Dial 1119 (1950)

Directed by Gerald Mayer; produced by Richard Goldstone

Deranged killer Gunther Wyckoff (Herbert Marshall) has escaped from a prison mental hospital. He manages to ride a bus back to his home-town, where he intends to confront Dr John Faron (Sam Levene), whose examination saved him from execution but also resulted in his incarceration. Finding the psychiatrist not at his home, Wyckoff waits in a bar across the street. When he’s identified, he takes the staff and patrons hostage.

A low-budget thriller, Dial 1119 benefits from good performances but little else. The plot of such films, largely confined to one or two sets, with little physical action but a tense atmosphere, calls for rather specialised direction. That is not found in Dial 1119. This is Mayer’s first feature film in the director’s chair; he worked on a couple more movies before dedicating himself to television, where he did solid but unspectacular service for more than thirty years. Perhaps he was still learning here.

The script, too, is rather ordinary, with nothing particularly outstanding about the story or the dialogue. We never learn what Wyckoff did to be imprisoned – though we know it involved murder – and while we are told about his delusions, we are not informed of the crimes they were necessary to justify. The movie is set in one of those generic cities that filled 1940s and ‘50s film noir - in this case, ‘Terminal City’ (talk about a dead-end…), the ‘jewel of the Middle Valley’ – with its generic streets and police force.

The characters, I suppose, are meant to be a cross-section of humanity: a middle-aged Lothario (Leon Ames, whose real name was Wycoff, similar to the killer’s) and his would-be mistress (Andrea King), a fading bar-fly (Virginia Field), a fed-up reporter (James Bell), and a waiter (Keefe Brasselle) working until he receives a call about his wife, giving birth at the hospital. William Conrad may be the only recognisable face for many viewers, playing the bar-tender.

Though the acting is good, the characters are not entirely credible. It is very difficult to believe that Ames’s businessman would be able to lure a good-looking, much younger woman on a weekend trip to his cabin. And even in 1950, it seems hard to credit a man working while his wife had a child. The writing doesn’t make any of them likeable, except perhaps Conrad’s bar-tender, a bitter man ironically named Chuckles who, nonetheless, comes across as gruffly caring (eg. refusing to give the reporter, suffering from ulcers, anything stronger than a ‘sherry flip’.) Since nothing is revealed about Chuckles but his contempt for his work-place and its patrons, any sympathy created for him is likely due solely to the actor’s ability to manipulate a glance, a hesitation.

Interestingly, many of the actors went on to bigger rôles in tv: Conrad as Cannon and Nero Wolfe (in which he was directed by Mayer in 1981), Marshall in Daktari, and Ames in a number of series, in all of which he seemed to be among the most popular performer. As well, Conrad was heavily involved in radio and would, two years after Dial 1119, start one of his best roles on radio, that of Matt Dillion in Gunsmoke.) Dick Simmons, who portrays the on-air reporter of the news programme in this film, became well-known as Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. On the other hand, Levene (who, with Conrad, was in 1946’s The Killers), would, in the same year as Dial 1119, originate the part of Nathan Detroit in Broadway’s Guys and Dolls. Dial 1119 thus had talent in front of the camera – but not much elsewhere.

The movie has some minor aspects of interest, such as the fact that a bus driver keeps a loaded semi-automatic pistol above the sun-visor over his head (in case a passenger doesn’t pay his fare, perhaps), and the novelty of a bar having television (with a wide ‘reflective screen’). And the title refers to the emergency number people could dial for police, fire department or ambulance, a precursor to 911.

But over all, Dial 1119, has little to offer aside from thespian talent not fully realised. There are better, more suspenseful thrillers to see.