How to call Makefile from another Makefile?

I'm not really too clear what you are asking, but using the -f command line option just specifies a file - it doesn't tell make to change directories. If you want to do the work in another directory, you need to cd to the directory:

clean:
    cd gtest-1.4.0 && $(MAKE) clean

Note that each line in Makefile runs in a separate shell, so there is no need to change the directory back.

Instead of the -f of make you might want to use the -C <path> option. This first changes the to the path '<path>', and then calles make there.

Example:

clean:
  rm -f ./*~ ./gmon.out ./core $(SRC_DIR)/*~ $(OBJ_DIR)/*.o
  rm -f ../svn-commit.tmp~
  rm -f $(BIN_DIR)/$(PROJECT)
  $(MAKE) -C gtest-1.4.0/make clean

http://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/make.html#Recursion

 subsystem:
         cd subdir && $(MAKE)

or, equivalently, this :

 subsystem:
         $(MAKE) -C subdir

It seems clear that $(TESTS) is empty so your 1.4.0 makefile is effectively

all: 

clean:
  rm -f  gtest.a gtest_main.a *.o

Indeed, all has nothing to do. and clean does exactly what it says rm -f gtest.a ...