storm, the plane lands in Vega, Texas where the four agree to exchange phone numbers and addresses. One wonders at this juncture what is the point of all this exposition about the characters-nothing much has happened.

During the layover however, David gets to know the doctor much better who confesses (in a flashback) the reason for his habitual drinking. Shockingly, he was involved in a DWI in which he was speeding and responsible for the death of his doctor pal and two others who he slammed into.

To make matters worse, he lied to the DA handling the accident that it was his friend who was behind the wheel with his wife providing a deceitful alibi. Wracked with guilt for years, he now plans to turn himself in and confess that he was responsible for the accident.

The next turn of events is far more shattering. The plane crashes and David's three companions are all killed-he is the lone survivor among the group.

So, for 1952 I found this plot reversal to be shocking-it's not the usual happenstance to introduce characters and then kill them off midway through the film.

As I was watching I was wondering where does the narrative go from here? Since David has the names and addresses of his three deceased companions, he decides to pay his condolences to the families-perhaps to give them comfort as he was the last person to interact with them while they were alive.

The film becomes a series of three vignettes as David calls on each family. The first one involves the wife of Dr. Fortness, Claire (Beatrice Straight) and his teenage son Jerry (Ted Donaldson).

David ends up as sort of a great mediator here, patching up a deep conflict between Claire and Jerry. The son has run off after learning of the death of his father and it's David who finds the troubled teenager and returns him to his mother.

It appears the reason for the estrangement is that Jerry blames his mother for the father's troubles and deciding to go on the fateful plane trip. But after David tells Jerry about his father's role in the fatal accident and subsequent coverup he learns an important lesson about not making assumptions about people without understanding their true motivations.

The second vignette occurs when David calls upon Binky's mother-in-law Sally Carr (Evelyn Vardon), an aging former vaudevillian who also makes unwarranted assumptions-this time garnering the wrong impression that Binky was some kind of gold digger, determined to claim the inheritance of her small nightclub and wrest control of it away from husband Mike (Craig Stevens) after her death.

Sally's maudlin recap of Binky's behavior is presented comically coupled with David's, whose own tale (also told as a flashback) presents Binky successfully auditioning for Rodgers and Hammerstein and (laughably) requesting that the Broadway writers should consider Sally for a part.

David tells this false narrative as a way of sticking up for Binky because he knows the mother-in-law will never give up any of her false assumptions about her daughter-in-law. All David can do is comfort Mike with the fact that she was returning to reconcile with her husband before her tragic death.

The third vignette turns out to be the most surprising of all. Eddie, who had showed that early "cheesecake" photo of wife Marie (Bette Davis) to David and the other now deceased "Musketeers" at the airport, discovers she's an invalid when he visits her.

Now it's David's turn to learn an important "life lesson" from Marie of all people who had left Eddie to engage in an extramarital affair years ago (just like David's wife had done).

After Marie's accident in which she sustained a brain injury, the new boyfriend left her, but it was Eddie-the annoying guy on the plane who everyone thought was an obnoxious loudmouth-returned to care for Marie and forgave her for her indiscretion.

In perhaps the most predictable moment in the film, David calls his wife and informs her that he is returning to her and his two daughters.

There are a few morals to be learned in this unusual tale: "never judge a book by its cover" and "to err is human to forgive is divine."

Despite the lugubrious exposition and some occasional sentimentality, Phone Call from a Stranger certainly is worth a look. The performers all do a fine job in this tale of important life lessons.