I saw Dial 1119 for the first time about ten years ago, and I honestly couldn’t remember much about it. I’ve seen it a couple more times recently, and I was pleasantly surprised. The film is short, only about seventy-five minutes long, and it is undoubtedly a B movie, even though it was produced and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, a big-name studio. Its themes are sophisticated for a B film produced seventy-five years ago. These themes are revealed through the storyline and the characters’ conversations—no voice-over narrator is needed to explain anything to viewers.
(This blog post about Dial 1119 contains all the spoilers.)
Some of the characters (Harry, Helen, Skip, Chuckles) who are hostages or victims later in the film are briefly introduced at the start of the narrative to give viewers their separate backstories, and each short sequence shows the characters interacting with others in their lives. Viewers learn about these characters, but they still don’t know a whole about them—not yet anyway. The storyline begins in earnest with Gunther Wyckoff, the main character, on a bus heading to Terminal City.
A woman passenger sitting on the bus next to Gunther offers him part of her sandwich, but he barely acknowledges her. He has his eye on the bus driver’s gun in a holster at the front of the bus. He is so intent on it that even his seatmate notices it. When the bus pauses for a five-minute stop, Gunther steals the gun. When the bus reaches its destination and the bus driver confronts him, Gunther shoots and kills him. No one hears the gunshot because another bus driver is honking impatiently to get moving in the queue to drop off passengers. Gunther has time to walk away before anyone notices him or the female passenger can talk to police officers.
Gunther Wyckoff is in Terminal City to visit Doctor John D. Faron, who is a police psychiatrist. The doctor is not at his office at the Criminal Courts Building, and he isn’t at home either. Gunther notices the Oasis Bar across the street from the doctor’s apartment and heads there to keep watch for Faron. Since the murder of the bus driver and the honking of another bus’s horn, the soundtrack is incredibly quiet, so much so that I thought the DVD I was watching had been damaged. The quiet is very unsettling, but that is the point.
It isn’t long before police officers are investigating the murder of the bus driver, and isn’t long before they identify Gunther Wyckoff as the murderer. His fingerprints are on file because he has already been incarcerated for murder at the Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He has escaped to find Doctor Faron.
Gunther uses the Oasis Bar as a lookout point for the doctor. He notices the bar’s air conditioner and the ribbon fluttering outside its vent. The incident shows something is off about Gunther (besides murder, that is), and the ribbon and the air conditioner actually play a part in the story later. When the news about the bus driver’s murder and Gunther Wyckoff’s involvement is broadcast on the television at the Oasis Bar, Chuckles, the bartender, recognizes Gunther. Chuckles has his own gun on a shelf behind the bar, and he hopes to use it to stop Gunther, but Gunther shoots and kills him before he has the chance to help himself and the others. Helen is already in the bar, and she screams when Chuckles is killed. Her scream is heard by passersby outside on the street, and one of them hails an officer.
Gunther orders everyone who is still in the bar to stay put and takes them all hostage. The five hostages include:
◊ Freddy, who is a woman and a regular customer at the bar
◊ Skip, the waiter, who works for Chuckles
◊ Helen, who is meeting Earl, not a female friend of hers as she promised her mother earlier in the evening
◊ Earl, who is just trying to get Helen to go away with him and doesn’t care about her
◊ Harry, a newspaper reporter
Chuckles, the bartender and owner of the Oasis Bar is already dead. His murder is one of the reasons that the others are taken hostage.
Police officers gather outside the Oasis Bar, as does a crowd of civilians. One of the officers on hand for the quickly developing hostage situation is Captain Keiver. Doctor Faron finally arrives on scene and stops to talk to the captain. Both Doctor Faron and Captain Keiver are already familiar with Gunther Wyckoff because Keiver testified against him and Faron’s professional opinion kept Gunther from being executed three years earlier, something Captain Keiver isn’t very happy about. This time, Keiver wants to do everything he can to make sure that no additional people are hurt, including Doctor Faron. He refuses to allow the doctor to enter the Oasis Bar and talk to Gunther, even though Gunther has already made this specific request. But he will allow the doctor to talk to Gunther on the phone.
The film makes a couple of interesting statements about television journalism and bystander behavior. A bus for Channel 11, WKYL television, pulls up to the scene—or as close to the scene as the police allow. The television reporters are intent on setting up a live feed and broadcasting the action as it happens. They aim for sensationalism, which isn’t hard for them to do with a convicted murderer holding hostages. Many of the bystanders on the street about a block away from the Oasis Bar treat the hostage situation as a spectacle, something for their entertainment. An ice cream truck even drives up to sell assorted frozen treats to the crowd and make some money. People start buying as soon as the truck stops. With the remove of a television broadcast and the luxury of snacks to purchase, the civilian bystanders can afford to be a little distracted, and they show less and less concern for the plight of the hostages.
Doctor Faron and Captain Keiver discuss Gunther Wyckoff and their options. They point out opposing arguments about law and order versus social justice, punishment (including the death penalty, which was more common in the United States in 1950) versus compassion. Their conversations present some philosophical arguments, and here is one example:
• Doctor Faron: “. . . We no longer execute the sick. We’re not in the Middle Ages.”
• Captain Keiver: “I’m not arguing morality. If Gunther Wyckoff had gone to the chair, the life of one man, maybe two—maybe all the people in that bar would have been spared tonight.”
• Faron: “Hank, listen to me for just a moment. Wyckoff has always been unbalanced. Most of us are, in one way or another. But the pressures of tension and circumstances made this boy a killer.”
• Keiver: “This is not news to me.”
Gunther Wyckoff is apparently suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He remembers his World War II military service in battle vividly, and he is having trouble adjusting to civilian life. He tells this to the hostages, and he describes one battle in particular very convincingly. In the middle of his monologue, Gunther notices that the air conditioner has been turned off: The ribbon is no longer fluttering. He shoots Officer Ulrich, who is in the air-conditioning duct attempting to confront Gunther and free the hostages. Captain Keiver learns that Ulrich is wounded and will be lucky to survive the ride to the hospital; thus, he is likely to be Gunther’s third victim just that day.
Doctor Faron disobeys Captain Keiver’s instructions to stay away from the Oasis Bar and approaches the bar with the intention of talking to Gunther Wyckoff in person. The television crew captures his approach while he is on the street and broadcasts it live on television. Gunther is pleased when he sees the broadcast on the bar’s television and allows the doctor to enter the bar.
Gunther tells Doctor Faron that he wanted to meet him in person because he wants to kill him. Doctor Faron wants to help him, but Gunther feels that the doctor tricked him the last time (when he was incarcerated three years ago). This time, he wants everyone to know “the truth.” But Doctor Faron reminds Gunther that he was never a soldier:
• Faron: “You never were a soldier. You were drafted and wanted to go but you were rejected. Weren’t you, Gunther?”
• Wyckoff: “Doctor, you better shut up.”
• Faron: “You couldn’t face the reason they rejected you. You went out of your head. You killed. Then to justify a killing you knew was wrong, you invented a dream. You made yourself believe you were a soldier.”
Gunther shoots Faron to keep him from talking any more. He doesn’t want to hear the truth and never did. He has used the war to convince himself that he was indeed drafted and served in battle. As a soldier, he would have killed without criminal consequences, but as a civilian who kills, he most certainly does face those consequences. Doctor Faron insists on the truth, which Gunther cannot bear, so he shoots and kills the doctor (his fourth victim in one day).
Now Gunther wants to kill the hostages because they heard what the doctor said, and he knows that they believe the doctor and not him, just like people did before, as he says. He orders them to stand at the bar, and Freddy notices, in the mirror behind the bar, the gun that Chuckles keeps on a shelf. When Skip rushes Gunther, she grabs the gun and shoots Gunther. Gunther is only injured, however, and runs out of the bar to be killed in a hail of police fire. The hostages return to their everyday lives and concerns rather quickly. The police officers outside the bar break up the crowd, telling the bystanders, “Break it up. Party’s over.”
The film does make some negative observations about human nature, especially for people who are in proximity to danger, who are observing it from behind the safety of a police barricade or through a television broadcast. But it also says something about how humans shy away from the unpleasant. It even showcases an extreme case in Gunther Wyckoff, who invents a false story for himself so he doesn’t have to face a truth he doesn’t want to believe or so he won’t have to take responsibility for his actions.
One of the plot details that I especially enjoyed was that Freddy, one of the female bar patrons, is one of two people who save themselves and the rest of the hostages. Freddy is the one who reaches over the bar and grabs it off the shelf when Skip, a bartender working for Chuckles, jumps Gunther. I also enjoyed the thoughtful conversations between Doctor Faron and Captain Keiver, two people who take their jobs seriously and weigh the consequences of their actions. The issues they raise are not resolved in the film. And how could they be? Captain Keiver’s job and his responsibilities are very different from those of Doctor Faron. It’s even more enjoyable to follow a story like this one that presents real-life issues and lets viewers mull them over for themselves.
Dial 1119 was a pleasant surprise. I enjoyed the story, which kept me guessing. I didn’t know how it would end. The themes about PTSD and mental illness are surprisingly sophisticated, and Marshall Thompson gives a wonderful performance as a young man who has lost touch with reality. I read a review online (and I wish I could remember where online) in which the writer thought that James Dean would have made a better Gunther Wyckoff. But I disagree. Now, I have to admit that I have never been a huge fan of James Dean, but I don’t think he would have given the kind of subtle performance that Marshal Thompson did. Like the female passenger on the bus riding with him to Terminal City, you know that there is something wrong about Gunther Wyckoff, but you cannot put your finger on it right away.
November 3, 1950, release date • Directed by Gerald Mayer • Screenplay by John Monks, Jr. • Based on a story by Hugh King, Don McGuire • Music by André Previn • Edited by Newell P. Kimlin • Cinematography by Paul Vogel
Marshall Thompson as Gunther Wyckoff • Virginia Field as Freddy • Andrea King as Helen • Sam Levene as Doctor John D. Faron • Leon Ames as Earl • Keefe Brasselle as Skip • Richard Rober as Captain Henry (“Hank”) Keiver • James Bell as Harrison (“Harry”) D. Barnes • William Conrad as Chuckles, the bartender • Dick Simmons as the television announcer • Hal Baylor as Lieutenant Whitey Tallman • Barbara Billingsley as Dorothy, secretary to the newspaper editor • John Maxwell as Frank, the managing editor
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer • Produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
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