HISTORY Phones have played big role in films from the beginning

Phones have been used to effect comedy, drama and horror.
By JOE NEUMAIER
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Most Americans have a love-hate relationship with the telephone -- as do the movies. The latest evidence is "Cellular," in which a kidnapping victim (Kim Basinger) random-dials a stranger (Chris Evans) to beg for help.
The two technologies grew up together in the late 19th century -- the telephone having been patented in 1876. Silent one-reelers used Alexander Graham Bell's "electrical speech machine" as a source of comedy and drama.
By the time Hollywood mythologized the man in 1939's "The Story of Alexander Graham Bell," his invention had been used to depict the new medium's hectic pace (1931's "The Front Page," remade as 1940's equally frantic "His Girl Friday"), the threat to happy homes (1937's "Dangerous Number") and the height of elegance (in movies such as "The Thin Man" and "Dinner at Eight").
"Ostentatious phones in movies were a mark of sophistication," says James Monaco, author of "How to Read a Film: The World of Movies, Media and Multimedia." "Rich characters in penthouses had huge, ornate phones that looked like sculptures. They were a far cry from the clunky black phones most people had, candlestick models like those used in 'The Front Page,' or wall-mounted crank phones.
"And even if moviegoers didn't have a telephone in their house, they could relate."
The darker side
Phones in movies would take on a darker tone with 1948's "Sorry, Wrong Number," in which a bedridden housewife (Barbara Stanwyck) listens in to what she thinks is a plot to murder her. The movie upends the telephone's intrinsic sense of community, presenting the voices on the other end of the line as ominous.
Alfred Hitchcock tapped into the same fear in 1954's "Dial M for Murder," in which a wife (Grace Kelly) fights off a strangler when she picks up the receiver. In 1952's "Phone Call From a Stranger," a creepy lawyer (Gary Merrill) rings up the families of passengers on a doomed airplane.
That sense of danger ("Who is this? How'd you get this number?") would continue through thrillers such as "Play Misty for Me" (1971), "When a Stranger Calls" (1979) -- which contained the line, "The calls are coming from inside the house!" -- "Murder by Phone" and "Don't Answer the Phone!" (both 1980) and "Scream" (1996). In the Japanese and American versions of "The Ring" (1998 and 2002, respectively), viewers of a mysterious video get calls warning them of their imminent deaths.
It isn't much safer on the streets, as a sleazy publicist (Colin Farrell) discovers in 2002's "Phone Booth," after he answers a ringing phone in Times Square and is told he'll be shot if he hangs up. That film's over-the-wires relationship between hunter and prey evoked 1975's "Dog Day Afternoon," which presented the power duel between criminal and cop as a dial-in dynamic.
Comic conversations
Just as telephones are deployed for dramatic effect -- think of Jamie Foxx's cell troubles in this summer's "Collateral" -- the disconnect between speaker and listener is grist for the comic mill.
"There was a whole genre of plays, which Hollywood later imitated, where characters used 'half-duplex dialogue' -- talking on a phone to give plot information," says Monaco. "In the 1950s, the cinematic equivalent was the split-screen effect."
The split screen was most famously used in 1959's "Pillow Talk," which centered on neighbors Doris Day and Rock Hudson's use of a party line; 2003's "Down With Love" paid homage to it with some saucy split-screen gags.
Movies such as "Clueless," "Girl 6," "Punch-Drunk Love" and the recent "Mean Girls" have gotten laughs from phone scenes. In 1989's "Bill & amp; Ted's Excellent Adventure," the heroes time-travel by stepping into a telephone booth (a nod to British TV's "Doctor Who").
And filmmakers understand that even in a visual medium, the sound of a lover's voice on the phone can be enticing. Just listen to the seductive tones and soulful pauses in movies such as "Choose Me" (1984), "Sleepless in Seattle" (1993) and "The Truth About Cats and Dogs" (1996).