Twilight Zone: The Whole Truth (1961)
Reviewed by Geno McGahee
Rod Serling has stood the test of time and his popular series: The Twilight Zone, has inspired many a movie and show. I had heard that the Jim Carrey flick LIAR LIAR was based on a TZ episode called “The Whole Truth,” so I decided to watch it and see if they were similar. Well, they truly are, but realistically, they are different enough to stand apart from each other, so to the people that told me LIAR LIAR is a huge rip off of this tale, can go choke on one if you know what I mean.
We begin with a sleazy car salesman, Harvey Hunnicut (Jack Carson), and he is selling a piece of junk to an old man, who drives away. Hunnicut smiles and waves but when he notices that the car is off the lot, the smile disappears. He is a fake and will do anything for the sale. He is even trying to sell a lemon to a young couple, who obviously are not wealthy and are just looking for something reliable. Hunnicut doesn’t care and tries to push a piece of crap car on them and they are ready to bite when an old man drives up in a beaten vehicle and is looking to sell.
Harvey approaches the old man (George Chandler) and offers him nearly nothing for the car and the old man is sort of bullied into the deal. Harvey has acquired another lemon for the lot for dirt cheap, insuring a high turnover when he sells it, but there is a catch. The car is “haunted” and now Harvey has to tell the truth and discovers that selling cars can be difficult when he’s not allowed to lie. So too is keeping his help who begins to question him about a raise that he was promised. Harvey loses his right hand man when he admits that he would never have given him a dime and that he was just dangling the raise in front of him just to keep him working.
When politician “Honest” Luther Grimbley (Loring Smith) shows up to buy the car, Harvey nearly gets rid of this curse, but Grimbley is smart and figures out the situation and elects not to buy it, but there is one buyer that might save Hunnicut from the truth…
Overall, this tale is very weak for a Twilight Zone episode. The ending is not Serling’s best and that’s being kind. It was actually very stupid and I don’t think that I will be watching this one again any time soon. Serling is a genius and entitled to a bad night or two and this one was one of his bad nights. I would watch LIAR LIAR though. That was a great movie!
RSR Rating: 5/10. Good Tale? Liar Liar!