Phone Call From a Stranger (1952)

"A solidly based dramatic story...Davis's role as Wynn's bedridden wife...gives thespian strength to the film.  Variety

Editor's Note A recently separated man becomes confidant to a number of passengers flying to Los Angeles. When the plane crashes leaving him the lone survivor, he makes it his mission to visit the families of those whose lives he touched en route.

	Bette Davis
	Gary Merrill
	Keenan Wynn
	Shelley Winters
	Franz Waxman - Original Music By
	Hugh S. Fowler - Editor
	I.A.R. Wylie - Writer
	J. Russell Spencer - Art Director
	Jean Negulesco - Director
	Lyle R. Wheeler - Art Director
	Milton R. Krasner - Cinematographer
	Nunnally Johnson - Producer
	Nunnally Johnson - Writer

On an airplane, David Trask becomes friends with three fellow travellers: a stripper, a mentally unstable doctor, and a boorish salesman. But when the plane crashes, David is the only one of the four to survive. He decides to call and visit the immediate families of each of the deceased, and impart to them information of the loved one they've lost. In the process, David changes their lives -- and his own -- forever. Variety 8 of 10
A solidly based dramatic story idea has been brought off with a reasonable amount of success in Phone Call from a Stranger. Nunnally Johnson produced and did the script from a story by I.A.R. Wylie...Plot concerns the survivor of an airplane crash who decides to call on the families of three people with whom he had become friends during the air trip that led up to the tragedy; hence the title. Before this stage of the story is reached, however, script does a topnotch job of slugging dramatics dealing with Gary Merrill's departure from home after his wife has made a mistake...Shelley Winters does a good job of work on her flip character. Bette Davis's role as Wynn's bedridden wife occupies comparatively short footage but gives thespian strength to the film.