User Reviews

Well it was interesting to read the review on this site from the man who played the part of the hit and run bike kid - a lot of insight there on how they filmed the episode. I would hate to think that this story inspired the following year's TV series, 'My Mother the Car', arguably one of the worst shows ever to make it to prime time. But I did watch it back in the day; can't believe I admitted that.

So here you have the story of an unconscionable creep (Edward Andrews) who's more worried about losing his job than running down a kid on a bicycle. If you listen to Ollie's (Andrews) conversation with co-worker Pete (Kevin Hagen), Pete mentions how the unknown driver left the kid just lying there in the rain after he hit him. But if you go back to that scene, it wasn't raining at the time, though it did so in a subsequent scene.

Notice how married couples still slept in separate beds when the Pope's are shown together in the bedroom. It's interesting to me how you can track the progress of cultural norms and taboos through the history of TV shows. Of course, most anything goes today, but it wasn't always so. Neither are those ridiculous prices for your average car repair bill, thirty five dollars by Mrs. Pope's (Helen Westcott) admission.

It just struck me as I write this of Edward Andrews' somewhat passing resemblance to former Vice President Spiro Agnew. I never really noticed it before, having seen him in any number of TV spots and film roles. He often got to do those kinds of smarmy portrayals as a crooked businessman with a perfect look and demeanor for the character. Here he's got the well cast role as the nervous hit and run man who took a wrong turn into The Twilight Zone.

Even though it was primarily a show people of all ages could get behind and enjoy, Twilight Zone did have a lot of macabre and depressing episodes throughout its 5 year run. One of the most shocking ones without a doubt must be this one. The episode involves the death of a child, which is usually frowned upon in tv shows anyway, and this contributes to its tragic feel. The show starts with a guy named Oliver Pope on his way home from work. He is driving his car, when suddenly he hits a kid on a bicycle by mistake. The child is grievously injured and looks like he might die. The kid does eventually, and Pope is guilt ridden, but tries his hardest to hide the whole event from his friends and family until it blows over. Later, Pope's coworker is mistakenly identified as the driver who hit the bicycle, which makes him feel even more guilty. Meanwhile, Pope's car seems to be behaving very oddly. It honks in the middle of the night, and its radio is automatically tuned to a news report detailing the child's death. One of Pope's family members takes the car for a drive to see if it's haunted, and it drives to the scene of the accident on its own. By this time, Pope has had enough of his cars antics, and decides to go to work without it. Suddenly, the car comes to life and chases him down the road, coming very close to running him over. He realizes he can't put it off anymore and gets inside, and allows the car to drive him to the precinct. This episode is quite good in my view. I can't help but think of the book Christine (by Stephen King) when I saw this because they both deal with cars being taken over by supernatural forces. The part where the car follows Pope down the road on his way to work was done with a guy hiding under the dashboard with a periscope sticking up through the car's hood. It looks really creepy since you can't see anyone driving it. There's also a frightening scene where the car's tire stops literally just inches from Pope's head, and this was actually filmed in reverse. It doesn't look out of place when you're actually watching it though. In all, You Drive is one of the darker Twilight Zones, and is one of the few episodes that has cars as its focal point.

Edward Andrews is a hard-charging office manager who accidentally runs down a newsboy on a bike then, seeing no one nearby in this empty Southern California neighborhood, he gets back in his car and drives off quickly. His friend and chief rival at the office is mistakenly charged with the death. Andrews is tickled pink. But the car takes on a life of its own and begins to haunt him -- blowing its own horn in the middle of the night, playing its own radio, and finally chasing after him down the street until he finally yields to its unspoken demands and let it drive him to the police station.

Kind of fun, seeing the empty car turning corners and whatnot. A small periscope, probably in the hood ornament, allowed the driver to crouch down and manipulate special controls.

Edward was a great character actor, especially notable in roles in which he was a sarcastic, villainous blowhard -- indignant, irritating, insinuating. Catch him in "Kisses for My President," for instance, in which he exceeds himself as loathsome, so much so that his performance is comic. But his default state isn't "troubled," and that's what this role requires.

This was written by Earl Hamner, Jr., who claimed to despise machines. It's one of several episodes in which machines or, sometimes, musical instruments, turn on their owners. The best example, and probably the least comic, is "The Fever" from Season One, with Everett Sloan.

"You Drive" is a gem written by a somewhat unlikely source, Earl Hamner Jnr of "The Waltons" fame and starring Edward Andrews in the rat-fink role he excelled at. Here, he is an under pressure pen pusher whose mind is not on his driving, thus he hits a newspaper boy. Thinking only of himself, he vaguely checks the boy, but instead of phoning for help (the accident happens right by a phone booth) he just drives off, leaving the kid for dead.

His car starts showing the guilty conscious he seemingly lacks as it starts flashing its headlamps and blaring its horn. He tells his wife (who sports an horrific looking hairdo) that the car is old and nothing works properly. His wife says that as it's recently been serviced, the garage should fix everything for free and that's where she's going to take it. As she reaches the corner where Andrews hit the kid, the car breaks down. She gets it towed in by the garage. Somehow, in Twilight Zone fashion, the car gets itself back home and into its usual place in the garage. The horn starts blaring and an already on edge Andrews accuses his wife of attempting to gaslight him.

Getting ever more paranoid, he takes the day off work, only to get a visit from his rival (played by Kevin Hagen) who has been kind enough to clear the Andrews in-basket. He gets no thanks. Worse still, Hagen gets fingered for killing the paper boy by some idiot woman who "witnessed" the accident yet Hagen's car is nothing like the one Andrews drives. Andrews sees himself not only getting away with killing the boy, but letting his rival take the rap....except his car isn't going to let him.

Leaving the car at home, and intending to walk to work, the Andrews car goes after him, driving along side Andrews who attempts to put distance between himself, and it. This is until the passanger door opens. Realising that his car will never let him get away with what he did, Andrews gets in and the car drives him to the local police department to hand himself in.

For me, a top notch episode, with good acting, especially from Edward Andrews.... I bet he was nothing like the two dirty rats he played in "The Twilight Zone", and the "rock 'n' roll" car was delicious, it was painful to watch Andrews take a claw hammer to it.

8/10.

Although a bit silly in concept, this clever episode of The Twilight Zone puts a new "spin" on how inanimate objects can work as a motivational tool in enforcing a guilty party to accept responsibility for his actions.

Edward Andrews returns as another crummy human being, this time as a company executive worrying about a young, up-and-comer (played by Kevin Hagen) he believes is trying to replace him. Hagen, in actuality, just wants to help Andrews out, actually staying in the office working on paperwork Andrews couldn't get to due to his playing sick (he didn't want to drive up at a corner where he committed a hit-and-run accident which hit a paperboy on his bicycle). When Hagen is driving home after a harsh dialogue with Andrews who basically accuses him of trying to steal his position, an eyewitness at the street when the kid was hit tells a police officer he was the one responsible!

Just to accentuate how much of a scoundrel Andrews is, he is all smiles and quite well pleased that Hagen is falsely arrested and in jail for what he done! He keeps mum, but his automobile has other plans.

This is as much a TZ episode as you could find during it marvelous tenure: a car works as a means to get Andrews to confess his crime. He deserves to get what's coming to him, and his own car is the decisive factor in that taking place.

Hellena Westcott is the talky wife of Andrews, very assertive and insistent that he fix the car and concentrate on how to quell the noise always coming from the garage. She herself tries to drive the car to the shop but it stalls at the very spot the crime took place. She's also used in scenes to remind Andrews of what kind of cretin he is as the crime he committed, egregious and morally reprehensible as it is, comes up in topical discussion at their home.

The torturous methods of the car, through the use of headlights blinking, the horn honking, radio bellowing, and eventually driving right towards him, is the episode's most amusing and neat asset. The car is the victim's ambassador.

***SPOILERS*** Driving home from a hard day at the office Ollie Pope, Edward Andrews, makes a turn on the intersection of 3rd & Elm and smacks straight into 12 year old newspaper delivery boy Timmy Danvers riding his bicycle. With little Timmy lying unconscious Ollie instead of doing the right thing in calling for help, there's a phone booth right on the corner, he flees in his car leaving Timmy to die from his injuries.

Ollie is so scared of the consequences of his action in hitting little Timmy, which was a tragic accident, that he blindly compounds them by committing a criminal act in leaving Timmy to die in the street which if caught and convicted of leaving the scene of an accident, which he was responsible for, can put him behind bar for at least three to five years! Even though Ollie felt that he got away with his crime there was in fact an eye whiteness to what he did his car. And it was Ollie's car that for the next 48 hours will never let Ollie forget what he did and end up literally driving him to the local police station to voluntarily confess and be booked for Timmy's hit and run death!

It was in between Oillie's run from the law and his giving himself up that his car was to drive the guilt ridden man almost insane. With the horn blaring and the radio playing over and over the news of little Timmy's hit and run death Ollie's problems later unexpectedly seemed to have been solved. That's when his fellow co-worker at the office Peter Radcliff, Kevin Hagen, whom Ollie felt was bucking for his job was falsely arrested on the testimony of an eye whiteness, who couldn't see her nose in front of her face, who claimed that he was the person who hit and left Timmy for dead.

This euphoria on Ollie's part, in having Radcliff arrested for a crime that he in fact committed, didn't last for long when Oilie's car, whom he tried to disable, started to stalk and drive after Ollie as he went to work the next day! It was his car not his conscience that got Ollie to fess up to what he did and with it driving him almost insane a stretch behind bars was a lot less stressful and torturous for him to deal with.

1964's "You Drive" is one of the lesser entries in the "Twilight Zone" series and, except for a few nifty stunts by a car that drives itself, the story doesn't have much to offer. Edward Andrews (as Oliver Pope), who made a career out of playing shady businessmen and dull innocuous villains, is involved in a hit-and-run accident that eventually leads to the death of a twelve-year-old boy. At first, Andrews is just happy that he got away with his vile act, but soon his car starts to exhibit a conscience of its own. It begins to wake him up at all hours of the night with its horn blaring, radio blasting and lights blinking. Not yet completely convinced that the machine is giving him a big hint, Andrews takes it to the local mechanic for repairs. To his utter shock, the darn thing drives itself back into his garage and begins its barrage of noise all over again.

"You Drive" almost comes across as a public service announcement to warn would-be hit and run drivers of the consequences of their actions. The long arm of the law finally nabs Andrews in the end and he's personally delivered to the police by his own vehicle. Whether Andrews has any real qualms about his dirty deed is left to the viewers. The only thing for certain is that his car was all in favor of turning him over to the authorities. It's all a bit juvenile for the Twilight Zone and the story lacks the requisite suspense and mystery that the series is noted for. The rest of the cast includes Kevin Hagen as a business associate who Andrews loathes.

This is not one of the best tz episodes. It isn't awful,but it is a bit weak. Let me just say that there are any number of obvious things that the main character could have/would have done in real life that escape this guy. Just one example...When there is trouble in the garage, wouldn't turning on the garage light be the first thing anyone would do? You can plainly see the light switch right next to the door frame,yet never once does he even reach for it--and the garage is pitch-black with a possible prowler/prankster lurking inside?

A mediocre episode.

When I first saw this episode at the age of 13, I noticed that the so-called twelve-year- old newspaper boy looked like he was 19 years old. He is a moose of a kid who barely fits on his bike. Of course, maybe he was one of those farm raised kids who grew big and strong for chores around the barn.

Who is the actor who played the paperboy? Was he a relative of someone on the production staff, thus, landing the part? He obviously is not 12 years of age. He does not look like a 12-year-old...and casting him in this role is a fatal casting error that diminishes the overall effect of the episode. Interestingly, this web site does not even mention his role other than to say that he was hit in the plot. Does one need a speaking part to be credited?

This episode begins with a ubiquitous character actor of the 1960s (Edward Andrews) hitting and seriously injuring a kid on a bicycle. But, because the man is a filthy weasel, he simply drives off--afraid of facing the consequences of his inattention. However, instead of his conscience bothering him, which it only does mildly, the car itself acts as his conscience--pestering him repeatedly until he gives up and turns himself in days later. In some ways, seeing the car follow him about town and honk to annoy him is a bit humorous, but as the death of a child (the victim later dies) is NOT a funny subject, the humor feels uncomfortable. In addition, the whole style and idea of the car with a mind of its own is pretty dopey and you can tell by this point in the series the writers were getting low on ideas. Silly and trivial--and nothing more and the less said about this particular show the better.

Too bad the show wasn't a bit more like the Stephen King novel "Christine"! THAT would have been a lot more interesting!