The Phone Call

I'm on a 'menacing phone calls in movies' kick at the moment and I was surprised to stumble across this one. Michael Henderson (Michael Sarrazin) is stupid enough to call a sex chat line number while on a weekend away from his family. By getting through the wrong line he had intended he finds himself in an increasingly embarrassing situation. He becomes stalked by a male sex line worker called Carey. There's a nice drop of menace from Ron Lea as Carey. He manages an evil grin that Anthony Perkins would have been proud of. Also Carey becomes every bit as menacing as the Bruno character in Hitchcock's 'Strangers On A Train.' He threatens Michael's career and reputation and marriage. It's a TV Movie where the word 'bastard' said a few times is as strong as the profanities get. The subject matter is delicate of course but if you're looking for a stalking movie with a difference this is worth a try. Once you're hooked it will keep you watching right through to the very last moment.

My review was written in January 1991 after watching the film on Monarch video cassette.

A gender-variation on "Fatal Attraction", "The Phone Call" is an entertaining near-miss. Direct-to-video release Stateside pulls its punches in dealing with the theme of closet homosexuality.

Michael Sarrazin, who has expertly played screen weaklings since "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" is cast as a happily married computer exec who makes one ruinous mistake.

On the road conducting seminars, he idly takes he advice of a business pal (Vlasta Vrana) and dials up a phone sex service, "The Main Line". He accidentally calls "The MAN Line" and unwittingly has a conversation with ex-con Ron Lea, whose high-pitched voice and effeminate manner fool him.

When Lea finally identifies himself as a man, Sarrazin is shocked, insults him and hangs up. There begins a vendetta, with both class distinction and basic human dignity prime motivators as Lea harasses Sarrazin, demanding an apology.

Matters impact on the smug hero rapidly as Lea, about to be hauled off by security guards, plants a smooch on Sarrazin's lips in full view of Vrana in the hotel. Vrana soon spreads the word, and Sarrazin's boss (Howard Ryshpan) is loath to condone what he assumes is his colleague's hoosexual bent.

At home, Sarrazin unwisely fails to tell his loving wife Linda Smith about his predicament. After a violent altercation in which he gives Lea a lack eye, he returns home to find the ex-con hired by Smith as a handyman and fast friends with their young daughter, Lisa Jskub.

"The Phone Call" becomes far-fetched at this point. Mother and daughter are in danger, yet Sarrazin doesn't act quickly enough. Violent climax is predictable. Scripter Doanld Martin's sidestepping of the sexual issue is clever but robs the film of impact. Since Lea is not depicted as overtly gay, and Sarrazin is simply a wrong number dialer turned on by an ambiguous sounding voice, the plot has no sexual driving force.

This literally lets Sarrazin off the hook, unlike Michael Douglas in "Fatal Attraction", who is definitely unfair to Glenn Close. Instead, the relationships are abstracted. This works effectively to keep the pot boiling, but it lacks resonance.

Greatest benefit here is avoidance of the misogyny characterizing "Fatal Attraction" and its imitators in which a woman is depicted as the heavy.

Lea is impressive as the simultaneously hateful and sympathetic protagonist, while Sarrazin also is solid in basically a two-hander reminiscent of "Sleuth", "The Offence" and "Deathtrap". Tech credits are adequate.

What? This movie has NO user or external reviews?! It was moderately notorious if little-seen at the time for being a late entry into the thriller subgenre in which gay people are painted as being inherently unbalanced and thus easily given to murder--in the tradition of "Windows," "Cruising," and (later on) "Basic Instinct."

Michael Sarrazin--who played such sensitive guys in the 60s and 70s that it's embarrassing he accepted this wildly insensitive job--plays a married businessman on a trip who succumbs to an urge and calls a paid sex-talk line. When he realizes the voice on the other end isn't a husky-toned female but a man, he freaks out and calls the phone sex worker various names. Oops! Latter is a psychotic queen who then sets about stalking and terrorizing our hero and his loved ones.

Crafted with routine B-movie professionalism, "The Phone Call" is formulaic nonsense that was obviously pitched as "'Fatal Attraction' meets homosexual panic!," if not in so many words. It's deservedly obscure, I suppose, although if you're looking to howl at an instantly- dated movie's ridiculous exploitation of "gay" as "twisted," this is worth seeking out. Another is "Mercy" (made in 2000!), with Ellen Barkin as a cop enticed into "edgy" sexuality while investigating a series of kinky S&M lesbian murders. Gee, my lesbian friends' lives are exactly like that! All murdering and bondage--plus kids and mortgages. It's a somewhat better- crafted movie than "Phone Call" but still a jaw-dropper.