The Day of the Storm

Director Helmut Förnbacher. First broadcasted 30.10.1993. Cast: Sophie von Kessel, Michael Lesch, Horst-Günter Marx, Rolf Hoppe, Louise Martini, Karl Merkatz and others.

Rebecca Bayliss has been forced to early independence by her mother's lifestyle and countless affairs. When she learns that her mother is terminally ill with leukeamia she flies to Ibiza to be at her bedside. After the death of her mother, Rebecca goes to Cornwall to search for her grandfather, a well-known painter she has never met. Back in Cornwall she runs into Joss Gardiner, a casual acquaintance from London, whose teasing she finds annoying.

Finally, she meets her grandfather who is just recuperating from a heart attack in his large estate. He is a tough old man who has managed to alienate more than one of his children in his lifetime. He seems amused by his newly found high-spirited granddaughter, much to the dismay of cousin Elliott, a good-looking but spoiled man with high hopes of inheriting the estate. Elliott is charming to Rebecca and woos and dines her. But when he proposes to her, something keeps her from accepting. Elliott apparently cannot stand Joss Gardiner who seems to have old Greville Bayliss' sympathies. No one knows why.

The truth comes out on a stormy day: Joss is not the scoundrel Elliott painted him to be, he is the son of Greville. The bad guy is Elliott who has been in debt for a long time, putting the estate in danger. Once his ruthlessness has been uncovered, Elliott and his mother are forced to leave the estate. Rebecca stays with Joss and her grandfather, the two people she has learnt to love.