Beyond the Sea of Death story
An heiress ends her marriage to a fortune hunter. Directed by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: Miriam Allen DeFord (short story), William D. Gordon and Alfred Hayes (teleplay).
19 total · 2 choice · 9 major · 8 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| con artistry | choice | Keith and Dr. Shankara, a mystic, tried to swindle the heiress Grace out of her fortune. Keith seduced and married Grace by convincing her he was not after her fortune and that they would move to Bolivia together. Then he faked his own death. In despair, she almost gave her entire fortune to the mystic so that she could have a few supernatural moments with Keith's ghost. |
| coping with the death of a spouse | choice | A theme alluded to in the title: Grace was devastated after her beloved fiancé Keith apparently died in a mining accident. She descended into madness and ended up shooting her loyal servant dead rather than face the truth that her Keith was a conman. |
| betrayal | major | The story culminated with the heiress Grace realizing that the love of her life, Keith, was nothing but a fortune hunter who'd been conning her all along. |
| engaged couple | major | Grace and Keith became engaged following a short courtship. |
| fear of commitment | major | Grace was afraid of entering into relationships because she had been screwed over by her ex-husband. Therefore she went through pains to masquerade as a poor girl even though she was immensely rich. |
| greed for riches | major | It turned out that Keith was a conman who was only interested in the heiress Grace for her vast fortune. He had a convoluted plot to convince her that he was not a gold digger, then have his partner scam her out of her fortune by taking advantage of her grief. Grace's ex-husband, her chauffeur, had proven himself to be a gold digger, Grace explained. Divorcing him had cost $100,000. |
| ignorance is bliss | major | The story pointedly culminates with Grace shooting her trusted servant dead, Minnie, for shattering her illusion about the fidelity of her husband's love. Minnie had gone and done some investigation to uncover the elaborate con that Keith had perpetrated. Had she left things well enough alone, Grace would have lost all her money, but lived in blissful ignorance that the love of her life was nothing but a money grubbing conman. |
| master and servant | major | The elderly servant woman Minnie was like a mother to the heiress Grace. Grace briefly interacted with her butler, Charles. |
| romantic love | major | The heiress Grace found the love of her life in Keith, but was devastated when confronted with the inconvenient truth that he was nothing but a fortune hunting conman. |
| séance | major | Grace turned to Dr. Shankara, a mystic, in an effort to contact her apparently deceased fiancé Keith from beyond the grave. |