Phone Call from a Stranger *** (1952, Bette Davis, Gary Merrill, Michael Rennie, Shelley Winters, Keenan Wynn) – Classic Movie Review 6,288

The soapy 1952 portmanteau melodrama film Phone Call from a Stranger has a fine cast headed by Bette Davis. Three fellow flight passengers to Los Angeles tell a troubled married man (Gary Merrill) their worries.

Director Jean Negulesco’s 1952 20th Century Fox drama film Phone Call from a Stranger is written by produced by Nunnally Johnson, and has a fine cast headed by Bette Davis, Gary Merrill, Michael Rennie, Shelley Winters and Keenan Wynn.

Three of his fellow flight passengers on the way to Los Angeles tell troubled married man David Trask (Merrill) their worries in a soapy portmanteau melodrama. Trask has left his unfaithful wife and is waiting for a delayed flight. The three are physician Dr Robert Fortness (Michael Rennie), struggling actress Binky Gay (Shelley Winters) and loud salesman Eddie Hoke (Keenan Wynn).

However, then the plane crashes and only Merrill survives, and thus he decides to sets out to call and pay his respects to the families of the dead and finish their business. In the movie’s best section, Merrill meets Marie Hoke (Bette Davis), who is confined to bed and she tells him the truth about her life with her husband Eddie Hoke (Wynn).

The movie is given its mark of quality neither by Johnson’s curious screenplay (based on a story by I A R Wylie) nor by Negulesco’s hesitant direction, but by the strong and committed playing of the likes of Winters, Wynn and of course particularly Davis (then married to Merrill). The advertising was pitching it a bit high –  ‘five great stars in a masterpiece of bold and intimate emotions’ – but it is worth a try. There are certainly a couple of great stars and some intimate emotions interestingly on show.

Also in the cast are Evelyn Varden, Warren Stevens, Beatrice Straight, Ted Donaldson, Craig Stevens, Helen Westcott, Sydney Perkins, Hugh Beaumont, Thomas Jackson, Harry Cheshire, Tom Powers, Freeman Lusk, George Eldredge, Nestor Paiva, Perdita Chandler and Genevieve Bell.

Phone Call from a Stranger is shot in black and white by Milton R Krasner, scored by Franz Waxman, and designed by Lyle R Wheeler.

Merrill met Davis when he was cast as Bill Sampson in All About Eve (1950) and they became an instant couple, marrying in Mexico on 28 July 1950 after their divorces. They adopted two children, Margot and Michael. After ten years of fighting and financial problems, they divorced on 6 July 1960.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6,288

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