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One of my all time favorites.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Blistering performances.

I began watching this film because I'm a Bette Davis fan, and this was one of her films I had never seen. It turned out to be a real treat to find the supporting cast included a very young Shelley Winters, Keenan Wynn, Michael Rennie and Gary Merrill, the starring character who weaves the others' stories together into an anthology. Merrill, who plays a lawyer named David Trask, has left his wife and kids back in Iowa after she confesses to him that she had an affair.The four board a plane on a rainy night and get to know each other especially when the plane is forced to land before its destination. In the morning, the passengers re-board the aircraft only for the plane to crash before it reaches Los Angeles, its destination. Of the four travelers, only Gary Merrill's character, David Trask, survives. Trask decides to visit the surviving relatives of each of his dead traveling companions. Each visit is a vignette whose theme is always love - the pain, the joy, and the things people do for love. Davis appears in the last vignette, which is the most surprising and satisfying of all. I recommend this film highly as both a fine vintage piece showcasing several iconic actors and as an absorbing and satisfying story.

Bette Davis & Gary Merrill had done another film in between ALL ABOUT EVE and PHONE CALL FROM A STRANGER...it was a British noir called ANOTHER MAN'S POISON, which airs from time to time, and it's not bad. One thing I read is that Davis' career was floundering again after EVE, and she realized her leading lady days (in the conventional sense) were now behind her. When Merrill brought the script home for PHONE CALL, she read it and decided she could have fun (and draw good notices) playing the character role of Marie. Personally, I think it's her best performance, better than Jezebel and Margo Channing and Baby Jane.Other items: this film seems to be one of those productions that pushes the boundaries of the production code. The crash of the aircraft is quite violent. In previous films like FIVE CAME BACK or DIVE BOMBER, the crashes may be fatal but they are not as explicit and most of the deadly impact takes place off screen...but in PHONE CALL FROM A STRANGER, we're shown a very harrowing collision. I do like the fact that it does not occur immediately. We get to see Merrill bonding with the casualties for some length of screen time before they're killed off. The one thing that I don't like about this film is that every person has a somewhat overdramatic set of problems they are dealing with...it would have been a refreshing change of pace if one of them was struggling with a more mundane existence, like not living up to his or her potential, which would not be too flashy or extreme, but still realistic. Not every person we are seated next to on a plane has a ton of drama in his or her life.

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.