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.

This movie was so awful I thought it might have been a satire of the excellent melodramatic movies of that era! This film just got worse and worse the longer I viewed it.I really thought I was viewing a satire when Bette Davis ran off from her hubby with some hottie (she understandably dumped Keenan Wynn for the cutie pie of a guy). As cream puff drove towards Chi-town with Bette, who'd hit her head AFTER a successful dive in a crystal- clear lake (major klutz!), there was a GREAT but silly scene where the two headed off into the night while names of tawdry motels flashed their neon names before us, e.g. "Toddle Inn"... "Meander Inn"... "Crawl Inn"... "Stagger Inn"... names that stunk with the slutty behavior the two were over their heads and in their laps for.THAT was my fave part of this trash-o-rama drama. Too bad there wasn't one named for Bette's persona, the "Slut Inn." She filled the bill and THEN some.Actually, this movie shows the sexism in such flicks in how not only Bette but also Shelley Winters were portrayed. It was okay for handsome Gary Merrill to carry on, but NO, not those vixen tramps! Rent this flick if you need a good laugh.

Phone Call from a Stranger (1952)Well, the studio system is crumbling, and the great Golden Age stars like Bette Davis are finding new kinds of roles, but veteran directors like Jean Negulesco are still able to use all the great talents of Hollywood to put together what is a classic kind of movie. It's not a great movie at all, but it's tightly constructed, filled with twists, is dramatic and poignant in turns (and funny, too), and all in all makes for an entertaining and interesting movie. Not mind-blowing adjectives, I know, but appropriate.The key player here is a strong and silent type, Gary Merrill, a really steady and impressive actor every time I've seen him, though he usually plays secondary roles. But he calmly holds together a series of stories (there are four main threads here, with a unifying link that is quite a surprise). All the other actors have brief roles, as the movie is really broken into sections a little like A Letter to Three Wives from three years earlier (a better movie, but sharing a nice sense of interweaving stories). But this means Bette Davis, whose name appears in big letters as a star, appears fairly briefly. But she's fabulous, even in this limited role.There a some odd flaws, like an odd shift to soft focus on an actress for some close-ups of but not others. And the story for all its strengths feels a little forced, too, which you just go along with. But if you are glass half full person you'll see the strengths of acting and filming here (cinematographer Milton Krasner is among the best) as well as the music (Franz Waxman), and you'll really enjoy it start to finish.

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.