Twilight Zone episode review — 2.14 — The Whole Truth
Episode 2.14 “The Whole Truth”
Original air date: January 20, 1961
Writer: Rod Serling
Director: James Sheldon
Rating: 5/10
“The Whole Truth” is a comedic episode that has some strong aspects to it. It essentially has the plot of Liar Liar; a man that makes his living lying is forced to tell the truth. There’s some witty, humorous dialogue, and the lead performance from Jack Carson (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) is very enjoyable.
Carson plays Harvey Hunnicut, a sleazy and talkative used car salesman. Right away, we see his sleaziness, as he pressures a young couple into buying an older car, saying that this was how they built cars when they knew how to build them, only to say the exact opposite when someone tries to sell him an old car.
I absolutely love the way Serling’s narration describes him: “ This, as the banner already has proclaimed, is Mr. Harvey Hunnicut, an expert on commerce and con jobs, a brash, bright, and larceny-loaded wheeler and dealer who, when the good Lord passed out a conscience, must have gone for a beer and missed out.”
He buys an old car for cheap from an old man, who tells him it’s haunted. With that over and done with, he returns to the young couple he had been pressuring, and tells them that the car he had been pushing to them is not for sale, being brutally honest. “If I said anything about it being a runabout, why, I meant it’d run about a block, and then stop,” he says. He gets excited when they ask him what else he has, but then finds that he can’t lie to them. “Everything on this lot should have been condemned years ago,” he tells them.
Eventually, he finds that he has to be honest with his employees, and even his wife, admitting that when he tells her he’s working late, he’s really playing poker with his friends.
Knowing that as long as he owns that car he needs to tell the truth, he of course tries to sell it. He loses his only employee when he admits to him that he’ll never give him a raise.
Hunnicut finally has a potential buyer in Honest Luther Grimbley (Loring Smith), a politician that wants to buy an older car for appearances. Grimbley suggests $50, and Hunnicut pushes him lower. Once he tells Grimbley the car is haunted and forces the owner to tell the truth, Grimbley stays far away, saying that he can’t possibly tell the truth and keep his job in politics.
In a very dumb ending, Hunnicut is able to sell the car to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who apparently wants it as propaganda or something, to try and convince the Soviets that it’s the car the average American drives. It’s really dumb, and it’s poorly handled, too. They don’t really show him, of course, but they finally say his name when Hunnicut gets his signature. Hunnicut then tries to call President Kennedy.
This episode had a lot of comedic promise. There’s something funny about a used car salesman putting signs like “Not dependable” on cars he’s trying to sell. Yet for the most part, it misses its mark, largely because of the ending.
It’s also a bad looking episode. It’s another one shot on video, which means the dealership is a set, and it really does look nothing like the outside.
