The Slender Thread (1965) Reviews

• I should have known. Poitier = Acting 101

  autocrat92007-02-19

  I saw this title coming up on TCM, read the synopsis, and KNEW instantly that this one I had to see. And like I said, I should have known. Poitier is probably one of the top ten dramatic actors of ALL TIME! I'm not sure I've ever seen a bad film that he was in. This little gem, was tremendous. I don't comment on many film's but when I see one I haven't seen before, and it's as good as this one, I can't restrain myself. Watch it when/if you can, and you won't be disappointed! There are many subplots and twists to this film, and it has many fine performances, including Telly Savalas, and Ann Bancroft. There are small parts, for a young Dabney Coleman, and one of Ed Asner's early ones as well. I am a classic movie buff, with over 800 titles in my library, and I simply love it when I come across a new one that I hadn't seen/heard of before. Like I said, Watch this one when/if you can.

• Anne Bancroft, RIP

  lee_eisenberg2005-12-02

  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.

• Bancroft is excellent...

  MarieGabrielle2007-07-26

  This film tackles subject matter which we still do not see addressed as often as it could be, with Sidney Poitier as a young suicide hot-line worker/college student who works helping out a Seattle psychiatrist Dr. Coburn (well-portrayed by Telly Savalas). At the time this was even more of a taboo subject. A housewife feeling despair, Bancroft portrays her alienation and desperation sympathetically and in an understated manner. She has a child from her first boyfriend, concealed this from her husband (well-portrayed by Steven Hill) Her husband becomes angry and she begins to feel as if her life is a sham. Her office job no longer satisfying, she takes to wandering the city of Seattle, there are several intriguing scenes of the coastline. There is one moving scene where she is on the beach and comes across a small group of children who are trying to rescue an injured bird. She rushes to a liquor store to buy some brandy (not sure how this can quite help the bird, but anyway...) she returns to the beach to find the children have abandoned the bird. It is an effective and disturbing scene. Poitier is outstanding as usual, in that he is trying to locate Bancroft when she calls threatening suicide. She has checked into the Hyatt Hotel somewhere in the city. He becomes alternately frustrated, caring, sympathetic, angry and joyous in various aspects of the film. Overall this is an excellent film with some very good performances. Highly recommended. 9/10.

• Fighting to keep the spark for living alive

  theowinthrop2008-06-02

  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.

• Telephone Extension Taken Literally

  BaronBl00d2008-06-25

  Sydney Pollack's first feature directorial debut after years of directing episodic television is crisp, tense, and generally very well-acted. Anne Bancroft plays a woman facing a turning point hard to cope with in her life and Sidney Poitier plays a young college student raking in hours at a suicide hot-line extending a figurative helping hand. Though the two great actors share no scenes together - they have a certain chemistry as they talk, talk, and talk on the phones, and we are given flashback sequences showing us how and why Bancroft is fighting her new found depression. Though the story itself is rather mundane in terms of the impetus for her disposition, the dialog and performances easily make up for any inadequacies. Both Bancroft and Poitier really shine in their roles and the rest of the cast - especially Telly Savalas do fine work. It is evident that Pollack was honing his craft but also possessed a great deal of ability in terms of framing a shot and creating a strong pace and presence throughout the picture.