Not as kind a stranger as Gary Merrill

Another of the movies that I had the chance to DVR during one of the free preview weekends is the 1979 version of When a Stranger Calls. It's going to be on again tomorrow, at 8:00 PM on Flix; as well as late the following week.

Carol Kane plays Jill Johnson, a student who one night gets a job babysitting two children for a couple who decide to go to dinner and perhaps a movie. It should be an easy job, since the kids are already in bed. But then the phone rings, and it's not a call for the parents. Indeed, if anything, it's an obscene phone call asking her if she's checked up on the children, those being a thing back in the 1970s when Caller ID wasn't around at all, let alone ridiculous. Jill doesn't like the call, of course, but I suppose those things happen. Except that in Jill's case, it happens over and over.

Eventually, Jill decides to call the police after a whole bunch of these calls. There's not all that much they can do, although it might be possible to trace the call if it happens again and she's on the line long enough. Jill also calls the restaurant that the parents were at, but they've gone ahead to see that movie they were thinking about; no number left there for Jill to call. And finally, the mystery caller calls again, long enough for the call to be traced....

This first part of the story you probably know, since it became an urban legend: the calls are coming from inside the house! Apparently, the parents had a second number that they for some reason never disconnected, and the caller is calling from there. When Jill finally does check on the children, she's accosted and the children have already been murdered. At least Jill is saved by the police detective, John Clifford (Charles Durning).

Seven years pass. The guy who killed the children and terrorized poor Jill was a British seaman named Curt Duncan (Tony Blakely) who was adjudged to be insane, so he was sent to an asylum rather than to prison. After spending seven years there, he escaped, and is on the loose. The parents hire Clifford, now retired from the force, as a private eye to find Duncan and, with any luck, kill him, even though that's not really legal.

Duncan first shows up at a bar where he meets Tracy (Colleen Dewhurst), and rather clumsily puts the moves on her. He follows her back to her apartment and tried to get her to let him in. Eventually, having been rebuffed, he goes to a flophouse for the night. Clifford gets word that Duncan is there and tries to capture Duncan, to no avail, leaving Duncan the chance to go back and attack Tracy.

But what Duncan really wants to do is.... In the third act, we meet Jill again, now married to Stephen Lockart (Steven Anderson), a successful sales manager. The couple have two kids, and Stephen decides to celebrate his likely promotion by taking Jill out to dinner. That's perfectly normal, but while they're at the restaurant, the maitre d' informs Jill that there's a call for her on the telephone, which really ought to be unnerving if you're going out to eat, at least in the days before cell phones. In that situation, I'd be worried about what problem the baby sitter is having at home, but it's something far worse: Duncan asking her if she's checked the children lately!

When a Stranger Calls is based on a short film that the director, Fred Walton, had made a few years earlie which was only what is here the first act of the movie. Walton stretches things out two 90-plus minutes, and pretty much every review I read came to the same conclusion I did. The first act is excellent, even though we know now how it's going to end because this is the film that really made the trope, Black Christmas notwithstanding. The second act is slow, although Durning and Dewhurst are definitely worth a watch. The final act picks up again and is definitely better than the second, although not quite up to the level of the first.

Overall, though, I'd say that When a Stranger Calls is definitely worth a watch, even if you knew before reading this review where the first act was going to go. It's effective at what it does, and is good for a rainy night with a bowl of popcorn (or in my case, ice cream, since that's what I prefer).