The Changing Heart story
Dane Rosse falls in love with Lisa Klemm, granddaughter of clockmaker Ulrich Klemm. Ulrich is highly protective of Lisa and refuses to let the pair marry. Dane leaves town heartbroken, and learns through a friend that Lisa has fallen seriously ill. When Dane returns, Ulrich has died of exhaustion from his work of "saving" Lisa by turning her into a clockwork automaton. Directed by: Robert Florey. Story by: Robert Bloch.
12 total · 6 major · 6 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| choosing between love and family | major | Lisa was torn between her beloved grandfather, Ulrich, and her lover, Dane. |
| coping with a loved one being gravely ill | major | Ulrich worked himself to death in order to "save" his gravely ill granddaughter's life. This he arguably achieved by transforming her into an evidently mindless, clockwork automaton. |
| coping with an overprotective guardian | major | Ulrich was pathologically protective of his beloved granddaughter, Lisa, and refused to let her move away to Seattle with her lover, Dane. |
| grandfather and granddaughter | major | The story concerns Ulrich's refusal to let his beloved granddaughter, Lisa, take Dane's hand in marriage and its aftermath. |
| human occupational activity | major | Ulrich was a clockmaker by trade. Much of the story is set in his shop, where he was shown working his craft. |
| tragic love | major | Dane and Lisa fell passionately in love, but things tended in a tragic direction when her grandfather refused to let her move away with Dane to Seattle. If that weren't enough, the story concluded with Dane discovering that Lisa had been turned into a clockwork automaton. |
| advertising in society | minor | In his sketch, Alfred Hitchcock complained about deceitful adds about flats for rent. |
| cyborg | minor | While the details are very much left out, it is clear that at least some of Lisa's internals had been replaced with clockwork and that she was not dead, in the end. |
| fall from grace | minor | Ulrich had once been an honored clockmaker from around all the capitals of the Old Continent. He lamented that, now, he was a lowly clock repairer on the New. |
| familial love | minor | Ulrich spoke of his love for his beloved granddaughter, Lisa. |