Rod Serling: Miss Elva Keene lives alone on the outskirts of London Flats, a tiny rural community in Maine. Up until now, the pattern of Miss Keene's existence has been that of lying in her bed or sitting in her wheelchair, reading books, listening to a radio, eating, napping, taking medication — and waiting for something different to happen. Miss Keene doesn't know it yet, but her period of waiting has just ended, for something different is about to happen to her, has in fact already begun to happen, via two most unaccountable telephone calls in the middle of a stormy night, telephone calls routed directly through the Twilight Zone.
Air date: February 7, 1964
Elva Keene (Gladys Cooper) begins to be disturbed by anonymous telephone calls late at night.
Night Tropes:
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: The short story "Long Distance Call" by Richard Matheson ends with the unidentified caller saying "Hello, Miss Elva. I'll be right over." In the television adaptation, the caller, whom Elva has realized is her late fiancé Brian Douglas, tells her that he will leave her alone and never call her again. She had previously told him to do just that. When Brian was alive, Elva, by her own admission, had been quite dominating and he had always done what she had said. This remains the case even in death.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: In "Long Distance Call", the caller is never identified and what caused Elva's paralysis is not revealed. In the television adaptation, the caller is her fiancé Brian Douglas who was killed in a car accident a week before they were to be married in 1932. At her insistence, Elva had been driving. She lost control of the car and crashed it into a tree. Brian was thrown out through the windshield and Elva was paralyzed.
- Chromosome Casting: With the exception of a brief voice over from a male actor, this episode has an all-female cast.
- Downer Ending: As Rod Serling so puts it, both parties are now in their own personal hell, each alone and unable to speak to one another until Elva passes on.
- 555: Elva's phone number is KL5-2368.
- Minimalist Cast: This episode features only three credited actors: Gladys Cooper, Nora Marlowe and Martine Bartlett.
- Phone Call from the Dead: On a stormy night, Elva begins receiving strange phone calls. She initially can't hear anything on the other end of the line but she later hears moaning and eventually a man saying "hello" over and over again. When the phone company investigates, they discover that the phoneline was damaged during the storm and it is resting on a grave in Valley View Cemetery. The grave is that of Elva's fiancé Brian Douglas.
- The Shut-In: Elva spends most of her life in bed or in her wheelchair, trying to pass the time and waiting for something out of the ordinary to happen. Her only regular visitor is her nurse Margaret Phillips and, outside of bills and advertisements, the only mail that she receives is an occasional letter from her sister. She is desperately lonely and feels as if no one cares about her.
Rod Serling: According to the Bible, God created the Heavens and the Earth. It is man's prerogative – and woman's – to create their own particular and private Hell. Case in point, Miss Elva Keene, who in every sense has made her own bed and now must lie in it, sadder, but wiser, by dint of a rather painful lesson in responsibility, transmitted from the Twilight Zone.
