Episode Spotlight: "Night Call" (2/07/1964)

Season 5, Episode 19 (139 overall)

Originally aired 2/07/1964

Cayuga Production # 2810

What if you could talk to your lost loved ones? Fifty years ago tonight, the dead reached out and touched the living… but unfortunately things didn't go well.

Miss Elva Keen is a crippled old woman who receives, quite out of the blue, several telephone calls in which the caller moans. Obscene calls? Maybe, but there’s no heavy breathing (which is something of a clue, actually). The moans change to two simple phrases: “Where are you?” and “I want to talk to you.”

The telephone company traces the problem to a set of downed telephone wires in the local cemetery. Elva has her housekeeper drive her out there, and is shocked to see the wires resting on the grave of Brian, the fiancé of her youth, who was killed in a car accident (Elva was driving and lost control of the car).

Elated at the prospect of talking with Brian once again, Elva tries to summon him through the telephone. He finally comes on the line: “You said to leave you alone. I always do what you say.” The line goes dead.

“Night Call” was written by Richard Matheson, based on his short story “Sorry, Right Number,” which was first published in 1953, then again in 1961 in Matheson’s short story collection Shock!  Here’s where things gets a bit weird. “Night Call” is similar to the season two episode “Long Distance Call” (which also depicts the dead placing telephone calls to the living), which originated with a script by William Idelson, one of Matheson’s friends. It was Matheson’s championing that led to Cayuga Productions buying it, and the resultant episode was broadcast in 1961, the same year that Matheson’s short story was republished under a different title: “Long Distance Call.”

The upward shot of the telephone wires stretching down to Brian’s grave is very effective; in fact, the entire cemetery sequence, brief though it is, is the best scene in the entire episode. The prologue, in which Elva receives the first mysterious call, is quite atmospheric and effective (it’s your basic “dark and stormy night” intro). Unfortunately, the bulk of the episode takes place in broad daylight, so there’s not a lot visually to sustain the moody dread that the script aspires to. At the helm is Jacques Tourneur, director of the noirish horror classics I Walked with a Zombie and Cat People (as well as 1947’s Out of the Past, widely considered one of the greatest film noirs ever made), so the relative dearth of shadowy ominousness is something of a disappointment.

So where (and what) is Brian, exactly? Is he a reanimated corpse, communicating through unknown means through six feet of earth and into the frayed telephone line? Or is he is a damned soul, suffering in his own right, torturing the living as his only means of relief?

I’ve never been a big fan of this episode. For me, there’s too little going on with too little payoff. So Brian starts calling Elva from beyond the grave, wanting to chat…. however, he never identifies himself and spends most of the time moaning unintelligibly. When she (understandably) freaks out and demands to be left alone, he bows out in a pretty severe example of passive aggression. Okay, yeah, she’s responsible for killing him all those years ago, but she’s spent most of her life a cripple because of it. Does she really deserve this on top of it? Nay, I say. What if instead she apologized profusely for the accident, and he forgave her, leading to many lively talks throughout whatever remains of Elva’s life? Wouldn't that be more in line with The Twilight Zone’s sensibilities? 

Honestly, “Night Call” would work better as an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, in which the whole thing turns out to be an elaborate ruse by the housekeeper, Margaret, to drive Elva crazy for some reason or other.

FAMILIAR FACES

And speaking of Hitchcock, the entire cast (all three of ‘em) is made up of Hitch veterans…

Gladys Cooper is convincingly lonely and bitter as Miss Elva Keene in her third and final TZ appearance (she previously graved season three’s “Nothing in the Dark” and season four’s “Passage on the Lady Anne”); she also put in a single appearance on The Outer Limits (“The Borderland”). She did one episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“The End of Indian Summer”), two episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (“Consider Her Ways” and “What Really Happened”), plus she appeared in Hitchcock’s 1941 film Rebecca.

Nora Marlowe plays Margaret Phillips in her second TZ appearance (she was also seen in season two’s “Back There”). Over on The Outer Limits, she memorably had her heart fatally stopped by the super-evolved Gwyllm Griffiths in “The Sixth Finger.” She did one episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“I Killed the Count: Part 3”) and one Alfred Hitchcock Hour (“The Landlady”); she also played an uncredited housekeeper in 1959’s North by Northwest.

Miss Finch (the telephone operator) is played by Martine Bartlett, who appeared twice on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (“The Star Juror” and “Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale”).

“Night Call” is by no means awful (something I can’t say about next week’s episode), but it’s not one of the better season five offerings. Like so many episodes in this final stretch, the moral center is skewed, uncomfortably so. It doesn’t feel much like The Twilight Zone around here anymore....

Next week:

All bets are off! "Mr. Bevis" isn't the most annoying Twilight Zone character anymore.

TZ Promo: “Nothing in the Dark” (1/05/1962)

Season 3, Episode 16 (#81 overall)
Cayuga Production # 173-3662

Her name is Wanda Dunn. She’s an old woman who lives alone in a shabby tenement, afraid to go outside. She’s convinced that Death himself is out there, just waiting to come in and claim her.

The thing is…. well, she’s right.


“Nothing in the Dark” is a moving study of humanity’s fear of its own mortality, and Gladys Cooper’s portrayal of the frightened old woman is one of the greatest performances ever captured on The Twilight Zone. Cooper will (happily) return for appearances in season four’s “Passage on the Lady Anne” and season five’s “Night Call.” She’s fine in both, but “Nothing in the Dark” is where she truly shines.


Unfortunately, young Robert Redford... well, sucks as the wounded cop who finally convinces her to open the door and help him. Oh, sure, he’s pretty to look at, but he couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag at this early point in his career (I’m not entirely convinced that he ever became that great of an actor, truth be told). As great as “Nothing in the Dark” is, Redford’s embarrassingly bad performance is a serious blemish. I imagine this is why the episode doesn’t appear in my Top 20 Favorites list (it did make my Top 40 list two years ago, however).


O, DEATH!

This is Death’s third (and final... I think) appearance in the series. We’ve encountered him twice before, in “One for the Angels” and “The Hitch-hiker” (both from season one) and, once again, he proves less frightening when his quarry stops struggling and acquiesces, a pleasant alternative to the skull-and-scythe depiction we’ve all seen countless times. Here’s hoping the real Death is a nice guy...

Another connection to “The Hitch-hiker” can be found in the stock music used in the episode. During Death’s surprise (well, not really) reveal near the end, the underscore features cues from Bernard Herrmann’s music for the radio production of “The Hitch-hiker” (which was subsequently used in the TZ adaptation). A nice touch for attentive ears.

Lamont Johnson directs a George Clayton Johnson script (no relation, as far as I know). We just saw Johnson’s directorial chops two weeks ago in “Five Characters in Search of an Exit” but, interestingly enough, he directed “Nothing in the Dark” earlier. Like, way earlier. The production number (173-3662) indicates that this episode was actually produced during the show’s second season, but held back until the third (the same is true of “The Grave,” which we looked at back in October). The opening shot of act one does not feature the usual season three title cards (episode title, writer, director)… we simply open on a shot of Wanda slowly unlocking and opening her front door. The title shot above is from the episode’s end credits (the only place the episode title was ever seen during season two).

In his The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic (which you need on your shelf; seriously, go NOW and get a copy), Martin Grams Jr. reports that “Nothing in the Dark” was originally scheduled to close the second season, but was replaced by “The Obsolete Man” and held back until midway through season three. This strikes me as odd…. If the episode was ready to go in mid-June, why was it held in limbo for six months? Was Serling and Company as dismayed by Redford's performance as me? In any case, as much as I love “The Obsolete Man,” I think “Nothing in the Dark,” with its elegiac and meditative qualities, would have been more effective as a season finale. But hey, what do I know?

In 1992, a local theater company called Hellfire Productions presented Tales from The Twilight Zone, which included stage adaptations of three TZ episodes: “The Obsolete Man,” “A Game of Pool,” and yes, “Nothing in the Dark.” It’s been almost 20 years, and my memory ain’t what it used to be, but I recall being quite impressed with their efforts.

"Am I really so bad?" Um... yeah, Bobby, you kinda are.

“Nothing in the Dark” is ultimately an exercise in frustration for me. It possesses all the elements of a truly great episode, but Redford’s awkward mannequin routine hurts it enough to cripple its chances at true legend status. As it stands, it’s a Mona Lisa with a crayon mustache. Too bad.

Next week: The world gets nuked yet again… or does it?