Leofwine_draca DON'T TALK TO STRANGE MEN is one of those intriguing, forgotten thrillers that's a great for fans of British cinema. It's about a lively and beautiful young girl who randomly answers a ringing public phone and soon finds herself entranced by the voice on the other end: the man sounds attractive and is willing to meet up with her. However, can he be trusted? There were a few films with similar themes that came out around the same time (like Hammer's NEVER TAKE SWEETS FROM A STRANGER) and they do feel ahead of their time. The use of a telephone for sinister communication here brings to mind the later chills of BLACK Christmas and WHEN A STRANGER CALLS and of course the whole stalking-style plot line would eventually transform into the slasher genre of the 1980s.DON'T TALK TO STRANGE MEN is quite a dated film, with a slow and sedate pace, and nothing much really happens until the very end. However, it's richly atmospheric and also quite realistic in the depiction of the average British family and their lives. It might not be the most entertaining film out there but it's a curio worth checking out nonetheless.

Spikeopath Released as the support feature to The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Don't Talk to Strange Men is a very effective creeper that is worthy of a larger audience. Clocking in at just over an hour in running time, film thrives on tension building and mood without having to spill a drop of blood. Story effectively is about a teenage girl called Jean (Christina Gregg), who whilst waiting for her bus on a secluded country lane, answers the phone ringing at the phone box situated by the stop. The voice on the phone is a charming and well spoken man, he strikes up a conversation with the intrigued girl and it's not long before the two of them are arranging to speak to each other at the same time tomorrow, and the next day…Jean begins fantasising about the man, conjuring up images of the perfect male. They are destined to meet up, does she not know these are dangerous times? Where young ladies fall prey to predatory monsters… The settings are perfect, Jean and her family live in some idyllic country village, the phone box and bus stop that houses the verbal "grooming" is at the junction of two pretty country lanes, and even the pub where Jean goes to help out is the kind of petite "off the beaten track" variety. It's these locations that give off a false sense of security, a normality of easy going life where nothing can go wrong…But as we know all too well these days, nowhere is safe and parents constantly live in fear for their children. With that, Don't Talk to Strange Men is something of a film ahead of its time, substitute naive Jean's phone box "relationship" with that of today's Internet groomers of youngsters, and, well, you get my point I'm sure. Neatly directed by Pat Jackson (The Feminine Touch), the film is structured in such a way that we the audience get fretful as each day, and each phone conversation, passes. Where once was this attractive young lady framed by countryside and the old fashioned value of the red phone box, now is replaced by surroundings that are too quiet and a big red beacon of impending doom! It's an astute turning of the table, a testament to good writing and excellent directional pacing. And how nice to report that the ending, too, has something up its sleeve to reveal. The cast is minimal but very effective, with Gregg doing well to convince us of her love yearning naivety, Dandy Nicholls (Hue & Cry) memorable (wasn't she always?) as the wise bus conductor and Janina Faye (The Horror of Dracula) stealing the film as Jean's younger, politico activist in waiting, sister. A lesson in how to get the maximum unease from such a simple premise, Don't Talk to Strange Men comes highly recommended. 8/10

The_Void Don't Talk to Strange Men is just what a thriller should be; simple and effective. The film is very short, running at only just over an hour; but this time is put to very good use as director Pat Jackson wastes no time in getting straight to the point. The film would appear to be a cautionary tale for kids and the subject at hand is the idea of a minor being 'groomed' by an adult who plans to take advantage of them. However, the director doesn't preach anything to the audience; instead the story is just allowed to play out. We focus on a small town that has been upset by the murders of some young kids. Jean Painter is the naive daughter of an overprotective father. She works at a local bar and catches the bus home. One day while waiting for the bus, she hears the phone in the booth near the bus stop ringing; and innocently answers the phone. She begins a dialogue with the stranger on the other end, and becomes obsessed with his voice. Eventually, the stranger suggests they meet...and it becomes clear he has sinister motives.A major reason why this film works so well is down to the fact that all the major characters are easy to get along with. Christina Gregg's character does require the audience to suspend their disbelief somewhat as she is so easily infatuated with the stranger on the phone; but she plays the role well and is easy to root for. Gwen Cherrell's script is serviceable; but at times the dialogue can be a little strange, and it feels unnatural. The story itself also seems a bit hard to believe at first glance; but inadvertently falling for a voice on the phone is no more unbelievable than falling for someone in an internet chat room; and that is a story we hear often today, meaning the film still has meaning almost fifty years since it was made. The film flows well throughout and is always interesting; but the final third is the best of all. The director really cranks up the tension until it becomes nail-biting, and the final conclusion is well worth the effort invested in the film. The actual ending itself is a bit abrupt and too light-hearted for my liking...but this is still an excellent thriller that more than makes up for any flaws. Highly recommended viewing...if you can find a copy.

FilmFlaneur Pat Jackson's modest psychological thriller is no masterpiece, but is an excellent example of one of the better things to be found in the supposed quota-quickie wasteland of 50's and 60's UK cinema. It begins ominously with a pick up on a dark street. A young girl enters a car as the titles roll, to be menaced by the driver. An jump cut later and a body is discovered by some children, hidden under some straw. This discovery scene, while providing a suitably dramatic jolt, is in the event rather flat and perfunctory. Jackson's forte lies in manipulating the audience with menace (for instance leaving the assailant faceless throughout). The latest victim, so artlessly uncovered, denies the audience the chance of fabricating its own terror.How one responds to `Don't Talk..' depends largely on how one views Jean, the romantically gauche heroine (Christine Gregg, who in a short career also appeared in Corman's minor `Young Racers' (1963) as well as the limp `Cover Girl Killer' (1959)). Her accidental interception of the stranger's call, growing fascination with his voice and suave masculinity, and eventual decision to meet him alone in a dark lane, demands willing suspension of disbelief. A similar response attaches itself to Rose in `Brighton Rock' (1948), another timid `victim-to-be'. In that film response to emotional intimidation (by Pinkie) is infuriatingly compliant but gives the film much of its power. Similarly, Jean's emotional vulnerability, no matter how far her naivity stretches reason, gives the present film much of its suspense. Will she or won't she meet "the strangler"?Jean's life is neatly compartmentalised, away from any real experience of life. We see her either with her dull and doting parents, or at `The Chequers' (the pub where she baby sits), in her shared bedroom with her precocious 14 year old sister Ann, on the bus with Molly the conductor, or in the phone box waiting for or taking her calls. Most important in her life, at least as the events of the film are concerned, is the latter. At first the box seems innocuous enough and it is shot almost incidentally. Then as the film progresses and it assumes greater significance in her life, the camera begins to view it flat on until, as an ominous shape, it hovers in the background of Jean's rendezvous, almost a monolithic suitor in its own right. Finally, as a hand reaches into disconnect Ann's frantic last call, it becomes a claustrophobic chamber of terror.Ann (Jenina Faye), Jean's confidant and rapt audience for romantic fantasies, plays a crucial part in the film. With a young girl's fickleness she announces to her astonished parents that she has become a Buddhist. This interest in a religion with a strong emphasis on reincarnation, provides a neat parallel to the love-struck Jean's statement a little later. Returning from her second phone conversation, (and having `re christened' herself Samantha) she says that she feels as if she has been `born again'. Earlier Ann's condemnation of blood sports and the ensuing discussion with Mr Painter, her proposed letter of complaint to the gentry, echoes the more immediate `hunt' outside, her sister as prey. Later it is she who rushes to her sister's help, and provides the film's final irony as to do it, it emerges, she had caught a lift from a complete stranger.Jackson's direction is unobtrusive and low key, being content with some modest dollying. He avoids dramatic close ups and such tricks of the cinematographer's trade to artificially raise suspense. Instead he stages one or two remarkable long takes - partly, one assumes, to lower shooting costs - but which still stand out. One is the extended dialogue that Jean has second time around in the phone box. For long minutes Jackson's camera focuses in unblinkingly in on this innocent girl, who is unmistakeningly falling for that reassuring, civilised voice on the other end. The prolonged nature of our gaze, and the young woman's implied captivity within the barred windows of the kiosk, combine and make the audience uneasy. The conversations that ensue, carrying the implication of sexual abuse and murder, are especially unsettling to a modern audience alert to such moral panics - particularly when the younger sister is abducted at the end. Jackson's most interesting use of the long take occurs as Jean rushes to leave The Chequers to make her next phone rendezvous. He shoots a long minute or two from a viewpoint just outside of the front doorlooking into the hall. Jean, panicking to leave on time, rushes to and fro. Another director might have cut away from Jean's nervous impatience. But by letting Jean dart around the narrow hallway at length, Jackson make a virtue out of visual economy. This extended shot creates suspense more naturally than any editing could do. And through all this nervous bustling Ron, the leisurely landlord, asks for things while remaining out of our sight - in effect, just another demanding, disembodied, voice in Jean's life.So Jean goes off to her final rendezvous. The climactic scenes are less effective, baring signs of a rushed wrap-up (including a very unimpressive day-for-night match during Ron's struggle with the abductor). In the build up to the denouement, Jackson shows Ann film watching having been sent off to the cinema by Jean to create an alibi for her sister's liaison. Aptly, Ann is watching a suspenseful sequence on the screen, one which she cannot enjoy while thinking of her sister's imminent danger (to which she shortly rushes off to thwart). There's a neat mirror reference here, back to the audience's own contemplation of unfolding events.All in all, Jackson's work is a pleasant surprise which makes one regret he was not able to work with larger budgets. Rarely seen, `Don't Speak to Strange Men' is nothing to keep quiet about.