jarrodmcdonald-1 Dial 1119 was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer back in 1950. In fact, the name Mayer appears more than once in the opening credits (the director is Gerald Mayer, the nephew of studio chief Louis B. Mayer). This is a slick character-driven film noir with a title doesn't seem to do it justice. Originally, the plan was to call it 'Standoff' which conveys the idea of the story more accurately. The narrative begins rather slow but draws the viewer in, especially when a deranged psychopath starts killing innocent bystanders randomly. The dialog that the police and the psychiatrist share is rather interesting and worth hearing. The fact the shrink is killed by his patient shows what side the filmmakers are on.

Robert J. Maxwell There's not really much worth going into. Marshall Thompson breaks out of a hospital for the criminally insane, travels to "Terminal City" and after shooting the bus driver, barges into a saloon and holds the half dozen patrons hostage. He demands that the psychiatrist, Sam Levene, be brought to him. Levene and the cops surrounding this dismal joint believe that Marshall just wants to talk to his former shrink, but he doesn't. He's come to kill him.So we wait, while Marshall kills the sour bartender who tries to dial 1119 and get the police, while the cops try to sneak a sharpshooter in through an air duct, and while some of the customers go through the varied tribulations familiar to fans of the airplane-in-danger movies. One wants to call his wife, who is having a baby. A reporter wants to call his editor and get a scoop on every other paper.The bartender is William Conrad, whose appearance is all too short. Sam Levene is always a treat but he's been given a role here -- the police shrink who got Thompson out of the electric chair three years ago by spouting a lot of psychobabble -- that no actor on earth could pull off without sacrificing his dignity.In the lead role, Marshall Thompson plays the madman as if he'd never met one. He's grim, never smiles, and speaks in the soothing tones you might use when speaking to a child, probably a deliver copied from some 1930s B movie he saw as a child himself.There is no sense of place. "Terminal City" doesn't exist. The streets are named "Second Street" and "Spring Street." The corner drug store is "Rialto Drugs." That's the corner at which the police and the news organizations pile up. ("What news from the Rialto?") Television was still a novelty because the gin mill has a great big one and it's lovingly described. Someone asks, "Does anybody know how to work this thing? Well turn it on." And we get to see the display panels inside the truck broadcasting live news. "Okay, cut to camera one and pan with the doctor." The direction is plodding. It lacks poetry and color. It's dull. How did Gerald Mayer ever come to direct this piece of rubbish? It probably helped that he was Louis B. Mayer's nephew.Pedestrian in every respect. It's sole virtue is that it's short.

sol1218 (There are Spoilers) Hostage drama that takes place in this bar with an on the loose psycho killer who just flew the coop from the local state hospital for the criminally insane wanting to see his shrink, psychiatrist, who got him off from being executed for the murder of a policeman three years earlier.The crazed killer Gunther Wyckoff, Marshall Tompson, didn't waste any time in making himself known to the public and police by gunning down a bus driver,John Damler, who's gun that was in full view of everyone on the bus was lifted by Gunther when everyone, including the bus driver, left the bus on a rest stop. The bus driver was not only incompetent in leaving his gun on board for Gunther to grab but later realizing that his gun was missing he didn't have enough sense to check for himself! The bus driver confronts Gunther not only telling him to give him his gun back but actually tries to grab it off him! You can just imagine what happened next, he got it right in the gut.Gunther wanting to see his psychiatrist Dr. John D. Faron, Sam Levene, about something in his past is frustrated to find that the doc is nowhere to be found, not in his office or apartment. Gunther going to the local bar to dry out only gets even more crazy when the bartender Chuckels, William Conrad,who's only doing his job forces him to have a drink, which he of course doesn't pay for. Within minutes Gunther completely loses it when he's spotted by Chuckels on the screen of his 3 by 4 foot remote control flat-screen projection TV set broadcasting a police bulletin with his picture, front and side, and then all hell breaks lose.Gunning down Chuckles who tried to pull a gun on him Gunther then takes center stage, and five hostages, in the movie as he calls all the shots, as well as giving them out.Gunther is determined to having a chat with Dr. Faron about his both mental state and military service. This goes on for what seems like days, it's all supposed to take place in less then a hour, as Gunther terrorizers the customers who are now his hostages. You can't help wondering why Gunther wants so badly to see Dr. Faron to the point where he already murdered two people to get an audience with him?You know right away that this guy, Gunther Wyckoff, is not only nuts but all his talk about his glorious and macho experiences in the US Army during the war, that he talks endlessly about to his captive audience, is all a pile of horse-sh*t. It's Dr Faron himself who later, against police orders, makes it into the bar and finally has this important talk with the psycho. Dr. Faron brings Gunther back to reality in just how ridicules he is, he was in fact never overseas and kicked out of the Army on a section 8, in his fantasies about his combat experiences which besides showing just how unprofessional Dr Faron is, in disturbing an already very disturbed and unstable person. Dr. Faron sets the now really off-the-wall Gunther off and jeopardizing not only his but the lives of all the people in the bar.Interesting but not at all earth-shaking movie about a mentally ill young man, Gunther Wyckoff, who just couldn't get it out of his head that he was a failure at what he loved most in being a blood & guts war hero. Gunther substituted that failed ambition in becoming a psycho killer of defenseless and innocent people. With the one person who could possibly help him, Dr. Faron, also failing to understand with just what kind of a dangerous person he was dealing with. Gunther egged on by Dr.Faron in revealing his darkest fears, that he just couldn't cut it as a combat soldier, that in the end cost both him and Gunther their lives.

krorie This seldom seen, nearly forgotten gem stands out as a precursor to many movie motifs now taken for granted. A deranged young man, Gunther Wyckoff (whacko with a gun, played menacingly by Marshall Thompson in perhaps his best performance), shoots a city bus driver with the driver's own pistol, then holds up in a local bar using the patrons as hostages. In those long ago days when such occurrences were rare, there were no professional police negotiators. Ironically, Wyckoff does his own negotiating with the law, demanding to see the psychiatrist that is in charge of treating him.What a crew of hostages: A barfly willing to bed anyone who buys her a drink, an old married fool making arrangements for a weekend tryst with a sweet young thing, a young man whose wife is in delivery at the hospital, a zealous reporter whose newspaper editor thinks he's a joke, and Chuckles, the bartender, played by the dour William Conrad of radio's "Gunsmoke" and later TV's "Cannon" fame. Maybe he got his moniker for being the opposite of chuckles, such as calling a big guy, Tiny. The interaction of this motley crew with each other and with the criminally insane killer makes up the biggest part of the flick. An alternate title was "The Violent Hour," which basically describes the plot of the film, approximately an hour's standoff between the psycho and the police who work to free the hostages unharmed. A young André Previn provides the appropriate atmospheric music.What a splendid cast. Even workhorse Charles Lane, who is today 101 and says he is still available to do a show, is seen briefly on the tube in a man-on-the-street interview. And don't blink and miss June Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley) in a walk on part. Items you don't see around anymore: A cigarette machine, a weight scale on the sidewalk, a pay telephone that costs a nickle to dial 1119 (no push buttons). Items that were curiosities at the time but are now part of everyday life: A flat-panel big screen TV, TV news hype, and, alas, crazies that for no reason shoot patrons who are total strangers.The chosen title, "Dial 1119," which today reminds the viewer of "Call 911," is a fitting one. Labeling the location Terminal City, however, is a bit much.