The Slender Thread

Alan Newell is a Seattle university student who works at a phone-in crisis clinic. Most of the calls he receives are routine, such as an unhappy barber who feels he gets no respect. But then he gets a call from Inga, a suicidal woman who claims that she has deliberately overdosed on barbiturates. Flashbacks reveal the events that have led her to attempt to take her own life: her marriage is on rocky ground after her husband learned that their child is not his. As the telephone company attempts to trace the call and the police try to locate her, Alan works desperately to keep her on the line.