14. The Whole Truth

The dealership of glib used-car salesman Harvey Hunnicut is visited by a mild-mannered elderly gentleman who offers to sell his vintage Ford Model A car for a very low price. Though curious, Harvey accepts it, and only after the paperwork is signed and the ownership transferred does the older man admit that the antique Ford is haunted. Laughing this off, Hunnicut accepts the car, intending to quickly unload it.

To his dismay, he realizes that he is no longer able to lie. 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, which is what he always does when he tells her he is "doing inventory". 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 out Harvey and quits.

Hunnicut concludes that his livelihood depends on his ability to rid himself of this supernatural burden. He's visited by Honest Luther Grimbley, a politician running for reelection, who shows interest in the haunted car despite its flaws. He nearly buys it, but Harvey is compelled to tell him about the car's curse, and Grimbley openly admits that he'd lose his job if he couldn't lie. When Harvey's brutally honest answer about the rest of the cars on the lot convinces Grimbley that the curse is real, he suggests selling the car to someone else who made a living on lies, showing him 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, 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By being absolutely half-truthful, he sells the car as a potential anti-American propaganda tool, exemplifying shoddy, outdated U.S. automobile workmanship.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 because 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. Hunnicut telephones Washington, asking if he could possibly get in touch with " Jack Kennedy ".