There’s also one other change, a big one – the villain is no longer Asian. ![]() In George Abbott’s 1931 remake, the $10,000 that she loses is from the Milk Fund. In De Mille’s film, the money that Edith squanders is from the Red Cross, of which she is treasurer. The performances, not that they really matter, are broad, although Hayakawa is such a riveting, commanding presence that it’s easy to see how this film triggered his lengthy movie career. The filmmaker clearly worked in close collaboration with cinematographer Alvin Wyckoff, using low-keyed, shadowy chiaroscuro effects and silhouettes (of the actors posed behind rice-paper) to create the mood that drives the plot. “The Cheat” of 1915 fairly bristles with realism and modern aesthetics. De Mille takes full advantage of the change and does auspicious work here. Studios, which had used sets with glass ceilings up to that point to achieve natural lighting, began to move towards artificial lighting which could be more easily controlled for desired effects. ![]() Paramount took so much heat because of the villain’s Japanese nationality that Hayakawa's character was changed to a Burmese for the film’s re-release three years later.ĭe Mille was also under attack, not surprisingly, for daring to depict a sexual affair between a Caucasian woman and an Asian man and for using the "branding" of Edith in the film as a metaphor for rape – a clear violation.īut, lurid storytelling notwithstanding, it’s the lighting distinguishes that De Mille’s movie (followed closely by Wilfred Buckland' painterly, miminalist art direction). De Mille – starring Fannie Ward (in her first film) as Edith, Jack Dean as her husband and Sessue Hayakawa, in his breakthrough role as Hirshuru Tori, the Japanese businessman who entraps Edith. The most celebrated of the two versions of "The Cheat" is the silent film made in 1915 by Cecil B. When she shoots her evil benefactor, her husband assumes the blame. Before long, she is his sex slave and “property,” literally branded as such. Stahl and Douglas Sirk each reinvented their own version of Fanny Hurst’s “Imitation of Life.” Edith Hardy/Elsa Carlyle takes charity funds for which she is responsible and promptly gambles the money away, putting herself at the mercy of a sadistic man who will lend her the sum – but for a price. ![]() The story is the kind that can be easily personalized by a filmmaker, in much the same way that John M. Doubling the fun is the fact that the material has been filmed twice and yet, despite being rather ubiquitous, it remains something of a secret among cineastes. “The Cheat” has it all – sex, sadism, inflammatory racial issues and a socialite wife - a compulsive gambler and all-around handful known alternaltey as Edith Hardy and Elsa Carlyle.
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