The Slender Thread

A call comes into a crisis line in Seattle on the night shift. The woman calling, Inga, says she has taken sleeping pills and refuses to say where she is. Alan Newell, who picks up, is a psychology student working as a volunteer. His job is one thing: keep her talking. The police are trying to trace the line. The film runs almost exactly as long as that call. Sydney Pollack directed his first feature. Sidney Poitier plays Alan and Anne Bancroft plays Inga, with Telly Savalas and Edward Asner in support. Stirling Silliphant wrote the screenplay from a real case: Shana Alexander's article Decision to Die, published in Life magazine on 29 May 1964. Alexander's husband, the producer Stephen Alexander, took the rights soon after. It was shot in Seattle and at the University of Washington. Loyal Griggs shot it in black and white and Quincy Jones wrote the score. Who it is for: viewers who like single-location thrillers and films carried by two performers. Who it is not for: anyone sensitive to the subject. The film stays with a suicide attempt in real time and head-on.