The Whole Truth (The Twilight Zone)

Plot

The dealership of glib used car salesman Harvey Hunnicut is visited by a mild-mannered elderly gentleman who offers to sell his vintage Model A car for a pittance. When questioned about the car, the gent admits that the antique contraption is haunted and that the owner is compelled to tell the truth. Laughing this off, Hunnicut buys the jalopy, intending to quickly unload it. To his dismay, he realizes that the previous owner was indeed being truthful, as he himself must now be. He tells a young couple, prospective buyers, that all the cars on his lot are lemons and they should buy from a respectable dealership instead. When explaining to his wife why he's going to be home late , he openly states that he intends to play poker with his friends. When Irv, his employee, asks about the raise he was promised, Harvey confesses he always strings his workers along without ever giving raises. Irv punches Harvey out and quits.

Hunnicut concludes that his livelihood depends on his ability to rid himself of this supernatural burden. Just as he's losing hope of ever doing so, he sees a newspaper story about the U.S. playing host to visiting Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Surmising that, like every totalitarian state, the Soviet Union owes its existence to a tissue of lies, the politically savvy Hunnicut calls the Soviet embassy and convinces its representatives to visit his dealership. By being absolutely half-truthful, he sells the car as a potential anti-American propaganda tool, exemplifying shoddy, outdated U.S. automobile workmanship. By the concluding scene, it seems that Hunnicut is about to change the course of history, since the passenger watching the sale from the embassy limousine now has his name on paper as the haunted vehicle's owner. It appears to be none other than Khrushchev himself. Hunnicut telephones Washington, asking if he could possibly get in touch with "Jack Kennedy".

Cast