Chicago Calling

Overview

Bill Cannon (Dan Duryea) loses everything to alcohol: his job, his family, his self-respect. Soon after his wife and daughter leave him, he receives word his little girl has been injured in a car accident outside Chicago. His wife will call later with news, but Bill’s short the $53 he needs to keep his phone from being disconnected. Filled with anguish, he heads out onto the Los Angeles streets to find some way to come up with the cash. As his character encounters expected cruelty and unexpected kindness, Duryea takes what might have been mere melodrama and turns it into a perceptive examination of one shattered soul. The other fine star of this race-against-the-clock programmer is an unglamorous, lunch-bucket L.A. rarely captured on film.

Keywords

Cast

Dan Duryea

Bill Cannon

Mary Anderson

Mary Cannon

Gordon Gebert

Bobby

Ross Elliott

Jim

Melinda Casey

Nancy Cannon

Judy Brubaker

Babs Kimball

Marcia Mae Jones

Peggy (as Marsha Jones)

Marsha Jones

Peggy

Roy Engel

Pete

Jean Harvey

Christine