Twilight Zone episode review — 3.21 — Kick the Can
Episode 3.21 “Kick the Can”
Original air date: February 9, 1962
Writer: George Clayton Johnson
Director: Lamont Johnson
Rating: 7/10
As an episode “Kick the Can” definitely has its heart in the right place, but I also don’t think it’s that great. It aims for the bittersweet nostalgia of episodes like “Walking Distance,” even using Bernard Herrmann’s music cues from that episode. Ernest Truex’s performance as Charles Whitley is so hypersincere that it might work better for some than it does for me.
The episode takes place at a retirment home. We are introduced to Charles when he learns that his grown son won’t take him in. He’s not happy to be at Sunnyvale Rest Home, but he suspects he has found the secret of youth, inspired by boys playing kick the can outside. He thinks that if he acts young, he will become young. His old friend Ben Conroy (Russell Collins) tries to convince him that this is foolish, but to no avail.
Soon, Charles is able to convince most of the residents of Sunnyvale to join him in a game of kick the can. Ben doesn’t join, of course, and the employees there also think it’s foolish.
Acting like a real narc, Ben tells the nurse what Charles and the other retirees are up to, and they go outside to find only a group of children playing. Ben recognizes one of the children as Charles from when he was a boy, and he begs Charles to take him with him, but Charles doesn’t recognize him, and runs off.
I must say, the ending works pretty well. While I don’t love this episode, the ending — with Russell Collins’s performance — is quite emotional, and the best part of the episode.
