"My son is gone. He was taken from me by a woman. This is my son now."
Director: James Sheldon
Writer: Charles Beaumont & William Idelson
Composer: uncredited
AAHH SPOOKY GRANDMA!
AAHH BILLY MUMY!
Got some classic Twilight Zone staples right up in this episode. Another one that's rather unsettling, too, the more thought that's put into it. Initially, it's just an episode that is all about the dangers of being too close with someone, and how dangerous that can be on a child. But on further inspection, it's actually a very sad story about a mother who just given up on her son, despite the son still loving her very much. It's not often you see stories where the parent had just given up on the child.
Lily Darvas wonderfully plays Grandma to a young Billy. Her performance doesn't hit extreme ranges but she does masterfully display a level of discipline, apathy, and then adoration in sometimes just a single scene. Her ability to switch emotions on the fly feels quite natural, like what a real grandma would be like.
And with Grandma being on death's door (like every single old lady in Twilight Zone is at death's door, can't any of them just catch a break?) Darvas needed to also have a level of "I'm old so who cares anymore" and handles that well. This episode also presents the difficult of explaining to a child what death means, and how difficult that can be for some. Grandma never quite tells Billy what's happening to her, just that she's sick.
Billy Mumy plays...Billy...and is amazing. It's a shame his performance here is so overshadowed by the one he gives in It's a Good Life (though, I get it) because he plays the innocent and happy-go-lucky kid so well. It never really dawns on him about what happened to Grandma partly because of what the story is based around, but also because he's five and seems well-off, so nobody has had to explain to him what death means.
The premise of the episode is that, yes, Grandma dies, but she gives Billy a toy telephone that she claims she can always call him from. And, it appears, even from beyond the grave. Part of the episode is a mystery to whether or not Billy is actually calling his grandmother, or if its just his way of coping. The brilliance of the writing and directing here is that it's never quite clear what it is, but what matters is Billy's mental health.
One of the more curious elements to the narrative is the mother, played by Patricia Smith. Like Grandma, her concern is for Billy, but that also leaves her blind to some other flaws. Sure she doesn't like Billy talking on the phone to "Grandma" but she never sits down to talk to him about it, it's the father that does. That makes a bit more narrative sense, since Billy's dad was Grandma's third-born son and the one that she apparently overlooked, but it's interesting that once Billy's only motherly figure leaves, his real mother hardly fills the void.
She becomes more important later and her character gets a real shake, but the real powerhouse of the episode lays with Billy's father, played by Philip Abbott. He doesn't deliver a knockout performance until the end with the best scene of the show, and one of the most heartwarming moments in The Twilight Zone, but it is clear as day that he just wants to feel his mother's love, especially in her final moments. And her death scene is so devastating, but the fact that he comes back strong later in the episode just gives his character so much more depth.
He's probably the one character that is the most relatable and the one you come to care about the most. Billy Mumy steals the show based off a surprisingly good child-actor performance, and the fact that he is now such an iconic child, but the backbone and strength of the episode comes off of Abbott's brilliant performance as Billy's father. The performances truly go a long way in making this a standout episode.
It's a fairly simple one, all things considered. And it's surprising that they managed to pull it off this well. They had their budget reduced exponentially and had to shoot eight episodes back-to-back in the span of around a month, so they reduced the film quality and changed the script and story up to have it all take place in a single setting.
These types of episodes are, in my opinion, a bit superior to others. There are some standout examples that make use of their multiple environments but the ones where it's just a single room or single house make everything that much more intense since the story is locked in on this set of characters and their often overly complex situation.
Long Distance Call seems to be one of the more oft-forgotten episodes, but is certainly chilling on first watch and especially on subsequent viewings when more of the nuances can be picked up on.
***SPOILER SECTION***
Billy's mother never sat well with me as a character until the end, when she has that killer breakdown on the couch watching Billy pretty much drowning before her eyes. It's here that Abbott and Smith step up their game and bring this episode home. Those two scenes, where Billy's mother watches in horror and then when his father picks up the phone to talk to his mother, to beg for Billy's life, are what put this episode on the list.
And one of the more horrifying parts of the episode is when his mother picks up the phone and hears her. It's horrifying to watch but probably would have been more chilling to hear her voice. There's even a pause in sound as she puts the phone to her ear and then she lets out the scream that sends Billy for a swim. Then again, perhaps the power of the scare is in just wondering what she could be saying. Maybe she heard the tale end of Grandma telling Billy to head for the pond, or that she'd be seeing him real soon.
Easily the best scene of the episode is Billy's father pleading with Grandma to bring him back. Abbott drives it home and delivers a gut-wrenching performance. Earlier in the episode, when Grandma tells him about how she lost her son and when he explains that she overlooked her own son for Billy, it's obvious that there's a rift, one that may not be possible to bridge.
But he does! And it is amazing. It's probably one of the most, if not the most, uplifting moment in The Twilight Zone. How many other episodes can you think of where everything ends up okay in the end? Most of the time it works out well for some but not others. This time? Everyone wins! And we all learned a valuable lesson:
Don't use toy-phones!
When you think of The Twilight Zone, there's probably a few episodes that come to mind, but arguably none more famous than the one that kicked off Burgess Meredith's stint with the show, the one that's quoted so often, parodied so much, and the one where there's finally..."Time Enough At Last." See you then!
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