This is a goofy,preachy episode that had to have been seen as pretty silly-even back then.
A highschool 'girl' that looks about 30 years old is the main character. Her mother is an unhappy woman that wants to live her daughter's life for her. Mom looks to be pushing 60 years old. Dad is a hardworking Joe that just wants his wife and daughter to be happy. Mom wants her daughter to go to the nicest highschool in town,where all the prominent citizens send their children. The mom wants her daughter to have a good start in life,and meet all the 'right' people. The daughter is a straitlaced type,a square,and her family is not as well-off as the other students in this school-and it shows. The daughter is shy,she doesn't really fit in with the new school crowd,but she wants to please her mother. The daughter could have been an above-average student,academic-wise and socially if she had just went to her assigned school in her neighborhood. Instead the girl sticks out like a sore thumb and just doesn't quite belong at the 'better' school.
When the 'in crowd' asks her to join them in some 'activities',the daughter jumps at the chance. The 'activities' she joins are dangerous and wrong,and she knows it. These highschool kids are sons and daughters of doctors,judges,big buisnessmen,and so forth. The kids are rich and bored,and engage in increasingly risky and bad behavior. The daughter is torn between doing the right thing on one hand,and being wilder than the wildest member of the group,on the other hand..
Interesting,
entertaining and amusing episode.
Dig the music they dance to on the beach,this show was made before rock+roll was invented for goodness sake!
Check it out,it is a time-capsule for sure!
2 Reviews
All these characters are awfully old for their parts...
ronnybee21127 February 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Rebel without a brain!
planktonrules4 September 2016
"A Call in the Night" is a very preachy episode of "The Public Defender that in many ways is like "Rebel Without a Cause" which came out the following year. Both exploited the youth gone wild genre--something which exploded onto theaters in the 1950s.
When the show begins, lot of folks from nice families are being alerted by the police that their kids have been arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. Then, how all this came to be is shown to the audience...starting months earlier.
Mrs. Black is a shallow woman whose only concern seems to be for her daughter, Elly, to go to a fancy school and hobnob with the rich kids. The Blacks are just ordinary working class folks but the mother's attitude rubs off on Elly and soon she'll do anything to fit in with these spoiled little monsters...plus Elly really is awfully stupid. The problem is that the kids in a 'club' called the Night Riders (not the Klan) are a bunch of bored rich kids who do stupid and dangerous stuff for thrills. At first Elly is horrified but remembering how important all this is to mom, she continues trying hard---too hard--to fit in.
There are many things wrong with this film. The biggest is a common problem with these sort of shows and movies--the kids are played by actors in their 20s and even possibly their 30s. The one who played Elly was 24! The story also is VERY preachy. But what really surprised me was the relative slap on the wrist these jerks all got at the end of the show...giving a real mixed message, that's for sure.
When the show begins, lot of folks from nice families are being alerted by the police that their kids have been arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. Then, how all this came to be is shown to the audience...starting months earlier.
Mrs. Black is a shallow woman whose only concern seems to be for her daughter, Elly, to go to a fancy school and hobnob with the rich kids. The Blacks are just ordinary working class folks but the mother's attitude rubs off on Elly and soon she'll do anything to fit in with these spoiled little monsters...plus Elly really is awfully stupid. The problem is that the kids in a 'club' called the Night Riders (not the Klan) are a bunch of bored rich kids who do stupid and dangerous stuff for thrills. At first Elly is horrified but remembering how important all this is to mom, she continues trying hard---too hard--to fit in.
There are many things wrong with this film. The biggest is a common problem with these sort of shows and movies--the kids are played by actors in their 20s and even possibly their 30s. The one who played Elly was 24! The story also is VERY preachy. But what really surprised me was the relative slap on the wrist these jerks all got at the end of the show...giving a real mixed message, that's for sure.
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