I'm trying to find a copy of a short film
I saw in the early 60's that I think was
based on a Bradbury story. The film is about
a man who gets strange phone calls of electronic gibberish. The calls continue and the gibberish becomes an electronic voice
that repeats whatever the man says. He eventually traces the calls to a relay and is electrocuted when he checks it out. A phone company worker closes the relay without looking inside and the implication is that some sort of artificial electronic
intelligence was lurking within. It was
utterly creepy and believable. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

See answer below under the topic "Dial Double Zero."

Hi,
After a long time I followed up this thread and saw others who have tried to track down the movie "Dial Double Zero" Well it is now available at:

http://americanfilmfoundation.com/order/ray_bradbury.shtml

J. Raglin

Wow, thanks!

That is good news - and those little frame grabs on the website are great as well. Now, if only someone could be persuaded to put it onto DVD instead of VHS...

I was glad to hear of this being available and plan to purchase it. Now, does anyone know anything of a special Walter Cronkite did on futuristic devices? One segment featured Cronkite and Ray Bradbury talking on Dick Tracy-style wrist radios. I would LOVE to get this! Anyone know name, date, and availability of the show?

dandelion:

Did a Google Search like this:
Walter Cronkite, Ray Bradbury

...and came up with lots of references. Even some back to other sections of THIS website. Didn't search thru it all, but maybe something there betwixt it all.

Are we talking about the meeting Ray had with Cronkite after he walked off the Frost show in London? Or was there another Cronkite meeting?

I even tried "Walter Cronkite" and "Ray Bradbury" along with "Dick Tracy," who I'm quite sure was mentioned, without much better result.

All I know is, Walter Cronkite did a number of science-oriented TV specials. They may all have been made after his early 1980s retirement, but some may have been before. Some were on dinosaurs. This one was on the future. The bit with him talking on the wrist radios with Bradbury was a small segment of a longer show on futuristic inventions and their effect on society. Would be interesting to watch now just to judge for accuracy.

Wow. This list http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001969/ contains a lot of shows I've never even heard of, but it's not encyclopedic as the Cronkite appearance isn't listed. In fact, we need to get Ray's "You Bet Your Life" appearance on this list, among others.

It could have been an episode of "Walter Cronkite's Universe" but as to which one or if any of them are available in any form I'd best leave such searches to others.

When I first read about the Walter Cronkite/Ray Bradbury episode above, it reminded me of a show I used to watch in the late 60s called "The Twenty-First Century." It was a weekly documentary about what the future would be like, hosted by Cronkite. I thought that might be a possibility, so I did some searching.

CBS apparently sold the shows to Discovery/The Science Channel. I ran across a forum that mentioned The Science Channel aired some of those episodes in 2004. I sent an email inquiry to them, but haven't received a response yet.

Thank you, Dandelion, Pi Man (from the old Ray Bradbury discussion board), Jack Raglin, and all for keeping this topic alive and for providing such valuable information!

I followed the link provided by Pi Man on the old board (and Jack Raglin on the new board) and ordered the VHS tape of "The Story of a Writer". I just watched it yesterday! I am very excited as this is surely as close as I will ever get to seeing "Dial Double Zero" again, and it was tangible affirmation that the short story/film existed and that me and the dozens of other people in the world still obsessively seeking it out aren't crazy!

The premise of the story was as described throughout the old and new board posts, and the technological wariness and exploration of the origin of life is every bit as relevant (and chilling) today as it was when Ray Bradbury wrote it.

This short 25 min. videotape ("Story of a Writer": http://www.americanfilmfoundation.com/order/ray_bradbury.shtml) amazingly shows sufficient footage of "Dial Double Zero" to bring back many of those feelings the original viewing inspired. This tape even includes the grand finale where Tom confronts his enemy, the box on the telephone pole. In my opinion, it is a miracle that this one little short story -- never published in print but which has haunted so many people for so many decades -- is the one story featured in this short documetary on Ray Bradbury, his writing, his life and what makes him tick. The odds were not in our favor, but if this had not been documented in "Story of a Writer" there would be dozens -- maybe hundreds -- of people driving themselves crazy looking for something that "didn't exist". It would have been a clever case of life imitating art...DDZ seekers like me becoming Tom at the bottom of the telephone pole, the victims of our own obsessive curiosity...

Thanks to all for closing a case open for 25 years for me. This board provided a great service!

I have to wonder if the whole thing was originally a one-hour show, and the part showing the full short story wasn't included on the video for copyright reasons. If the short story, alone, without the documentary, made the rounds of schools, no doubt copies still exist. I'll look into it and get back to you.

Thanks for the info.
The best thing about what I remember of Dial Double Zero was that it is so relevent today, now that we have video and phone links into our houses. Viruses are streaming into our houses in every form of our computing, and now that we are moving our phone onto computer, the possibility of torment from that wire gets more real every day.
I would love to see the whole original as I remember it from that school showing.

The FULL version of "The Story of a Writer," INCLUDING the dramatisation of "Dial Double Zero", is now available on DVD from this website: http://www.americanfilmfoundation.com/order/ray_bradbury.shtml

Hooray!