Twilight Zone Episode: Night Call

 "The Twilight Zone" was a weekly television series on the CBS network from 1959 until 1964. It was revived in the 1980s and again later. The original show had no regular cast, unless you count the show's creator, Rod Serling, who typically appeared a couple of minutes after the show began to give a little explanation of what was to come, and then he appeared again at the end to close out the show. Each episode was a different story, with no common storyline, except that they all involved ventures into mysterious and bizarre happenings, with some being a bit light and comical, and some others being downright chilling.   

 

This episode was first broadcast in February 1964. Its star, Gladys Cooper, was a long time English actress of stage and film both in the United Kingdom and in the United States. American actress Nora Marlowe is one of those people the public would recognize by sight, but not likely by name, and she made many an appearance, especially in television shows in those days.   

 

Cast: 

 

Gladys Cooper as Elva Keene 

Nora Marlowe as Margaret Phillips, the housekeeper

Matine Bartlett as Miss Finch 

The episode opens with a darkened room brightened at times by flashes of lightening, followed by crashes of thunder. We see an empty wheelchair, and then we see an older lady tossing and turning in her bed, as the rage of the storm makes it hard for her to sleep. The telephone rings and the clock shows a couple of minutes past two. The lady answers, but there is no voice on the line, only the sounds of some crackling and buzzing. She hangs up, and the phone rings again. Again she answers, but the same thing happens. Rod Serling's initial narration tells us the woman's name is Elva Keene and that the story is set in London Flats in a rural part of the state of Maine. (Note: Rod Serling was the creator of "The Twilight Zone," whose comments both introduced and ended the episodes.) The next morning the housekeeper, Margaret, arrives to find Elva on the telephone to the telephone company about the two overnight calls. Miss Finch, the telephone company representative explains to Elva that the company has been overwhelmed with complaints about disruptions of service by the storm. Elva and Margaret talk, and we learn that Elva is terribly lonely. A little while later the telephone rings and Elva answers. As during the night, there is no voice on the line, only a little buzzing. Elva calls for Margaret and hands her the telephone, but Margaret says there is no one there and she hangs up. Elva is concerned, but Margaret tells her not to worry about it, and that there must still be trouble with the telephone line from the storm. 

 

After making sure Elva is safely in bed for the night, Margaret leaves. After she goes out the door, the phone rings. Elva reluctantly answers, but this time there is the sound of moaning. Elva demands to know who is on the line and finally the voice says, "Hello ... hello." Elva lets go of the phone and the receiver hangs down by her bedside. The next morning Elva calls Miss Finch again at the telephone company and explains what happened. Miss Finch tells her she will have a serviceman check the line, but that it could take a little time, as there are still many problems needing repairs from the storm. Elva tells Margaret that Miss Finch likely doesn't believe her and that she thinks it is something in her imagination. Later, with Elva in her wheelchair, Margaret nods off in the other room and the phone rings. Elva answers and the voice repeatedly says, "Hello." Elva hangs up, and then she decides to leave the receiver off, but then she says that if they can't call, she'll never find out who it is. As soon as she replaces the receiver, the phone rings. She answers and the voice again keeps saying "hello," as Elva begs for the caller's identity. She hangs up and calls out for Margaret and tells her it is a man who has been calling her. Margaret tries to calm Elva, and indeed, she takes the receiver off and lays it on the stand, but a visibly worried Elva keeps asking why he is calling her. Later, Margaret puts Elva to bed and again she lays the receiver on the nightstand, but the dial tone keeps Elva from sleeping, so the distraught Elva puts the receiver back on the phone and just seconds later the phone rings. She fearfully picks up the receiver and she hears a man's voice ask, "Where are you? Where are you? I want to talk to you." Elva screams, "No! No! Leave me alone," and she cuts off the connection. 

 

The next afternoon Elva sits and plays cards with Margaret, but she can't concentrate, as she waits to hear from Miss Finch and the phone company. The telephone rings, but Elva lets Margaret answer. It's Miss Finch and Margaret gives the phone to Elva. Miss Finch tells Elva that a serviceman traced the calls to a fallen line "on the edge of town." Elva is upset, and she says it could not have been a fallen line, because a man has been calling her and that there must be a telephone there. Miss Finch tells her there is no one at the location of the fallen line, because it's the cemetery. (Note: Obviously a 'dead line,' and a cause for 'grave' concern.) Elva has Margaret drive her to the cemetery where they see the wire hanging from a utility pole. The wire rests on the grave of a Brian Douglas, 1905 to 1932, who it turns out was Elva's fiancé. Elva tells Margaret the two of them were out for a ride just a week before their marriage and that she (Elva) had insisted on driving, and that she always had to have her own way, and that she was dominating, and that Brian always did what she wanted. She lost control of the car and it hit a tree, throwing Brian through the windshield killing him, and that she was crippled in the wreck. She says Brian is now trying to reach her, "I can talk to him and I won't be lonely anymore." 

Later Elva is in bed and Margaret is hesitant to leave her, but Elva tells her she can go. Elva looks at the telephone and waits for it to ring, but nothing happens. She takes the phone and picks up the receiver and calls out for Brian. The voice comes on and says, "You told me to leave you alone, and I always do what you say." Elva bursts into tears. Rod Serling's voice can now be heard saying about men and women sometimes create their own particular private Hell. "A 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."

  

     

Photo is of the CBS/Paramount Home Entertainment 2020 DVD box set

WORD HISTORY:

Cemetery-This word is somewhat distantly related to "city" and to "civil," words of Latin derivation borrowed by English via French. "Cemetery" goes back to Indo European "kei/key," with the notion of "to lie down, to be settled in." This gave transliterated Ancient Greek "koimáō," meaning, "to sleep, to put to sleep," and this gave transliterated Greek the noun "koimētḗrion," meaning, "place for sleeping, room for sleep, dormitory," but also, "chamber for the dead." Latin borrowed the word as "coemeterium," meaning, "burial ground," with the meaning seemingly getting heavy influence from Christianity (graveyards were often on church grounds) and this later became "cemeterium," and this passed into Latin-based Old French as "cimetiere," meaning, "burial ground, graveyard." English borrowed the word as "cimiterie," circa 1400, and it then became "cimitery," before "cemetery" circa 1500.            

The Twilight Zone: "The Changing of the Guard"

Edited to include photo 9-29-20

 

Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, "The Twilight Zone" was a popular television show. Several episodes stand out in my mind from those old shows, but one in particular frequently pops into my mind. The episode, "The Changing of the Guard," starred English actor Donald Pleasence, a favorite actor of mine, as an old professor at an all boys school who is forced into retirement by the school administration after five decades of teaching. His life had been devoted to teaching literature, and as he thinks back on all of his years, he feels he hasn't really accomplished anything; that he gave young people a lot of empty, meaningless phrases they memorized for the moment, but then forgot.

The professor decides to end his life that evening, and he takes a pistol and goes to the statue of Horace Mann in front of the school. Mann, a prominent American supporter and reformer of education of the mid 1800s, had espoused public education to help potentially elevate all children, not just the privileged few of families with the money to pay for it. The professor reads the inscription of a quote from Mann, "Be ashamed to die until you've won some victory for humanity." The professor tells himself he's ashamed to die, because he's failed. As he prepares to take his life, he hears the school bell ringing, which prompts him to go into his classroom to find out why. There he finds the desks full of students from his many years of teaching. The thing he can't understand is, all of these students had died at some point after they left school. One student approaches and shows the old professor the Congressional Medal of Honor he had been awarded posthumously for his heroic service on Iwo Jima in World War Two. He says how the professor taught him about courage. Another stands and tells how he was exposed to radiation and died, as he tried to find a cure for cancer, but that he always remembered a poem the professor had taught him. Others stand and tell similar stories, with one student speaking who died way back in World War One, but each recounts how the professor influenced his life. They then tell the professor they must go, and as the students fade off into eternity, the professor realizes that he was not a failure, and that he did accomplish something. He decides to accept retirement and this completes, "the changing of the guard."

Rod Serling was the creator of "The Twilight Zone" television series and he also wrote some of the stories for the show, including the story covered here. We lost the very talented Mr. Serling far too early, at the age of only 50, but his stories, and the stories of others adapted for the Twilight Zone, taught many a great lesson, so he won his victory for humanity. 

Photo is of "The Twilight Zone Encyclopedia" by Steven Jay Rubin, Chicago Review Press, 2018. It contains lots of facts and information about the series and the episodes.

WORD HISTORY:

Poem-The ultimate origin of this word is uncertain, but Greek had "poein," which meant "to create, to make." This then produced Greek "poema," meaning "something created;" thus, by extension, "a written work, a poem." Latin borrowed the word from Greek as "poema," meaning "poem." This gave French, a Latin-based language, "poeme," with the same meaning, and English borrowed the word from French in the 1500s.

Help! I'm Stepping Into The Twilight Zone

This was first published in September 2009. Just a note April 21, 2017: Trump would fit very easily into this story, with Tweets and unsubstantiated claims.

The title refers to the opening line of a former hit song by "Golden Earring," a Dutch rock group. But this isn't about music, rock or otherwise. It is about the old television series Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone," and an episode from 1962 called "Four O'clock." This episode starred Theodor Bikel as a kooky, self righteous, hate-filled spewer of nonsense, who anointed himself to punish and identify all the "evil people" by shrinking them to the size of the average kid's doll. This was to take place at "Four O'clock."

This demented man lived with his parrot in a dingy, small apartment where he kept a file on each person's supposed transgressions, no matter how trivial. He spent his days thinking about the latest conspiracy invented within his twisted mind, or sending anonymous letters and making anonymous calls to employers, for example, divulging the content of an employee's file, such as, "Your Mr. Jones is a communist sympathizer," and demanding that the person be fired. Of course, he never told the employer HOW he knew any of the information he provided, answering only, "Never mind how I know!" Of course the employers hung up on him, but at four o'clock he was going to set things right, all by himself.

It's a shame this episode wasn't filmed in 1965, as this secret avenger could have accused anyone who even dared to say a good thing about the newly created Medicare system as being a Commie, or at the very least, a socialist (Ah, come to think of it, maybe he did exist, just in the form of some other people). Or what if the show were filmed now? Hmm, WOW... lots of targets for him, including me, I'm proud to say! Ahh, but is it being filmed now with all of the nasty, distorted, divisive disinformation being thrown out there, sometimes anonymously via emails, for instance, and sometimes in person, as at town hall meetings? The 1962 character lives on in these people today, only it isn't just a television show anymore. This is real!

If you've never seen the above mentioned episode of the Twilight Zone and don't want to know the ending, stop reading now! I don't feel right leaving readers hanging there, without knowing the ending.

As the clock struck four and his parrot squawked, this hate-filled man peered from his window and proclaimed to his parrot that all the evil people were now shrinking. But in an instant, the man found himself looking up at his parrot, having shrunk to the size of a Barbie Doll, or I guess, a Ken Doll.

The other day (this was in 2009), I believe it was in New Jersey, there was a town hall meeting. I don't recall if the congressional person was a Democrat or a Republican, but there was a lady in a wheel chair who told of her crippling illness and how she needs help for her condition. In the midst of hoots and shouts at her, she tried to continue. One man, kind of a big burly guy, who obviously was far from underfed, told one of the reporters something like, "Listen to this...even a handicapped person has more rights than I have!" Hmm...I wonder if that guy stopped his clock at 3:59?

Word History:
Rice-This word came to English during the 1200s (one source says during the 1230s). Some linguists feel "rice" ultimately traces back to an oriental origin, but that sources are lacking to confirm that. In Indo European, it does seem to go back to Sanskrit "vrihi/vrihi-s," (first "i" with long sound) which meant/means "rice." Sanskrit, a relative of English much further down the family tree, still exists, although on a limited basis, mainly religious, especially in India, but its history takes it back many, many centuries ago in that southern part of Asia. Presumably, Old Persian got their word for rice, "brizi," from Sanskrit. Old Persian was the ancestor of Persian, one of the main languages of Persia, now called Iran. Persian is also an Indo European language related to English, but again, much further down the family tree, but more closely related to Sanskrit and to Hindi, one of the main languages of India. It seems that Greek picked up the word from one of these old languages as "oryza" (no, not Ore-Ida!), and it then was picked up by Latin as "oriza." Old French, a Latin-based language, continued with "ris," and presumably that is how English got the word, but Greek brought the word to Europe, and for example, German has "Reis," Polish has "ryz," Welsh has "reis," Lithuanian has "rysai," Italian has "riso," and Spanish has "arroz" (as compared to the old Latin form "oriza;" so, much closer).