By Jack Brummet
We have an annual screening of the film
The Slender Thread at the Crisis Clinic, and I finally made it for the showing tonight. It is a pretty amazing movie on a topic (suicide) that was not really talked about in the 60s. Or the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, and even now. Anne Bancroft, Telly Savalas (and his brother George), Sidney Poitier, and Ed Asher are the lead actors. Bancroft and Poitier—the suicidal woman and the phone worker—are the focal points of the story. A lot of it is outdated and nothing like how we work now, but it is still fascinating and touching if you have ever done this kind of work. The movie, directed by Sydney Pollack, was based on the Seattle Crisis Clinic, which was one of the first hotlines in the country.
I worked on a crisis line in 1971-72, and the movie is pretty realistic about that era. We were flying by the seat of our pants, without a lot of professional help from shrinks/MSWs, etc. When I returned to this work a couple years ago, it was much more buttoned-down and professional (and effective). When I was on the Kent crisis line, we had four hours of training provided by the Seattle Crisis Clinic (where I work now): two hours on active listening and communications skills and two hours on suicide work. The next time around, it was 80 hours of training, with four days of in-service training each year, and continual ad hoc feedback on your work.
As corny as it was at times, the movie was moving. They got a lot of it right, which, for Hollywood, is pretty good. It's an almost noir looking black and white movie with footage (including aerial) of 1960's Seattle. Another reason this really hit home was that the woman committing suicide lived a few blocks from us in Ballard, and a lot of key moments occurred at Golden Gardens, just down the hill from my house.
I don't know if it is available streaming, but the DVD is for sale on Amazon.
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