The Twilight Zone - Kick the Can

I know I might be considered a fuddy-duddy like Old Ben but I can’t really ultimately buy what “Kick the Can” is selling because that screaming in the mind regarding the question of “what do these kids do once the playing is done and they need parents to look after them?!?!” I get the point, though: do the elderly dumped by their kids at the old folks’ home accept the death sentence of aging or see if the magic of kick the can will return them to the glories of youth? Charlie (Ernest Truex) is initially shown as all excited, suitcase in hand, as he heads out to his grown son’s car, ready to leave Sunnyvale Rest. But his son just doesn’t have the accommodations for his father, simply unable to rescue Charlie from the “death face” of the retirement home. As local kids play kick the can, running about full of energy and vitality, Charlie sees them, reminded of the magic of youth. He wants that back and proposes to his fellow residents of Sunnyvale that they should attempt a night game of kick the can when the supervisor (John Marley) and nurse’s attentions are diverted (a firecracker doing the trick). Charlie attempts to convince buddy, Ben (Russell Collins, perfectly curmudgeon), to join them but he remains grounded in reality instead of embracing the fancy of the idea. Through the magic of the Twilight Zone, Ben’s colleagues all are rewarded while he is left behind to remain in his ancient body. The inability to accept old age and that desire to get back the youth long lost with the TZ spin that allows those abandoned by their adult children to return to their childhood might appeal to many who would love to experience that. Imprisoned in the carcasses of “old age”, why must Charlie and the gang just await their demise and not try and see if the magic of youth awaits them? It’s a novel concept for fantasy and Twilight Zone gives life to that. Spielberg took this and added extra layers of schmaltz with his segment in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), complete with Scatman Crothers (“The Shining”) going from retirement home to retirement home “bringing the magic”, including a heavily sentimental (but I admit it is lovely and melodic) score from Jerry Goldsmith.

Truex is a model example of the old timer who just won’t accept the gloom of the twilight, not desiring to be bound to the shackles of the geriatric cell. Ben is right the opposite as he accepts that his time as a youngster was over and that death’s imminence was just a part of the life cycle that most eventually face (unless deprived of a longer life by fate or tragedy). So when Ben realizes Charlie found that magic through a game of kick the can and failed to believe in its possibility, there’s a sense of loss. Ben didn’t believe, Charlie did, and while youth returned to most of the residents one among them got left behind. Ben will grieve as a young Charlie runs off into the night as he returns to his bed, still old and facing the aches of pains of his elderly condition.