Total Loss story
When Jan Manning hits financial problems with her dress shop, her friend Mel Reeves offers to set the shop on fire so that she can collect the insurance. After the shop burns down, Jan confesses to the insurance investigator about the plan with her friend. However, the investigator has found that the fire source was Jan's overheated kettle. Jan realizes that it truly was an accident, but the investigator does not believe her. Directed by: Don Taylor. Story by: J.E. Selby.
11 total · 5 major · 6 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| arson | major | Jan planned arson with her friend, and was later explicitly accused of having done it herself. |
| facing the demise of a personal enterprise | major | Jan was struggling to run her dress shop in the face of declining sales. |
| insurance fraud | major | Jan let Mel convince her to have her unprofitable shop torched in order to collect insurance. |
| ironic twist of fate | major | Troubled by her conscience, Jan confessed to having planned the fire. Through an ironic twist of fate, however, the fire had been a bona fide accident, we learn, but now the insurance man did not believe her. |
| wrestling with one's conscience | major | Jan had qualms about whether to commit insurance fraud or not. |
| boss and employee | minor | Jan warned her assistant Evelyn that the bank might not give the increase on the loan Jan needed to keep the dress shop running. |
| friendship | minor | Jan and Mel are described as friends. |
| human vs. captivity | minor | In the epilogue, Alfred Hitchcock escaped from a steam cabinet that a certain unnamed party had evidently trapped him inside. |
| remorse | minor | Jan expressed deep regret over her perceived role in the dress shop fire that resulted in her employee suffering third degree burns. |
| sister and sister | minor | Jan's sister picked up Jan from the dress shop. |