Phone Call from a Stranger (1952)

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.

Infidelity is not the same for men and women and not the same in all ages in life. If I'm 80 years old and my wife is 75 and is "unfaithful" with a 25 year old man, I will not react in the same way as when I'm 30, my wife 25 and the lover 25 or 30. And if the lover is 80 then that is yet another matter.Sexual intercourse is not the same for men and women. If there is no erection, then there is no sexual intercourse. This places women at an disadvantage. They are forced to make the erection come about - men are not forced to anything.Men can be raped by other men but not by women. If there is an erection, there is not truly rape just as little as there is truly rape of a woman getting an orgasm during an alleged rape.Women forgive men who are unfaithful sexually but they do not forgive men who are unfaithful financially. They cannot live with a man who squanders the family's income on other women and men cannot live with women (between 18 and 35 or there about) who give other men freely what is a token of love. Men do not show love (except late in life) through intercourse but instead by paying bills for the family (including her) or (for mistresses) by giving expensive gifts to a woman.It is amazing how little most people know about these things but one explanation is the propaganda they are receiving as in the end of this film.If it was not for that abominable ending, this film could have been a smash hit because the basic idea of a surviving man visiting the relatives of victims of a plane-crash is a very fine idea that works in all stories that are shown, except for the abominable last story in which this film turns into yet another "pretty woman".

This is a lesser-known movie that was slipped in with The Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 2 but hers was really a supporting role. It's more of an ensemble piece, with good performances all around, but especially by the three Oscar-winning actresses, who play different sorts of wives.Bette Davis gives a restrained and touching performance as a paraplegic widow who tells the story of how her devoted husband took her back despite her unfaithfulness prior to her accident. Beatrice Straight, in her first movie role, is convincing in her straightforward (haha) role of a woman who has just lost her husband and might also be losing her child.Shelley Winters, because of whom I had bought this movie, brings her real-life bubbliness (I've read her autobiography) to her role of a wife who was returning to her husband after trying and failing at a showbiz career. She has a fun fantasy sequence that shows off her bouncy side, but more importantly, she also gets to reveal her vulnerable side when she wonders if her husband will take her back.Phone Call might've been planned to be a tear-jerker, but I feel its story - though entertaining - doesn't quite reach either melodrama or genuine poignancy, so it's more of a showcase of stars, especially if you're a Davis or Winters fan.

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.