What is the Meaning of the Phone Scene

A few things, I think.

First of all, to "educate" 2021 viewers about "how phones worked" in 1973. No cell phones. No "caller ID." People "pranked" each other all the time by making calls that couldn't be traced by the average person.

So...since Gary knew he COULD do that with his home phone...it became something he WANTED to do.

At this point in the story, he doesn't think he can be Alana's boyfriend(the age thing) and he thinks she DOES have a boyfriend("Lance.") So he tells the sister who answers the phone that he IS Lance.

Alana -- nice acting here -- runs up in excited anticipation that Lance is calling her (and hey, he's not calling her -- so he must not care that much about her.) Alana listens for awhile, but there is only silence, and Gary hangs up.

So Alana calls GARY's number (she gave him HER number, so he must have given her, his). Gary picks up but...more silence on his end.

So now Alana knows that Gary DID call her in silence. And...here is the key thing...she doesn't hang up. She listens to him breathing(she noticed his breathing back at the Tail of the Cock.) She keeps listening.

And it is GARY who hangs up.

All that "information" unfolds as we watch the scene, but in the end it is about how Gary and Alana DO care about each other, even if she has a boyfriend(she thinks) and even if Gary "knows" he can't have Alana. Alana doesn't "give up" on Gary. It is he who hangs up.

Its a great scene on general principles...and a scene that could only take place in an era with no cell phones and no caller ID.

I thought it was a simple representation of what people really used to do. This was before star 69. If you wanted to know if somebody was home you could do this. It is a bit stalkerish. But its authentic.

Even though there were no words spoken, communication was made. The fact that she called him back immediately after he first hung up meant that she knew who it was (rather than Lance), that he was unhappy about the Lance thing; and also that while he didn't know how to put it in words, neither could she when she called back.

Words might have caused dialog to dissolve into questions about stalking or betrayal or anything else than the fact that she understood why he was upset and that meant something to her. Neither could really express these things to each other until the very end of the film.

The best he could manage a bit later was to complain about her willingness to show her boobs on film when she hadn't shown them to him yet. This was a good example of saying the unsaid and not doing it well—the phone call didn't have the problem of poorly chosen words.

It's a love thing. He just wanted to hear her voice. He felt driven to check in on her. She hears him breathing. It was supposed to be like he felt such an intense connection with her that he had to call even though he didn't necessarily want her knowing he was checking up on her.