Description: Season 3, Episode 18
Air Date: January 19, 1962
Plot Summary: After a gangster is killed his spirit lives on through whomever wears his shoes.
Review: I think they had a good idea for this episode, but it felt empty in it's lack of resolution; it was like witnessing the second act of a film or something. The story begins by showing fellow gangsters dumping the body of one of their former associates. A homeless man sees this act and decides he doesn't want the dead gangster's shoes to go to waste. Upon wearing the shoes, however, the homeless man becomes possessed by the gangster, named Dane. I did like how Dane, possessing the homeless man, was such a cocky bastard running around acting tough. Eventually he goes back to his apartment, cleans himself up, and pushes around his girlfriend a bit. Dane then seeks out the gangsters who killed him in order to enact his revenge. Thinking he got the upper hand on his former associates, Dane is killed again (or the homeless man unfortunately takes the bullet), but he vows to come back once more. Shortly after dumping the homeless man's body, another homeless guy takes the shoes as Dane will be able to possess another person in order to get his revenge. And that's all that happens. Eh...things are presented interestingly enough, but there's no resolution or any explanations. There are a few amusing moments, but the overall experience is severely lacking.
Very interesting episode. I liked the whole "tequila, with a lump of sugar" bit. Since the homeless guy occupied by Dane's soul, mind does such a good convincing job as the deseaced gangster, I find it hard to believe that the real Dane could've been any more convincing. But since he's dead from the first moment of the episode, there's no way of knowing, and I don't even know what he looked like since they only showed us his legs and his shoes lying in the alley. He also does a very convincing job of immediately switching from the homeless man's personal and attitude to Dane's the second he puts those shoes back on. In his wife's apartment, he goes from timid and stuttering to tough and confident in a heartbeat very convincingly when the wife puts a gun on him. His job is so convincing that when he kisses his wife, she for a moment forgets what's going on and thinks it's really Dane kissing her. I also like the revenge scene when "Dane" finds his partner, who apparently was the one who killed him. He alarms his partner's attention when he orders aloud the tequila with a lump of sugar, and really baffles him when explaining the details of his murder when they go back to the private room. "Dane" is still one step short since he is killed "again", apparently in the same spot, probably in close to the same way, and his body is dumped into the alley the same way too. I also liked the scene with "Dane" and the homeless man's hobo friends.
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