The Dividing Wall story
A break-in gang gets exposed to a radioactive capsule. Directed by: Bernard Girard. Story by: Joel Murcott (teleplay).
17 total · 8 major · 9 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| betrayal | major | Fred betrayed his two partners in crime, Terry and Al, each in turn because his respective weakness threatened to give the game away to the police. |
| burglary | major | The ex-convict Fred Kruger masterminded a daring burglary of an industrial warehouse. Little did he and his two accomplices know that the purloined safe contained a sample of radioactive cobalt-60 in addition to the cash they coveted. |
| claustrophobia | major | Terry struggled with his fear of being in confined spaces, which stemmed from the time he spent in solitary confinement at the penitentiary. |
| compassion | major | Terry almost gave the game away to the police because he was so concerned both for his love interest, Carol, and for other innocent bystanders (in particular a group of children that would be passing nearby) who risked being exposed to deadly radiation. |
| coping with radiation sickness | major | Al freaked out and went to the hospital after sticking his finger into a highly radioactive cobalt container. Carol and her father, Otto, felt under the weather because of radiation from the cobalt-60, which, unbeknownst to them, sit exposed in the building next door. Carol's pet bird died from the cobalt-60 radiation. There were lots of concerns about the effects the radiation would have on the local community. |
| law enforcement | major | The FBI and local authorities were on the tail of Fred and his accomplices. |
| romantic love | major | Terry and Carol's burgeoning love ended badly when Terry was apprehended by the authorities on a very serious charge. |
| the dangers of radioactivity | major | The plot turns on a trio of ex-cons opening a container of radioactive cobalt that they'd inadvertently stolen. The radiation from the exposed cobalt posed a danger to the local community. |
| collecting objects | minor | In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock, sitting in a bank vault surrounded by bags of money with dollar signs on them, announced his new hobby to the viewers: coin collecting. |
| divorce | minor | Carol ashamedly told her new love interest Terry that she was a divorcee. |