Touches You

Film Perfection

Best movie ever!

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

It's 1950, and familiar TV faces abound in "Dial 1119": Marshall Thompson (Daktari), Sam Levene, Keefe Brasselle, William Conrad and Virginia Field. Thompson plays Gunther Wyckoff, a deeply disturbed man who, after shooting a bus driver with his own gun, walks into a bar and takes the patrons hostage.The police have to figure out how to capture Wyckoff and free the hostages without any other people getting hurt. They send in the doctor (Levene) whose testimony saved his life during a murder trial three years earlier.It's post-war, so there's some psychoanalyzing of Wyckoff along the way.The bar has a giant television, which is great to see, and the bartender controls it from what looks like a radio below. The block of Terminal City where the bar is located is an obvious set, but somehow, it sets the just the right atmosphere.Virginia Field plays one of the bar patrons, Freddy, and she's unrecognizable as the ingénue from Fox films such as "Lloyds of London," and the Mr. Moto and Charlie Chan films. With the exception of Levene, the original Nathan Detroit in "Guys and Dolls," who continued doing film, most of the other actors enjoyed good careers in television.Pretty good.

Marshall Thompson stars in this interesting thriller as Gunther Wyckoff, a mentally unstable young man who has escaped from an asylum, killed a bus driver with a gun he acquired, then holds a bar hostage with several people inside. Both the authorities and hostages try to work with and understand why Gunther is so crazed, with little success, though it does have something to do with his war record... William Conrad is good as the bartender affectionately named Chuckles, who has a most surprising big screen TV in the bar, where they can see their drama play out live. Intriguing film with good performances makes thoughtful and prescient commentary on how live television coverage can affect the outcome of a crime, and the impact it has on all concerned.

It is obvious that this is one of Dore Schary's pet projects at MGM, certainly not for the taste of Louis B. Mayer at the climax of his reign at the studio where the lion was about to roar "The End" for him. Hypocritacally patriotic Mayer disapproved of the Civil War drama "The Red Badge of Courage" and the spiritual drama "The Next Voice You Here", and it is very obvious that this one, too, made him wince. The theme is the psychological destruction that comes from war, whether involved or rejected from duty, and here, it is the later, surrounding the already demented Marshall Thompson, a young man who believes it is his duty to kill, having wanted so much to do so when World War II came up.Killing a bus driver after he is discovered to have a gun, he then takes over a local bar where a new invention called television is presenting local news as the bartender (William Conrad) grumbles about it. It is the local news that will soon be camping outside this bar when Thompson orders local police to send doctor Sam Levene there for one last confrontation in exchange for the hostages he has taken. Virginia Field is unforgettable as the aging and drunken "B" girl obviously tiring of life yet unable to escape her floozy identity. Andrea King is a young lady enticed by an older married man (Leon Ames) with a romantic trip out of town. These are the most memorable of the hostages, the others (including a newspaper man whose own paper ignores his call for help) not as fleshed out.The film makes a few important comments on both the human condition and the issue of violence in society. The most obvious issue is the importance of gun control. In only 75 minutes, the film's gritty and unapologetic violence takes several lives shockingly and seems to be written just to expose the growing violence in society rather than present a plot which is neatly wrapped up like the usual MGM fare. Field gets a great exit which ties the trashy element of the story with an ironic twist that is sure to bring delight.

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.