Phone Call from a Stranger

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.

ynopsis

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 the crash, Trask contacts his newfound friends' 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.

Production notes

When "Phone Call" star 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." ["Mother Goddam" by Whitney Stine, with a running commentary by Bette Davis, Hawthorn Books, 1974, pg. 243 (ISBN 0-8015-5184-6)]

The film was the third on-screen pairing of Merrill and Davis, following "All About Eve" (1950) and "Another Man's Poison" (1951).

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 the 20th Century Fox release. Gary Merrill and Shelley Winters reprised their roles for a Lux Radio Theatre presentation of the story on January 5, 1953. Footage from the film featuring Merrill and Bette 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 CBS anthology series "The 20th Century Fox Hour" in February 1956 [ [http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/title.jsp?stid=86640&atid=50615&category=overview "Phone Call from a Stranger" at Turner Classic Movies] ] .

Principal cast

*Gary Merrill ..... David Trask
*Shelley Winters ..... Binky Gay
*Michael Rennie ..... Dr. Robert Fortness
*Keenan Wynn ..... Eddie Hoke
*Evelyn Varden ..... Sallie Carr
*Warren Stevens ..... Marty Nelson
*Beatrice Straight ..... Claire Fortness
*Ted Donaldson ..... Jerry Fortness
*Craig Stevens ..... Mike Carr
*Bette Davis ..... Marie Hoke
*Helen Westcott ..... Jane Trask

Principal production credits

*Procducer ..... Nunnally Johnson
*Original Music ..... Franz Waxman
*Cinematography ..... Milton R. Krasner
*Art Direction ..... J. Russell Spencer, Lyle R. Wheeler
*Costume Design ..... Elois Jenssen

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." [ [http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B00E0DF163AE23BBC4A53DFB4668389649EDE "New York Times" review] ]

"Time Out London" calls it "a decent, but hardly outstanding dramatic compendium." [ [http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/71068/phone_call_from_a_stranger.html "Time Out London" review] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045029/ "Phone Call from a Stranger" at the Internet Movie Database]