The Slender Thread

The Slender Thread is a 1965 American drama film starring Anne Bancroft and Sidney Poitier. It was the first feature-length film directed by future Oscar-winning director, producer and actor Sydney Pollack. Poitier portrays Alan, a college student who is volunteering at Seattle's then-new Crisis Clinic, a suicide prevention hotline. Shortly after beginning his solo duty on the night shift, Alan receives a call from a woman named Inga (Bancroft) who says she has just taken a lethal dose of pills and wants to talk to someone before she dies. The story line follows the efforts of Alan, a psychiatrist (Telly Savalas) and a detective (Ed Asner) to locate Inga and her husband Mark (Steven Hill), who is on a local fishing vessel. Various flashback scenes depict the events that led Inga to make the attempt on her life. The film was inspired by a Life magazine article by Shana Alexander about actual events. The film is set in Seattle, and includes scenes shot on location, as well as an opening tracking aerial shot of Seattle circa 1965. This movie is noted for the physical tracing of the call to find Inga (Bancroft) before she dies. Throughout the movie, the call is traced by hand through several electro-mechanical telephone central office switches which leads to the hotel where Inga was staying (at the Hyatt House, since demolished) near the Seattle–Tacoma International Airport.