This classic film is a ‘talkie’ remake of a silent film of the same title. Elsa Carlyle (Tallulah Bankhead) is a young, impulsive woman married to an up-and-coming businessman, Jeffery Carlyle (Harvey Stephens). At the beginning of the film, she quickly accrues a large gambling debt. She refuses to tell her husband and seeks a covert way to settle the debt. At this moment, Hardy Livingston (Irving Pichel), takes an interest in the married woman, showing her his expansive mansion and unique collection of Japanese artifacts in an attempt to impress her.
Elsa makes several more impulsive decisions in the attempt to avoid scandal when Jeffery informs her of their financial instability, which drives her to steal money from a charity function and accept what she naively believes to be a loan from Livingston. The climax builds once when Livingston calls on Emma to ‘collect’ on the loan, then again in the court case which ensues.
From beginning to end it is clear this is an early Paramount film. The dolly shots, soft cuts, and often subdued dialogue should be familiar to fans of early Hollywood. It’s interesting how often shots feel like a silent film. It’s also interesting watching this as a sort of cultural time capsule. The focus on the upper class and the general obsession with Asian cultures feels somewhat bizarre and familiar. So much has changed about our culture since the 1930s, but an uncomfortable amount remains surprisingly similar. With modern-day obsessions around anime and K-pop, the orientalism on display in The Cheat seems barely dated.
What surprised me most about this film is the label ‘scandalous’ which is so often applied to it. Though times have changed and so has our understanding of scandal, the obvious moral nature of the story is quite clear: Gambling, lying, lust, and greed create the majority of the conflict in the film, and in the end, the key player swears to never again engage in such vice. So while the story itself is rife with various high-society scandals, the main lessons it bestows are highly moral (and highly dated) statements about a woman’s place within her marriage and household. All told, this classic film is recommended for anyone looking to expand their classic film collection.