In the Soviet Union, the development of electrical communication technologies was a concomitant of literacy acquisition. In this context, some technical devices, such as telephone, appeared to remain bound to the urban context of communication: for most of the Soviet time, telephone was mainly used in cities by literate subscribers. Under these circumstances telephone was destined to fluctuate between primary and secondary orality. To verify this hypothesis, I am analysing scenes from the Soviet films shot between 1930 and 1970 where phone conversations have been deliberately put at the forefront. Examining oral expressions used by protagonists during their conversations I try to answer the following questions: Since when was telephone filmed as a medium of secondary orality? What obstacles had prevented it from exemplifying secondary orality in Walter Ong’s terms? What social and cultural aspects of Soviet reality are highlighted in the scenes in which Soviet telephone occupies a centre stage?