{"id":105622,"date":"2021-08-02T15:13:44","date_gmt":"2021-08-02T20:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=105622"},"modified":"2021-08-02T15:14:08","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T20:14:08","slug":"the-twilight-zone-review-you-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=105622","title":{"rendered":"The Twilight Zone Review: You Drive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- RSR AD 1 --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1545664804358300\" data-ad-slot=\"7759247395\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n<p><\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=105622\" rel=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=105622\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-105623 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/the_twilight_zone_you_drive_tv-297337906-msmall.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"220\" \/><\/a>By William Kozy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I like \u201cYou Drive\u201d for the simplicity of its premise, but that is still able to ratchet up the suspense and tension we feel regarding a man who has done something awful but seems to have been able to avoid detection. It\u2019s a very relatable feeling, and the episode succeeds in using the Hithchcockian technique of placing us in the shoes of the criminal and thereby squirming when things get dicey for him. Part of the reason for our feeling any sympathy for him when we shouldn\u2019t at all, is that the episode stirs in the additional plot point of man vs. machine, of technology running roughshod over us, even if the particular machine in this episode is acting with a good conscience. So, I thought this episode deserved a bit more than the 6 votes it received in my survey of fans and writers asking, \u2018What is your favorite episode of the original Twilight Zone series?\u2019 tying it with 11 other episodes for 106th thru 116th place of the 156 episodes.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Sure enough though, casting actor Edward Andrews as the ironically named Oliver Pope in this ethics tale, was an effective way of making our empathy for him ebb as the episode progresses. Mr. Andrews has made a long career sculpting out weaselly characters, men bent on seeing that people\u2019s plans are thwarted. Watch the glee on his face when he learns that a co-worker of his, whom he suspects of going after his job, is mistakenly taken in as a suspect for the hit-and-run accident that Oliver perpetrated in the opening scene.<\/p>\n<p>It was a rain-slicked street and Pope was driving his 1956 Ford Fairlane 2-door sedan with rear fender skirts, and he was not paying enough attention to the road because of his paranoia over his job. He winds up hitting a newspaper delivery boy riding his bicycle. Pope does get out of his car to go over and see how the boy is, but when he glances around and sees that no one\u2019s nearby, he runs back to his car. Out of nowhere comes a woman, calling after him, but not getting a good enough look at his face or license plate.<\/p>\n<p>When he arrives home, his wife Lillian has set the table for dinner but Oliver is temperamental and nervous, canceling their plans to see a movie after dinner. He diverts her fussing attention to see if he\u2019s sick by blaming his anger on a co-worker, Pete Radcliff for setting his sights on Oliver\u2019s job. But suddenly, Ollie\u2019s car keeps flashing its headlights in the garage outside the door that adjoins their kitchen. Lillian alerts Oliver to it, thinking someone might be in the garage. He gets up off the couch and very tentatively investigates. No honking, just an almost gentle reminder\u2014the lights coming on and off repeatedly, slowly. More annoyingly harsh honks will ensue from this Robocop\/Christine hybrid when Oliver displays no intention of turning himself in.<\/p>\n<p>Sometime later, in this pre-caller ID age, Oliver will place a call (probably to the hospital) and ask very sotto voce about the boy\u2019s condition. The outlook is not good. So, that evening as Oliver and Lillian lay in bed, the car knows that Oliver hasn\u2019t taken proper steps yet, so it escalates the jabs at his conscience by honking its horn. One can imagine how writer Earl Hamner Jr., a homespun former country boy from Virginia\u2019s backwoods might have felt that little could be more bothersome then a car honking endlessly. Back into the garage goes Oliver. He eventually pops open the hood and desperately rips out the battery connections to stop the honking.<\/p>\n<p>The next morning Oliver sits at the breakfast table with newspaper in hand, and his wife reports how terrible it is that the boy won\u2019t make it and that she hopes they catch \u201cthat man.\u201d Oliver asks a little too quickly and with a little too much hope, \u201cHow do you know it was a man?\u201d She points out that the article says there was a witness. Sickened, Oliver says he won\u2019t go into work and retreats to the couch. The car starts honking again, the pressure mounts, and his wife insists on taking the car to the mechanic to have it looked at. Director John Brahm has done a very good job of pacing the escalation of the episode\u2019s tightening grip.<\/p>\n<p>Out on the road, the car isn\u2019t cooperating with Lillian, as it forcefully steers itself no matter how hard she struggles and pulls at the wheel. And then it stalls right in the middle of an intersection and she is beset by other cars, honking at her as she blocks traffic. She gets to the phone booth and reports her location to a tow truck, and that location just happens to be where Oliver hit the newspaper boy. Back home, when she relates the whole incident to Oliver, when she says \u201ceven the police couldn\u2019t get it started\u201d watch for Andrews\u2019 nearly comical rapid fire \u201cWhat were the police doing there?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And then&#8230;the car is back. It\u2019s honking in the garage but it\u2019s a mystery to both of them how it got there. Overlapping their dialogue, the phone rings and it\u2019s the repair shop asking about the car\u2019s whereabouts. Oliver tells them its at his home and says he thought one of their men must\u2019ve brought it, and he argues with them about the bill, and just then the front doorbell rings. Again, the pacing of all these bells and honks serves well in upping the chaotic whirlwind that envelopes Oliver more and more, as he delays justice.<\/p>\n<p>The visitor at the door is co-worker Pet Radcliff who presents Oliver with some documents from Oliver\u2019s in-desk basket that now just need Oliver\u2019s signature. An argument ensues as Oliver sees this as a power play. Pete gets up to leave and peacemaker Lillian comes up to him to allay the anger. The two talk softly and civilly and we learn that Pete\u2019s family knew the boy, and that he died about an hour ago. It just doesn\u2019t end for poor Oliver.<\/p>\n<p>The next scene however, serves up a gleefully fortunate turn of events, fortunate that is, is you\u2019re as Satanic-inclined as Oliver seems to be. We see a cop on motorcycle near the scene of the crime and beside him is that woman who came upon the accident in time to see the man getting away. And here actually might be the scariest scene of the episode when we consider the implications it has on the nature of what we use as \u201cevidence\u201d in our society as we fervently pursue justice. A car pulls up to the corner and the witness scuttles over to the cop saying, \u201cI think that\u2019s him!\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s no good\u201d, says the officer, \u201cYou have to be sure.\u201d So the woman pauses and looks and says, as she licks her lips, \u201cThat\u2019s him. I\u2019m sure.\u201d So the cop starts up his motorcycle and takes off after the driver, siren wailing. He stops him, and guess who it is? Pete Radcliff. A little bit too ironically coincidental but it does turn up the heat even more on Oliver.<\/p>\n<p>Now we figure, well, Oliver can\u2019t let Pete go down for his crime can he? Surely, this will be the turning point. And in a way it does become the turning point as we are completely drained of any ill-placed sense of suspense over \u201cgetting caught.\u201d Because the next morning, again holding the morning paper, Oliver reads to Lillian that they\u2019ve arrested that hit-and-run driver. He tells her they arrested Pete Radcliff and Lillian is in denial: \u201cI still can\u2019t believe it. You could tell if a man would do a thing like that.\u201d The poignancy of her making that statement hit me at a later viewing of the episode\u2014Yes, she\u2019s right in a way; I think a lot of us in normal society do have a nose for the type of person who could possibly be capable of such a thing\u2026and yet, look who she herself chose to marry.<\/p>\n<p>And that look on Oliver\u2019s face. He\u2019s the cat that ran over the canary. The suppressed giddiness on his face is a riot. He sits contentedly at the table, but the car isn\u2019t having any of it. It starts honking its rage. When Oliver goes in, the engine starts up, making Oliver leap backward in fear. That night in bed, a blaring wakes Lillian, who wakes Oliver to get him to do something. One might protest, \u201cHow can this guy sleep?\u201d until we realize how relieved he was at Pete Radcliff taking the fall. Oliver goes to the garage and the car radio plays a news report about Pete Radcliff. And then it repeats the very same new report. Oliver gets a hammer and starts wailing away at the radio, the headlights, everything. It seems to have worked, but we know that we know better than that.<\/p>\n<p>That morning, as Oliver happily starts off for work he tells his wife he\u2019s going to walk because he just doesn\u2019t trust that car. And then after he\u2019s gone away, the garage doors open and Lillian stands there speechless. The car backs out of the garage, and starts a driverless journey after Oliver. (Driverless that is, except for the stunt driver who was positioned low in the car and utilized a miniature periscope to see where he was going.)<br \/>\nIt catches up to Oliver who nervously trots away, and then he does a complete reversal of direction and starts running. Lightning breaks open the sky and it starts raining, just as it had been the day of the accident. Oliver keeps running down the middle of the street (why oh why do they always do that?) and then he loses his footing and trips and falls. In an effectively designed shot using a very simple old trick, we see Oliver in a close-up, with the camera down low at street level with Oliver. The car rushes up speedily, stopping right before the wheel hits his head. The trick, as you might have suspected is that they ran the footage backwards\u2014starting out with car\u2019s wheel already next to the actor\u2019s head and having the car go backwards. Play that footage backwards and voila, it looks like it\u2019s coming toward him.<\/p>\n<p>Oliver gets up slowly, defeated, and climbs into the passenger seat whereupon the car escorts him to police headquarters. And in a shot reminiscent of the end of the terrific Richard Gere\/Diane Lane thriller \u201cUnfaithful\u201d, Oliver exits the car to face justice, finally.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #808000;\"><em><strong>I\u2019ll rate the episode a speed limit of 6.8.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>[si-contact-form form=&#8217;2&#8242;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By William Kozy I like \u201cYou Drive\u201d for the simplicity of its premise, but that is still able to ratchet up the suspense and tension we feel regarding a man who has done something awful but seems to have been able to avoid detection. It\u2019s a very relatable feeling, and the episode succeeds in using [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[27072],"class_list":["post-105622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing-news","tag-the-twilight-zone-review-you-drive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105622"}],"version-history":[{"count":-3,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}