Production
When a Stranger Calls is essentially an expanded remake of Fred Walton's short film The Sitter, which comprised the first 20 minutes of this film. Walton was inspired to turn the short into a feature-length film after the considerable success of John Carpenter's Halloween.
The film marked Academy Award-nominated cinematographer Donald Peterman's feature film debut as director of photography.
Tony Beckley, who plays Curt Duncan, was terminally ill throughout production. Because of this, he did not at all fit the description of the killer, but Fred Walton refused to replace him. Beckley passed away soon after he finished filming his scenes. The 1993 sequel, When a Stranger Calls Back, was dedicated to his memory.
Read more about this topic: When A Stranger Calls (1979 film)
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“... if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but it can not do without that life.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)