arfdawg-1 The Plot. On a flight from Chicago to Los Angeles via Iowa, lawyer David Trask gets to know three of his fellow passengers as one technical issue after another leads to delays and unscheduled stops along the way. Those three are physician Dr. Robert Fortness, struggling actress with the stage name Binky Gay, and loud salesman Eddie Hoke, who is both quick with a joke and quick to show off a photograph of his beautiful wife, Marie Hoke. Below the surface, the three have deeper stories, which are bringing them back to Los Angeles and which Dr. Fortness and Binky divulge to David. Dr. Fortness, an alcoholic, is returning to own up to his drunken part in the death of a friend, and his wife Claire's complicity in the matter. Binky, after being away in New York for a year, is returning to her husband, Mike Carr, hoping to take him away from his overbearing mother, former vaudeville star Sally Carr, who still basks in her former but no longer shining glory, and who is the cause of any marital problems.This is described as a Film Noir but it's not. It's really a sort of trilogy drama. There are essentially three separate life stories that unfold around one character.Two of the stories are OK but Bette Davis's segment is really really bad. She's aged and does not give an especially good performance. She's got a decade before her grande guignol performance in films like The Nanny or Baby Jane, etc.Over all the movie is rather lackluster and heavy handed. I'm very surprised at the good reviews.The most interesting thing for me to see was that EVERY BODY smoked -- including the doctors in the hospital!!!

lucyrf A loud salesman, a quiet doctor, the main character David Trask who is fleeing his marriage after his wife had an affair, and an entertainer (Shelley Winters), making her first flight. They become "four musketeers" and exchange some details about their lives. (Spoiler alert.) But the plane crashes, and Trask (Merrill) is the only one of the four to survive. He visits each of their families in turn, to tell them what their loved ones told him that last night. We see a flashback to the doctor's disgrace, and Trask finds his son and reconciles him to his mother. The movie, excellent until then, now descends into sentimental melodrama. The first half is really made by the witty Shelley Winters character (you hope against hope that she'll survive). As Trask reconciles son and mother, there's a lot of maudlin Hollywood dad-worship "I didn't want him to stop respecting his father!" "But it's better he knows the truth!".Then Trask visits Binkie Gay's (Winters) overbearing mother in law and drippy husband. The woman who plays Miss Carr, the MIL, is absolutely terrific (and she CAN still belt out a number). She gives her version of why Binkie left and suddenly we're in Rashomon territory - or rather A Woman's Face. In her memory, she is dressed like a statue of the Virgin Mary and has an over-the-top sweet gentle voice, while her son is a cypher and Binkie a vulgar drunk. Trask ripostes in kind: in HIS flashback Rogers and Hammerstein offer Binkie and Miss Carr starring roles in South Pacific - but Miss Carr will not of course be able to accept, considering what she's just said about her daughter in law. While this is going on, her son receives the fateful telegram.Now Trask visits the glamorous wife of the loud, obnoxious salesman. She's Bette Davis, now older and semi-paralysed. She tells HER story - how she suffered a bump on the head while running away with a younger man. The salesman turns up and takes her home from the hospital and clearly supports her from then on. Merrill and Davis do what they can with this saccharine uplift, and we get a bit of vintage Davis in her flashback.And then Trask goes back to his wife, of course. The 50s were upon us.

jotix100 The fate of four people from different walks in life come together as they travel to Los Angeles on the same plane. The weather plays tricks along the way, so they divert to unexpected destinations where all get a chance to know each other a little bit better. The viewer gets to know their troubled lives in flashbacks, a device mainly used to fill in the blanks in cinematic terms. After an accident ends the lives of three of these newly found friends, it is the task of the survivor to go see the families that were left behind, trying to piece together the puzzle in his mind.Directed by Jean Negulesco, this Twentieth Century Fox entry of 1952, showed on a classic movie channel recently. The film is not often seen these days. The scenario by the great Nunnally Johnson is based on a story written by I.A.R Wylie. There are good appearances by the interesting cast that was put together. The actresses have the best parts in the movie. Shelley Winters, Beatrice Straight, and Bette Davis are perfectly cast. Gary Merrill, Michael Rennie, Keenan Wynn do a fine job for Mr. Negulesco.

secondtake 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.