The Big Tall Wish

This episode is so underrated that, if you saw the episode listing without the accompanying still photo, would you even remember it? I know I certainly didn't, but as a new member - (Nov 2019), I'm keen to build up my repertoire of Reviews, whilst trying to clear the clutter of my collection of DVDs.

This is not one of my favourite episodes, but I like the story, because it highlights how much more 'attuned' children are to their 'gifts' - the gift to believe in impossible dreams.

As adults, we see the mathematical equation of logic, but children see that magical white light of brilliance, shining down on you. Not all children will see that in you, perhaps because they have different 'gifts', but Henry saw it in Bolie Jonson & had the biggest & tallest 'Best Wish' for his idol.

Boxing is a game that apparently develops philosophers in this Twilight Zone story. Ivan Dixon is an over the hill prize fighter now picking up the losing end of most purses as a trial horse for the up and comers which he was at one time.

Living at his apartment building are Kim Hamilton and her son Steven Perry and the kid still has a beautiful unsophistication about him. Just believe in magic and when he does, a down and out Dixon in his fight has some strange things happen.

This was one unusual drama for any anthology series let alone the Twilight Zone. Most did not have a majority black cast, but Rod Serling made it happen for his show. The only white member of the cast is Walter Burke playing Dixon's corner man.

The best part of the show which is charming and that's usually not a word associated with the Twilight Zone are the scenes with Dixon and young Perry.

I could almost hear Cliff Edwards as Jiminy Cricket singing When You Wish Upon A Star in the background. But ya gotta believe.

This "Twilight Zone" episode from season one number 27 aired in 1960 called "The Big Tall Wish" a boxing themed one is one that's touching, heartfelt and sentimental. It involves a big tall and aging past his prime boxer named Bolie Jackson who's left with a dirty money hungry manager and a bum hand. Yet he finds support and hope from his inner city neighbor a little six year old boy who makes a wish to help him win. Will Jackson believe it and take it does he have faith? Really this episode is a take and twisted spin on the themes of dreams, hope, love, and belief. Overall pretty well done one for 1960's first season.

A boxer finds himself magically winning a fight he actually lost. It is due to the wishes of small boy who admires him. This allows him to move on to a more important fight. This is about the idea of faith and hope. As the episode goes along that faith and hope disintegrates. The boy becomes a victim. The issue that is more important is the color blindness of Rod Serling. I would imagine a cast featuring two African Americans would have been extremely bold at this time. I wonder how Joe Six Pack would have received this, even if he were a fan of the Twilight Zone. The acting is good and it was good to see the late Ivan Dixon (Hogan's Heroes) doing quite an outstanding acting job. It makes you wonder how many wonderful actors were locked out of the industry. Serling was a visionary.

It took me more than thirty years to catch this classic TWILIGHT ZONE episode, and it was worth it! THE BIG TALL WISH is one of the most poignant, realistic, and mature episodes in the entire series. Rod Serling had written boxing stories before, and would again, but in many ways this story of a washed up black heavyweight and his biggest fan is the most mature and complex.

Several reviewers have commented that it was ground-breaking for the time to tell a story about a black man and boy without making race and racial prejudice the central issue of the story. That is certainly true. But if you look closely, there is a theme in "The Big Tall Wish" that reflects on the early Civil Rights Movement and the conflicts within the black community.

The young black boy, Henry, believes that magic can change reality as long as people believe. Bolie Jackson believes there are no miracles and that life can never change for the better. If you read Martin Luther King's book WHY WE CAN'T WAIT he describes this very conflict at great length. While adults and seniors in the black community were initially cautious and pessimistic about the early sit-ins and boycotts, it was the young people and especially the children who were most eager to risk everything to make a change. Dr. King talks in his book about the old pessimism of Booker T. Washington giving way to the new dream of an integrated society.

Now listen to the feverish back and forth between Henry and Bolie and you can almost hear black America's anguished dialog with itself. After so many centuries of horror and heartbreak, the very idea of wishing for a better future seems like a sick joke, and surely an agonizing "gut ache" will result. But the alternative is death itself, man's final defeat in the ring. The "big tall wish" that Henry believes in is actually the very same "dream" that Martin Luther King was to express just a year or two after this television episode was broadcast.

A couple of technical notes: if you compare this early Season One episode to a Season Five boxing episode like "Steel" you can really see the way the show's budget was gutted as ratings began to fade. You can also see the way the TWILIGHT ZONE writers began to parody themselves. Granted that "Steel" is a fine episode in its own right, (thanks largely to an explosive performance by Lee Marvin and solid support by Joe Mantell) but the series decline is very much in evidence.

One wonders why an episode like "The Big Tall Wish" was never included in the TWILIGHT ZONE FAN FAVORITES collections now on sale at big box stores like TARGET. There's no reason devoted fans should have to sit through dreck like "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" when masterpieces like this are relegated to that modern day Twilight Zone known as YouTube!