Bed of Roses story
A married man has a date with his girlfriend that turns nightmarish. Directed by: Philip Leacock. Story by: James Bridges.
16 total · 1 choice · 5 major · 10 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| murder | choice | The title is an allusion to the final burying place George and Mavis' victim. The story turns on George discovering the freshly murdered body of his mistress. A revelation of the story is that his seemingly oblivious wife, Mavis, perpetrated the crime. Mavis also shot Mr. Kirby dead to keep quiet George's sordid connection with the incident. |
| blackmail | major | The cab driver Mr. Kirby tried to blackmail George for $1000 a month in exchange for keeping quiet about having dropped off George at his mistress' home on the night of her murder. Instead, Mr. Kirby wound up shot dead and buried under a bed of roses. George's secretary pulled a similar stunt in the end with the implication that she'd share Mr. Kirby's fate. |
| extramarital affair | major | A revelation of the story is that Mavis murdered her husband George's mistress in cold blood because she didn't want to share him with another woman. |
| gardening | major | As alluded to in the title, George and Mavis did a little late night rose bush planting after they had to dispose of an inconvenient busybody. |
| husband and wife | major | The story follows George and Mavis Maxwell as they deal with the aftermath of George's mistress getting murdered. |
| what if I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit | major | Two blackmailers, first the taxi driver and then the secretary, more or less assumed that George had killed his mistress and tried to extort money from him based on that fact. At any rate, George knew the police had jumped to conclusions and were looking for him even though they were never actually able to confront him, so he anticipated the wrongful accusations that would soon have been levied against him. |
| embarrassment | minor | Mavis resorted to murder to keep news of husband's affair from reaching the public record. The revelation would have been a great embarrassment to her and her illustrious family, she explained to George. |
| father and daughter | minor | Mavis' father twice visited the house. |
| father-in-law and son-in-law | minor | Alva advised George (his son-in-law) to exercise discretion in matters of romantic infidelity, threatening repercussions should his daughter Mavis be hurt. George was at the dinner table together with his wife and in-laws. |
| greed for riches | minor | George did not much care for his seemingly dim-witted wife whom he had evidently married because she was his wealthy boss' daughter. |