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Twilight zone episode night call3/23/2023 I don't know, maybe Gladys Cooper is to blame for making Miss Keene too sympathetic, but I doubt it. I'm sorry, Matheson, but I just don't agree. I always do what you say.' I thought that was much stronger it made much more of a character study. And he just said, 'You told me not to come over. I thought it made much more sense, because her personality was so abrasive that, for it to turn out that she had caused this man to die in the first place, and now she wanted him more than ever. I thought the new ending I put on it for The Twilight Zone was a lot better. I ended the story on a very dark note, where he says, 'I'll be right over.' Which leaves the reader with the feeling of just what is coming over to her house? But it's a flat ending. The idea just occured to me that some disabled old lady was getting phone calls from a dead man. Here's what he says about "Long Distance Call": Okay, my three volume "Richard Matheson: Collected Stories" finally arrived today, complete with author's commentary on every story he published from "Born of Man and Woman" to "Duel". I can't put my finger on why I dislike it, but I do. It had all the elements of a great horror story, but it just doesn't have a strong plot, or base, for those elements to rest on. Okay, the story was slapped together the rest was great. At least that ending would've made sense.Īs it is, this episode is a missed opportunity. I think they should've left well enough alone, end it with "I'll be right over" and send the audience to a sleepless night in bed.Īlternatively, they could've made the ending tragic just by having the repairman fix the line before Miss Keene had an opportunity to speak with her husband. It doesn't work as a tragedy because the boyfriend acts both cruelly and irrationally, it's impossible to understand his motivation (if he always does what she says, then he should respect her desire to talk with him now). The ending wasn't scary, wasn't sappy, wasn't anything. In the story, the voice comes from an anonymous cadaver, one that is understandably lonely but not attached to Miss Keene by any personal history.) As Bevis suggested, the transition to the sentimental might've worked if the ending was sentimental, but it wasn't. I'd have preferred if he'd stuck to pure horror rather than delve into the sentimental (a transition that strains my ability to suspend disbelief. A few thoughts after having finally read the short story (titled either "Long Distance Call" or "Sorry, Right Number", depending on the publisher):įor one, Richard Matheson owes me a night's sleep.įor another, what the hell was he thinking with the adaptation? Frankly, the script seems pretty phoned in.
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