You Drive
| "You Drive" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| The Twilight Zone episode | |||
 Oliver Pope's car hunts him down. |
|||
| Episode no. | Season 5 Episode 134 |
||
| Directed by | John Brahm | ||
| Written by | Earl Hamner Jr. | ||
| Featured music | Stock created by Jerry Goldsmith | ||
| Production code | 2625 | ||
| Original air date | January 3, 1964 | ||
| Guest stars | |||
|
Edward Andrews: Oliver Pope |
|||
| Episode chronology | |||
|
|||
| List of Twilight Zone episodes | |||
"You Drive" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Oliver ("Ollie") Pope is in a hurry. The nervous and distracted man's mind is not on his driving, and as a result, he slams his 1956 Ford Fairlane into Timmy Danbers, a young boy delivering newspapers on a bicycle, injuring him seriously enough that the boy eventually dies of his injuries. Pope doesn't stop to offer aid, but instead hurries off, trying to conceal his part in the accident. His wife, Lillian, and his co-workers notice that he is increasingly irritable. A co-worker, Pete Radcliff, is inaccurately identified by a witness and Pope does everything to foment that erroneous suspicion.
Before long, the vehicle seems to take on a mind of its own. The vehicle itself rebels against its owner: at first, when Ollie Pope is near the car, it honks its horn, flashes its lights, attempts to start on its own, drops its bumper, tries to close its hood on him, and repeats the radio newsflash of the boy's death in an attempt to get Ollie's attention. Then, while his wife is driving the car, it drives to the scene of the accident and stalls out, seemingly determined to get Pope to admit his guilt. Eventually as Pope starts walking to work so the car isn't seen by police, the car leaves Pope's garage on its own, chases him down the street in a rain storm and seems to be about to run him down. It stops just before doing this and the passenger door opens; Pope gets in and the car then drives him to the police station, where he walks in to confess.
[edit] Production notes
External shots (involving the car) of Pope's home and the park were filmed in a Culver City, California, neighborhood. Pope's Home still stands at 4183 Keystone Ave. (the address appears on an exterior shot of in the episode) and the nearby park where the accident took place is the Dr. Paul Carlson Memorial Park. It is located a few blocks from the Sony Pictures (formerly MGM) lot.
1963 California license plates can be seen on the front and rear of the Ford sedan. Since the story wasn't location-specific, electrical tape was used to mask the word "California" from the top of the plates. Here is the following number on the plate: FYH 234.
Edward Andrews refused to appear in the scene where Oliver Pope's car almost runs him over. His stand-in was actually "pinned" underneath the front tire (as shown above).
Also, a couple of "continuity" errors are made in this episode. In one scene, the wife (Lillian) phones in a call to where the car stalls out (the original scene of the accident), claiming that it was on "3rd and Park". In a later scene, the parked car's radio wakes up the wife from a sound sleep. She wakes up Ollie, who goes into the garage to see what is going on. The radio switches to a news broadcast and the announcer says that the man they've arrested has been positively seen at the scene of the accident, which happened on "3rd and Elm". In addition, in the final scene of the episode the front bumper (which fell off in an earlier scene) alternately appears and disappears.
[edit] References
- DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1593931360
- Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0970331090
