Danger Calls for Lynda Carter in Hotline (1982)

If you’ve ever wanted to see Lynda Carter wear a trucker hat, operate a microform reader, or wield a harpoon as she takes down a deranged serial killer, have I got a movie for you. Hotline premiered on CBS in 1982, and, unlike other made-for-TV fare of the same vintage (see: 1981’s No Place to Hide), it backs up its suspense with some genuine scares.

Carter plays Brianne O’Neill, an art student and part-time bartender at a country-and-western watering hole. Widowed when her Navy pilot husband died in an accident—fortunately, there are no Thin Ice shenanigans afoot—she attracts unwanted attention wherever she goes, and particularly at work. “Watch out, Bri,” a waitress cautions at the start of her latest shift. “I think there’s a full moon out tonight. The fanny-grabbers are out in force.”

Hours later, at closing time, Brianne is accosted by a drunken patron. She deftly defuses the situation and sends the creep packing while a mystery man watches appreciatively. He’s Justin Price (Granville Van Dusen), who came to use the payphone and is, like everyone else, instantly taken with Brianne. He escorts her to her car and then shows up unexpectedly on her doorstep. The drunk had followed her home from the bar, and Justin followed the drunk—and found that one of her doors had been pried open.

Brianne, like viewers, is suspicious of Price, who dutifully waits for the police and reports what he witnessed. He tells her he’s a psychiatrist who runs Westside Hotline, a crisis center. She handled the drunk so capably that he’s sure she’d make a great operator. The next day, she stops by and sees him training volunteers. “Listen,” he explains. “People in emotional trouble tend to code their messages to make them safer, more acceptable. Part of your job is to decode, to hear what is really being said. To listen.”

Those skills prove valuable to Brianne when her new stalker starts phoning her at Westside. (“My skin’s crawling a little bit. Otherwise, I’m great,” she tells a fellow volunteer after one such call.) At first he is boastful about his past crimes. As their interactions become more of a cat-and-mouse game, she intrepidly follows his trail of clues and confirms that he’s a serial killer. The gruesome Barber, as he calls himself, cuts the hair off his victims. And he has traveled more widely and claimed more victims than law enforcement knows.

Barber: They’re evil. Sweet-smelling and evil like poisonous orchids. They had to be punished. They do bad things to us, so I do bad things to them.

Brianne: What bad things did you do?

Barber: Inflict pain and suffering. To hurt them.

Brianne: You hurt them?

Barber: Yes. All of them, and I enjoy it. Do you think that’s wrong?

Brianne: Who did you hurt? I want you to tell me.

Barber: Oh, no. [Laughs] You can’t catch me like that. You’ll find out soon enough. Goodbye.

hotline (1982)

Price initially downplays the threat, even though a local woman was recently murdered, her hair shorn. He says it’s the kind of story that brings oddballs out of the woodwork. “It happens all the time. It’s kind of a cranky variation on the obscene phone call,” he remarks. As Brianne becomes more obsessed with identifying the caller, Price observes “It’s becoming as much your game as it is his.” He cluelessly suggests the harassment will end if she stops acknowledging it, but the Barber has already selected her as his next victim.

As the extent of the killer’s familiarity with her is revealed, Brianne must evaluate which of the men in her immediate orbit are capable of such violence. The threatening patron wasn’t the only guy from the bar who felt entitled to her; there’s also the ongoing problem of Tom Hunter (Steve Forrest). A Burt Reynolds-esque actor with a sordid personal life, he’s sweet on Brianne and jealous of Price. By his own admission, he is “not a good guy.” His best friend and former stunt double, Kyle Durham (Monte Markham), Bri’s boss, spends a lot of time cleaning up Tom’s messes and making excuses for him.

Then there’s Price himself. Despite his noble work at Westside, and his nighttime gig as Brianne’s suitor, he’s conspicuously absent whenever her phone rings. David Peckinpah’s teleplay halfheartedly introduces another suspect or two with no clear ties to her for good measure. Sizing up the killer is an easier task for viewers than it is for Brianne. Suspense fans are likely to clock him as soon as he appears, but the obviousness of Hotline’s twist doesn’t detract from its fun, much of which comes from the performance of the actor who plays the Barber.

Carter’s an appealing lead whose confident, independent-minded character needs no help defending herself. The casting of the supporting roles keeps things interesting, with Van Dusen a particularly offbeat love interest. What I enjoyed most of all was Jerry Jameson’s flinty direction. Several times during Hotline I was favorably reminded of 1975’s The Secret Night Caller, his other phone-oriented work. Abnormal psychology is on parade in both films, but he takes a relatively circumspect approach to salacious material, which makes it more suspenseful. Like Night Caller, Hotline builds to an unflinching climax that would’ve been more cartoonish in almost anyone else’s hands.

Streaming and DVD availability

Hotline hasn’t been released on DVD or for streaming, but you can find an old VHS transfer on YouTube. Amazon also has an assortment of other Lynda Carter films available for streaming, some at no cost.

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… But wait, there’s more!

When you grow up with a mom who never missed Days of Our Lives, you come to associate James “Abe Carver” Reynolds and his illustrious mustache with the long arm of the law. It’s only fitting that he plays a detective in Hotline. There’s also the small matter of Gosford Park writer and Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes. He turns up as a cheeky, flamboyant salesman who teaches Brianne how to use a phone recorder.

But the main attraction is Monte Markham. I often discuss Golden Girls guest spots in this section of a review, and Markham has a special place in that field. He appeared in only two episodes, “Scared Straight” (S4E9) and “Sister of the Bride” (S6E14), but his role was a pivotal one for the gay history of the series. He played Clayton Hollingsworth, Blanche’s brother, who hesitates to come out to her in his first episode (which aired in 1988) and announces his engagement to his boyfriend in the second (1991).

Markham, a prolific and versatile actor with nearly 150 film and TV credits to his name, was a standout Golden Girls guest star. That’s no small feat for a show with nearly 200 episodes. It’s a testament not only to the charm he brought to Clayton, but to the memorability of the character’s gayness vexing the normally sexually open-minded Blanche.

In 2020, Markham told Jesse Striewski of Rewind It: “The Golden Girls was probably one of the best on-camera experiences I ever had. […] The set was brilliant, the writing was brilliant, and everything you could possibly want or need from a show was just there. Corralling all those ladies with such different personalities to work together like that was really quite amazing.” You can read more of Markham’s comments in the full article.