Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Blake Rivera If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

blanche-2 It's 1950, and familiar TV faces abound in "Dial 1119": Marshall Thompson (Daktari), Sam Levene, Keefe Brasselle, William Conrad and Virginia Field. Thompson plays Gunther Wyckoff, a deeply disturbed man who, after shooting a bus driver with his own gun, walks into a bar and takes the patrons hostage.The police have to figure out how to capture Wyckoff and free the hostages without any other people getting hurt. They send in the doctor (Levene) whose testimony saved his life during a murder trial three years earlier.It's post-war, so there's some psychoanalyzing of Wyckoff along the way.The bar has a giant television, which is great to see, and the bartender controls it from what looks like a radio below. The block of Terminal City where the bar is located is an obvious set, but somehow, it sets the just the right atmosphere.Virginia Field plays one of the bar patrons, Freddy, and she's unrecognizable as the ingénue from Fox films such as "Lloyds of London," and the Mr. Moto and Charlie Chan films. With the exception of Levene, the original Nathan Detroit in "Guys and Dolls," who continued doing film, most of the other actors enjoyed good careers in television.Pretty good.

bobatwan An engaging film despite a thin story line involving a psycho who's taken five hostages in a down-scale local bar. In Dial 1119, as in so many noir films, the locations, sets, and artifacts, are usually more interesting than the plot line. For me, the most remarkable feature of this film is the prominent TV set in the bar where most of the action takes place (the sport being watched is pro-wrestling). The bartender at one point claims it's 3 ft by 4 ft which would make it pretty large for a black and white 1950 TV anywhere. The TV though is more than a prop--it often dominates the screen and begins to take on a key role in the film when a TV reporter and camera crew from the cleverly named station WKYL arrive to cover the police rescue action, which is then seen broadcast on the bar TV. Not only is the TV now internally competing with the Motion Picture, but this must be a very early movie scene detailing TV news coverage. To make matters more interesting, one of the hostages is a disgruntled newspaper editor and so the film also depicts what will become a growing competition between TV and print journalism.

MartinHafer Back in 1936, Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart starred in a tough little film based on their play by the same name. Howard is a nice drifter who just happens to walk into a desert restaurant/filling station at the same time a wanted mobster and his henchmen arrive. And, through most of the film, these crooks terrorize the patrons and make them fear for their lives. This sort of plot has been repeated several times in the 1950s with "Suddenly", "The Desperate Hours" and this film, "Dial 1119".The major difference with "Dial 9111" and these other films is that instead of a criminal holding everyone hostage, it's an escaped mental patient--a guy who has no compunction about killing people with his stolen gun. Seeing this guy with a baby face is particularly striking. And, to make it a lot more creepy than these other films, he does so with absolutely no emotion--none! The bar is made up of a variety of patrons (some of which have interesting back stories--like the creep played by Leon Ames) as well as the amazingly blunt and rude bartender, 'Chuckles' (William Conrad).Once the guy begins shooting people in the bar, there isn't a lot the police can do--he might be insane but he's also smart and has figured all the angles--and police are afraid to do anything lest all the captives be killed. The film then, is a very tense standoff--on with brutal violence, great tension and a lot to offer with such a low-budget film. Well worth your time.

christna1 Having just watched this on TCM and after reading the previous reviews for this film all I can say is that although there may be limited moments of great suspense which does not take anything away from the film.The plot- insane man escapes from a mental institution and holds five people hostage in a bar. Now if you have ever seen any films from the 50's you should know what fate always falls upon the villain.If given the opportunity to see it you definitely should just to see a basic storyline before it became overdone, but if you need your movies to go from one moment of terror to the next this is not the movie for you; otherwise this film should hold you attention from beginning to end.