hyped garbage

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Blistering performances.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Last week, as I mentioned in my review of THE WAY WE WERE, director and actor Sidney Pollack died of cancer. Pollack was known as an actor's director because of his own experience as a performer. I chose THE WAY WE WERE as the film by Pollack most destined to be considered great, but TOOTSIE, OUT OF Africa (his Oscar winner), JEREMIAH JOHNSON, and several others are worthy of consideration too. So is this, the first film Pollack directed, which is both an emotion churning drama regarding two people trying (one desperately) to relate to each other, and also a police procedural in tracing a missing person.Sidney Poitier has just begun manning a 24 hour suicide prevention phone, and is working alongside Telly Savalas (as a psychiatrist here - rather interesting casting that), Indus Arthur and Jason Wingreen. There is a phone call from a woman (Anne Bancroft) who has just swallowed nearly a dozen sleeping pills. Poitier and the others are aware that she is going to be dead in less than two hours unless she reveals where she is or the police (who are notified) are able to trace her phone call. There is a problem - they can't tap the phones in Poitier's office without her noticing, so the Police are forced to depend on information Savalas or Wingreen manage to relate to them quietly from a distant corner. The police (one hand tied behind their backs) try to quickly analyze each clue with their most up-to-date (c. 1964) equipment, but find it nearly impossible. One cop who has been watching the work going around (his shift being over) is Ed Asner. He decides to drive in the approximate area that the call might have come from - looking for Bankroft's distinctive car.While the police struggle onward Poitier and Bancroft continue their long phone conversation. The movie is unique as the two stars never actually appear in one scene together (the script, by the way, is by Sterling Silliphant) but are heard talking on the phone. Poitier is slowly losing his cool trying to coax enough information out of Bancroft about the reason for the suicide and where she currently is.In the course of the conversation we learn (through flashbacks) that Bancroft's marriage to Steven Hill is getting sour because of a past indiscretion he cannot bring himself to forgive. Her sense of growing isolation from Hill, from her son (Greg Jarvis), and from her job and the world. The crisis occurs after a dinner with her husband does not lead to a better sexual relationship, and when he returns to his job (he's the captain of a fishing trawler) her isolation pushes her over the edge. The breaking point deals with her failure to save a little bird. Shortly after she decides on suicide.The conclusion is whether Asner and the cops will find Bancroft in time, or is she going to succeed in killing herself. All the actors acquit themselves well in the film, particularly Bancroft as a woman who sees no chance to regain what she lost. Poitier's intensity struggling to pull Bancroft from the edge is quite good as well, as is Asner's realistic cop (bucking his own reputation and the way he's viewed by his fellows) to try to find the woman before it's too late. Hill too comes out well - no Adam Shift here, no grizzled veteran who has seen it all (as he was on LAW AND ORDER) but a simple man who loves his wife, but feels she has disappointed him and God. Yet in the crisis he too regains his true sense of how he does not want to lose her.Pollock in his first film showed an artistic flair as well, particularly (in my opinion) the sequence on the beach with the injured bird and the children. Stark and stripped of anything relieving the gray and blackness of the scene, it bodes ill even when Bancroft wrongly thinks she can save the little creature. Also note the final scenes where Asner and the cops have to push through crowds of people (who have no reason to understand why they are there) to try to find Bancroft. He certainly showed he had an eye for the construction of his scenes, and the film was an Oscar nominee for best costume design (black and white) and best art (black and white). It was a very promising start to a fine directing career.

There are so many things right with this film. Sidney Pollack's debut is my favourite of his films. The shot selection and direction of actors is held to the highest standard I have seen from him. Sidney Poitier is bang on as the Help Line Volunteer, but Anne Bancroft is what really makes this great, entertaining film a masterpiece.Anne Bancroft had a great career. Even in the mediocre and poor films she was in, she always shined. This is among her top three roles (along with The Graduate and Great Expectations) in no particular order.This film is very entertaining and contains quite a bit of subtext in each shot. It touches on themes of racism, suicide, sexism, mental instability, death, isolation and abandonment, infidelity and heroism. You get the feeling that Newell (Newly Well) empathizes with Dyson (Die-soon) more than he lets on, and it is kept brilliantly under the surface. GREAT JOB POLLACK!

I remember seeing this movie some years ago and it stayed with me. When it popped up again on TCM I made it a point to record it so I could pay closer attention to it. I hate to say that I was a little disappointed. Some of the more obvious and unavoidable problems you can chalk up to the age of the movie. 1965 was rife with mop-haired nerds and white-booted chicks doing the jerk-agogo or whatever the hell we did back then. The whining, blues tainted horns of the Quincy Jones score seems dated as well.A young wife, played to perfection by Anne Bancroft, has a dark secret. When her husband discovers her indiscretion, she begins to retreat into her own, dark, guilt-filled space. As time goes by, her husband becomes distant and judgmental while she plunges deeper and deeper into depression. She loses all hope of reconstructing her life, checks into a motel and chucks down a cocktail of pills.This is when the movie gets interesting. She calls in to a crisis hot-line because she has no one else to talk to and doesn't want to die alone. As luck would have it, she reaches a student volunteer played by Sidney Poitier. The rest of the story is a frantic search to find her before the pills do the business. As she babbles on the phone, we are treated to flashback after flashback telling us her story.The movie is a bumpy ride. While the director concentrates on those tense scenes where the rescue team is trying to trace the victim, we find our muscles tensing and our eyes tearing, wishing they knew what we know. At other times, we get to know the players oh so much more than we need to. There is a scene where we get to watch Anne Bancroft staring into a pool for what seems like forever. Very arty - but very boring. This is not an action flick, and I don't want to sound impatient, but a little less art and a little more action wouldn't hurt.Anne Bancroft plays her part to perfection. At times she is seductive, confused, disturbed, and profoundly sad. She hit almost every emotion in the book, and hit the mark every time. On the other hand, Sidney Poitier seems to be angry, explosive, almost seething in his emotional display. I know it's heresy, but I just didn't think he was very good. I could envision any number of actors that would have been more believable. I don't know how much to blame him as opposed to Sidney Pollack who directed. It all depends on who had control, but the end result was disappointing. I accidentally gave this movie a 6. On reflection, I think I'll jack that up to an 8. Sidney Poitier aside, it was still a good movie.

I believe that this was Sydney Pollack's directorial debut. If so, then he certainly gave an interesting insight into his future work. Seattle college student Alan Newell (Sidney Poitier) is working at a crisis hotline center when he gets a call from housewife Inge Dyson (Anne Bancroft), who is reaching the breaking point. Because they can't see each other, it gives the movie a real sense of tension, as implied by the title - even if it drags a little bit at times.A previous reviewer said that Poitier plays his usual role: a morally superior black man in a white-dominated society. That's partly true, but here, he has a job that anyone could have, and his race doesn't really matter (although as the reviewer noted, they could have been subtly talking about race). As for Anne Bancroft, her death six months ago brings her filmography to mind. This may have not been her most famous role, but I would recommend it.