Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

vincentlynch-moonoi 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!

clanciai This is one of the most constructive and elegantly contrived films ever made. It was directed by Jean Negulescu, but it is really Nunnally Johnson's film, who wrote it and produced it.Four people are united as a flight to L.A. gets into trouble by bad weather and is grounded twice, which wayward journey opens the curtain to four different fateful karmas. One is the doctor who once dodged his responsibility in a car accident with three deaths, turning his life into a lie and himself into an alcoholic. Then there is the failed singer (Shelley Winters) who after her final defeat wants to make up to the family she let down. Another one persecutes and pesters his fellow passengers with ridiculous practical jokes and thinks he is funny, while he is the real joker of the game. And you have the leading character, Gary Merrill, running away from his family after his wife deceived him.They are interwoven into a fantastic sieve of destiny which constantly moves you to higher human insights. Bette Davis also has a small part to play, you wait patiently for her until almost the end of the film, and yet she succeeds in crowning it.It's definitely one of the finest film scripts ever made, and all the director had to do was to follow it. The story needs very little adding to its qualities, and yet the actors actually gild it by small or no means, just acting naturally, as they really would have in such situations. One of the triumphs is Evelyn Varden as Sally Carr, an old dinosaur of a night club artist and manager bullying her son and dependents but running the show. Well, this is a film to always return to now and then for its vital lesson in human forbearance.

roslein-674-874556 I'm at a loss to understand the favorable reviews of this turkey. Gary Merrill (why?), after an overlong prologue, survives a plane crash and decides to call on the families of the three people he got to know during a stopover. The whole thing has a dreary, self-consciously solemn tone as Merrill and the survivors, nearly all of them prim and stiff, exchange homilies. The only point I can see to this movie is that it serves as a series of revenge fantasies. Spouses who misbehave are punished with death, infirmity, and/or humiliation. A nasty mother- in-law is also humiliated (though only a little, and in private--after all, she is a mother, and it is the Fifties). Bette Davis, in her star cameo, is excruciating, using her special, toe-curling wise-woman voice. Aside from one terribly acted and directed comic fantasy scene, this movie is very heavy going.

Lawson 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.