One of the people I watched this movie with recently (the day before Sidney Poitier died) worked with me on a "hotline" crisis center in the 1970s. (That was in a small town; I subsequently worked at another one in a large city.) The use of technology in this 1965 movie to locate a suicide was, in its time, stretching the possibilities.
"We never were able to trace a call," said my friend about our small town hotline.
"As far as I know, we never did in the city, either," I said.
"The moment that rings truest for me," said my friend, "is the end where Poitier's character blows off steam. I really felt like that after my first suicide call." That's one of the places where most viewers might think that Poitier over-acts. We didn't think so.
This is not a great movie, although it is worth seeing for a number of reasons. Somebody said that there are no great performances in a bad movie. I rather think this is a flawed movie that nevertheless has some good acting, although, putting two award-winning actors together under the direction of a relatively inexperienced director (Sydney Pollack) is not a sure-fire formula.
Many of the 'sixties tropes on display are dated. Not least of all is that, excepting Poitier, the few black faces in this movie are all in the deep background. If you were not looking for them, you could be excused for thinking that Poitier's was the only black face on the screen.
Perhaps the most interesting question is whether or not race is ever alluded to. It is never directly mentioned, but it could well be subtext. The suicidal woman, Inga (Anne Bancroft), has big problems, but Alan (Poitier) mentions that, hey, he has problems, too, but he does not elaborate on them.
Talk about subtext: the movie confronts Inga's problem only superficially. She is caught between being regarded either as a madonna or a slut by her husband and she takes this to heart as if these are the only ways she can view herself. The movie does not interrogate the issue because the main focus is on whether Poitier and the rest of the male cast of rescuers can push along the now primitive-seeming technology used to trace her call.
Most lost in terms of what is expected of him is Steven Hill as Inga's husband, Mark. (Hill is best known, perhaps, either as the original district attorney on "Law and Order" or the original team leader on "Mission: Impossible".) His problem is her problem as he is torn between his simultaneous love and disgust for her. What is he supposed to be thinking and doing most of the time? I don't know, and don't think anybody told the actor, either.
The help line that Inga calls is brand new. She just happens to learn about it from a newspaper headline reporting that it has opened. (Inga also seems to have a steel-trap memory: she calls the phone number after reading it in the paper without writing it down or rechecking it.) This makes me think about the social background of this mid-1960s movie.
The screenplay--by Stirling Silliphant, who also penned Poitier's hit, "In the Heat of the Night", two years later, and the uncredited David Rayfiel--was based on a "Life" magazine article, written by Shana Alexander, about a helpline worker who tries to save a suicidal woman.
The bigger picture can best be understood through the (now unavailable) documentary "Bold New Approach" (1966), which was probably filmed around the same time as "The Slender Thread". The Kennedy administration had earlier promoted the idea of developing community mental health resources, the need for which is suggested by a scene in which Inga meets a psychiatrist who does not have time for her. This seems to be a not too subtle criticism of the then-existing system, suggesting that mental health crisis services ought to be more available. (In the U. S. today, most state health departments oversee a regionally organized network of community-based behavioral health services that prominently include crisis options.)
The 1960s also saw the beginning of professional emergency medical services, hinted at here as the fire department ambulance goes out on the call to help Inga. Even ten years later, this was commonplace, but in 1965, a fire department ambulance with trained medical technicians was so new that it was almost science fiction.
The opening shots of Seattle remind us we are watching a movie probably shot about five years after zooming outdoor camera work emerged on the big screen, and new toys do tend to be over-used.
Even more glaring is the portrayal of a discothèque where the beatniks have not quite yet become hippies, and everything looks stylized, the way it would have been portrayed on television at the time; there is nothing realistic about the scene.
"We never were able to trace a call," said my friend about our small town hotline.
"As far as I know, we never did in the city, either," I said.
"The moment that rings truest for me," said my friend, "is the end where Poitier's character blows off steam. I really felt like that after my first suicide call." That's one of the places where most viewers might think that Poitier over-acts. We didn't think so.
This is not a great movie, although it is worth seeing for a number of reasons. Somebody said that there are no great performances in a bad movie. I rather think this is a flawed movie that nevertheless has some good acting, although, putting two award-winning actors together under the direction of a relatively inexperienced director (Sydney Pollack) is not a sure-fire formula.
Many of the 'sixties tropes on display are dated. Not least of all is that, excepting Poitier, the few black faces in this movie are all in the deep background. If you were not looking for them, you could be excused for thinking that Poitier's was the only black face on the screen.
Perhaps the most interesting question is whether or not race is ever alluded to. It is never directly mentioned, but it could well be subtext. The suicidal woman, Inga (Anne Bancroft), has big problems, but Alan (Poitier) mentions that, hey, he has problems, too, but he does not elaborate on them.
Talk about subtext: the movie confronts Inga's problem only superficially. She is caught between being regarded either as a madonna or a slut by her husband and she takes this to heart as if these are the only ways she can view herself. The movie does not interrogate the issue because the main focus is on whether Poitier and the rest of the male cast of rescuers can push along the now primitive-seeming technology used to trace her call.
Most lost in terms of what is expected of him is Steven Hill as Inga's husband, Mark. (Hill is best known, perhaps, either as the original district attorney on "Law and Order" or the original team leader on "Mission: Impossible".) His problem is her problem as he is torn between his simultaneous love and disgust for her. What is he supposed to be thinking and doing most of the time? I don't know, and don't think anybody told the actor, either.
The help line that Inga calls is brand new. She just happens to learn about it from a newspaper headline reporting that it has opened. (Inga also seems to have a steel-trap memory: she calls the phone number after reading it in the paper without writing it down or rechecking it.) This makes me think about the social background of this mid-1960s movie.
The screenplay--by Stirling Silliphant, who also penned Poitier's hit, "In the Heat of the Night", two years later, and the uncredited David Rayfiel--was based on a "Life" magazine article, written by Shana Alexander, about a helpline worker who tries to save a suicidal woman.
The bigger picture can best be understood through the (now unavailable) documentary "Bold New Approach" (1966), which was probably filmed around the same time as "The Slender Thread". The Kennedy administration had earlier promoted the idea of developing community mental health resources, the need for which is suggested by a scene in which Inga meets a psychiatrist who does not have time for her. This seems to be a not too subtle criticism of the then-existing system, suggesting that mental health crisis services ought to be more available. (In the U. S. today, most state health departments oversee a regionally organized network of community-based behavioral health services that prominently include crisis options.)
The 1960s also saw the beginning of professional emergency medical services, hinted at here as the fire department ambulance goes out on the call to help Inga. Even ten years later, this was commonplace, but in 1965, a fire department ambulance with trained medical technicians was so new that it was almost science fiction.
The opening shots of Seattle remind us we are watching a movie probably shot about five years after zooming outdoor camera work emerged on the big screen, and new toys do tend to be over-used.
Even more glaring is the portrayal of a discothèque where the beatniks have not quite yet become hippies, and everything looks stylized, the way it would have been portrayed on television at the time; there is nothing realistic about the scene.