Night Call

"Night Call"
The Twilight Zone episode
A broken telephone wire, hanging on the grave of Elva Keene's deceased fiancé.
Episode no.	Season 5 Episode 139
Directed by	Jacques Tourneur
Written by	Richard Matheson (From his story "Long Distance Call" originally published in Alone by Night 1961.)
Featured music	Stock
Production code	2610
Original air date	February 7, 1964
Guest stars
Gladys Cooper: Elva Keene Nora Marlowe: Margaret Phillips
Episode chronology
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List of Twilight Zone episodes

"Night Call" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It, like the episode "Twenty Two", is based on an urban legend.^{[citation needed]}

Synopsis

An elderly woman, Elva Keene, receives strange anonymous phone calls. During the first calls she hears only static. Later she hears a man moaning and she repeatedly demands to know who is calling. Finally he says "Hello? Where are you? I want to talk to you." Elva, terrified, screams at the man to leave her alone.

The phone company traces the cause to a telephone line that has fallen in a cemetery.

Elva and her housekeeper visit the cemetery where she finds that the line is resting on the grave of her long-deceased fiancé, Brian Douglas. Elva says that she always insisted on having her own way, and Brian always did what she said. A week before they were to be married, she insisted on driving and lost control of the car. The accident killed Brian and crippled her.

Now that she can talk to him again she won't have to be alone. At home she picks up the phone and calls out to Brian, pleading with him to answer. He replies that she told him to leave her alone and that he always does what she says. Then the line goes dead, leaving Elva alone and crying in her bed.

Notes

The premiere of "Night Call" was scheduled for Friday, November 22, 1963.^[1] Hours before it was to air though, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Thus it was rescheduled, as were all of the other network shows. "Night Call" finally premiered on February 7, 1964.

References

1. ^ New York Times television listings 11/22/63

• DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
• Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0
• Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)

External links

• "Night Call" at the Internet Movie Database
• TV.com episode page
• The Urban Legend on which this episode is directly based