As Gösta, a seaman, leaves his ship, a girl tries to commit suicide in the harbour. Later he meets her at a dance and spends the night with her. They fall in love, and on her birthday go to an expensive hotel.

She feels compelled to tell him about her past. Her home life was unhappy and resulted in her ending up in a reform school, and also living with a series of men. The seaman cannot face this and leaves her. He later attempts to renew their relationship, but at this time the girl is implicated in the fatal abortion of a friend.

The girl is freed only after revealing who the abortionist is, and returning home finds the seaman asleep by her door. Fearing she will be arrested, they plan to leave the country illegally. Then, however, they decide to face whatever comes, encouraged by their mutual love.

"Bergman himself admitted the strong influence of Rossellini and Neo-Realism on this dockside drama, filmed partly on authentic Gothenburg locations. A striking opening sees heroine Jönsson saved from drowning herself, before flashbacks fill out her desperate plight: repressive treatment from a mother embittered by the failure of her own marriage, a history of institutional care insensitive to her emotional needs. After spending the night with her and sparking the embers of a human connection, merchant seaman Eklund stumbles towards an attuned responsibility which might allow him to accept her for all her faults—in marked contrast to the authorities. It's no less schematic than it sounds, but solid performances and straightforward handling make Bergman's fourth feature the most fully achieved, though hardly most characteristic, of his fledgling film career to that point."

"Bergman's neorealist, Gothenburg-set drama is the story of Berit—an emotionally vulnerable young woman recently out of a reformatory and with an abusive mother—who is seen first attempting suicide by diving off the docks, then protesting furiously when she is rescued. A chance of happiness seems to present itself when she meets a dock worker at a dance, but first she must reconcile him to her troubled past and vicious-tongued mother. Bergman makes excellent use of his gritty, sea-front locations and doesn't shirk from showing the drudgery and misery his protagonists endure in their day-to-day lives."

"The only bit of Port of Call which I wrote—and which is bad anyway and clashes with the rest of the film—is the hero's experiences when he gets drunk with a whore. It's really a miserable piece of work, thoroughly stylized and semi-literary, utterly out of tune with the rest of the film."

"Strongly influenced by Rossellini and the Italian neorealists, I tried to include as many exteriors as possible. What went wrong was that, in spite of my good intentions, too much of the film was shot in the studio for people to say that I had made a clean break with the Swedish film tradition of shooting films in the studio."

"Although less typical of Bergman's style than most of his films, Port of Call is a good piece of work. A certain influence from Italian neo-realism may be found, and this is suited to the type of story told here. The fine handling of the actors does much to catch the interest of the spectator, and the life of the harbour has been well integrated into the plot. The fifth film to be directed by Bergman, Port of Call is the first which shows him to full advantage."

Leonard Quart: "DVD Review: Early Bergman"

Philip Strick: "Film Notes"