Crwthod A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

HotToastyRag Sidney Poitier is a college student who volunteers once a week at a suicide hotline clinic. When he checks in one evening, he gets his coffee, sharpens his pencil, looks at his files, and answers the phone. "I need to talk to someone," a husky-voiced woman requests. The woman, Anne Bancroft, has taken pills. Sidney tries to keep her talking long enough so that he can trace her call and find out where she is.The Slender Thread is a fantastic thriller that takes a very simple story and manages to completely engross the audience by the potential outcome. Stirling Silliphant's screenplay is very interesting, and Sydney Pollack, in his first theatrical film, creates a fantastically tense atmosphere. Since the film cuts back and forth between Sidney Poitier in the clinic and Anne Bancroft's flashbacks, it would be easy for the story to drag or seem uneven. Pollack's direction keeps the main goal in sight and constantly moves towards it in every scene. I guarantee you'll be so enthralled by the film, the ending will come too soon.Sidney gives an excellent performance, trying desperately to save Anne's life even though he's a once-a-week volunteer. He's nervous, ill-prepared, and doesn't always play by the rules. Rather than acting as a bottomless well of human kindness, he gets frustrated as the time ticks on. He—and the audience—becomes emotionally involved with Anne, and before the end, everyone in and watching the film will be hanging by a slender thread, waiting and anxious to find out what will happen!

Dead_Head_Filmmaker There are so many things right with this film. Sidney Pollack's debut is my favourite of his films. The shot selection and direction of actors is held to the highest standard I have seen from him. Sidney Poitier is bang on as the Help Line Volunteer, but Anne Bancroft is what really makes this great, entertaining film a masterpiece.Anne Bancroft had a great career. Even in the mediocre and poor films she was in, she always shined. This is among her top three roles (along with The Graduate and Great Expectations) in no particular order.This film is very entertaining and contains quite a bit of subtext in each shot. It touches on themes of racism, suicide, sexism, mental instability, death, isolation and abandonment, infidelity and heroism. You get the feeling that Newell (Newly Well) empathizes with Dyson (Die-soon) more than he lets on, and it is kept brilliantly under the surface. GREAT JOB POLLACK!

Lee Eisenberg I believe that this was Sydney Pollack's directorial debut. If so, then he certainly gave an interesting insight into his future work. Seattle college student Alan Newell (Sidney Poitier) is working at a crisis hotline center when he gets a call from housewife Inge Dyson (Anne Bancroft), who is reaching the breaking point. Because they can't see each other, it gives the movie a real sense of tension, as implied by the title - even if it drags a little bit at times.A previous reviewer said that Poitier plays his usual role: a morally superior black man in a white-dominated society. That's partly true, but here, he has a job that anyone could have, and his race doesn't really matter (although as the reviewer noted, they could have been subtly talking about race). As for Anne Bancroft, her death six months ago brings her filmography to mind. This may have not been her most famous role, but I would recommend it.

Ripshin This film has stuck in my mind since seeing in the early 70s, when I was a child. This is only my second viewing, and while I still find the movie quite effective, the overacting of Poitier makes it a little less enjoyable. Bancroft is wonderful, and quite sympathetic, in the lead. As stated in a previous post, this is Pollack's first feature - what an excellent start. The Seattle location filming is beautiful, and it's nice to see the 64 World's Fair site on celluloid. (Of course, for more detailed coverage, there's Elvis's "It Happened at the World's Fair" from 1964.)Just for the sake of curiosity, I wonder if the hotel where she is found, is still standing today. It was a Hyatt at that time.