Long Distance Call Review

[Cori aka ChrisSCrush]

The 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone, “Long Distance Call,” marks the first of three appearances of Billy Mumy on the classic series.

Billy plays Billy Bayles, one of the few times he got to use his own name. Billy Bayles is celebrating his fifth birthday. His father’s mother, Grandma Bayles, played by Lili Darvas, is attached to Billy to an unnatural degree. This doting grandparent is obsessed with and possessive of her “angel.” She calls him away from opening one present to open her gift, a toy telephone. She tells the delighted Billy he can always talk to her that way, no matter what happens.

Grandma, who has been ill, passes away at home. Billy stays constantly on the phone, pretending to talk to Grandma...or is he pretending?

Billy Mumy is so young here he can be easily picked up even by Grandma. Yet he delivers a very fine, nuanced performance.

This episode suffers somewhat due to being one of only six episodes of The Twilight Zone shot on videotape. The picture and sound quality do not match that of most other episodes and they lack some of the Zone feel. Nevertheless this is a good episode.

I had seen all of The Twilight Zone before, but watching all three of Billy’s episodes back to back, I noticed something worth mentioning in all three reviews. In Billy’s first and third episodes, the high dramatic point is the actor playing his father delivering an impassioned plea that his son’s life be spared. Philip Abbott does wonderfully in “Long Distance Call” as does Jack Klugman with “In Praise of Pip.” In the middle episode of the three, “It’s a Good Life,” the high dramatic point is a man pleading with the actor playing Billy’s father to end his son’s life. Just an interesting little observation...in The Twilight Zone.