Night Call story
An old woman keeps receiving frightening phone calls. Directed by: Jacques Tourneur. Story by: Richard Matheson.
11 total · 4 major · 6 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| communicating with the dead | major | Elva received a series of mysterious phone calls from an eerie voiced man who turned out to be her dearly departed fiancée. |
| coping with memories of a lost love | major | Elva was filled with heartache once it became apparent that the mysterious calls to her house were coming from her long departed fiancée. |
| loneliness | major | The old spinster Elva confided in her housekeeper of how she'd lived a lonely life ever since her fiancée had perished in an automobile accident. |
| remembrance | major | Elva recalled her late fiancée. |
| coping with being ill and indisposed | minor | Elva was living as an invalid we heard at the beginning of the story. |
| engaged couple | minor | The grand revelation of the story is that the series of mysterious phone calls coming to Elva's house were from her dearly departed fiancée. |
| information technology in society | minor | We saw old analogue telephone network with operators and such. |
| master and servant | minor | Elva and her housekeeper Margaret. |
| mobility impairment | minor | It was revealed that Elva had been confined to a wheelchair for decades as the result of an automobile accident. |
| remorse | minor | Elva expressed her regrets over having been at the wheel in an automobile accident that had sent her fiancée careening through the vehicle's windshield to his death. |