The Cheat

The Cheat (1931)

The plot here is wonderfully bizarre and brazen, an early pre-Code film that still has a few creaks and cracks in its production standards. And the leading woman—the "cheat" I suppose—is the wonderful Tallulah Bankhead, who is worth it alone.

Everything is pretty well contained here to keep the filming manageable, so there are lots of interior scenes that look and feel like sets, well lit and straight forward. And there are parties and flirting and the suggestion of impropriety left and right. Most of all there is that weird wealth that a few people had in the Depression as the rest of the country is sliding into ruins.

So Elsa (Bankhead) is a profligate partier and gambler, and her husband is a good guy who works too much. That leads, of course, to her finding amusement where she can. And does. But this gets her into money trouble, first, and then into a pact for sex that she doesn't quite realize she will have to follow through on.

A theme in the background, almost pasted on but with a certain amount of intrigue, is a Chinese them. One of the characters is wealthy enough and eccentric enough to live with Chinese decorations and customs. (This is not uncommon—see the bizarre Edward G. Robinson 1932 film "The Hatchet Man" and think also of the mahjong craze of the 1920s.)

Mostly this is about a woman's honor, and her realizing that her craziness has put her in an awful situation. When it comes to a dramatic climax, there is still a final courtroom scene that is pretty wild and fun. Check it all out. It's not a classic, but it's just odd enough and Bankhead just good enough to justify a close look.

Tallulah Bankhead was 29 when she made "The Cheat," in 1931, and she came to film after a successful theatrical career. Thirteen years later, she made Lifeboat and looked as if she had aged 30 years in 13.

Bankhead plays Elsa, the adored wife of Jeffrey (Harvey Stephens). She's a compulsive gambler and winds up owing $10,000 (the equivalent of $140,000 in today's money). A man who is obviously after her, Hardy Livingstone (Irving Pichel) gets her the money, but of course he wants payment -- the only kind of payment acceptable from a woman in precode! This is kind of a wild movie which could have been wilder with better casting. Tallulah's supporting cast just didn't cut it. To play the sadistic Livingstone, I would have preferred someone who had a little more bite to him, and Harvey Stephens is plain vanilla. Someone suggested Robert Montgomery for the husband and Charles Laughton for the lecher. I'm not sure she would have gone as far as she did with someone like Charles Laughton. Maybe Cyril Ritchard? Warren William? Tallulah's acting and glamor makes the film interesting to watch, and you'll love the Chinese costume Livingstone gives her to wear for a benefit.

This film was directed by the great Broadway director, George Abbott, who died in 1995 at the age of 107. He's the reason, I think, that this film moves so well, unlike many films of this era where people tend to talk more slowly and the action seems to drag as people get used to sound.

In this movie Tallulah Bankhead falls into the clutches of a lecherous man - honest, you can watch it yourself if think I'm fooling. But, of course, this was a movie. In real life, if we are to believe tradition and gossip, Tallulah would have eaten this stiff for lunch and not missed a round of drinks.

Anyway, she may have been lucky in love but in this picture she was unlucky at cards and ran up a huge gambling debt. The stiff in question, played by Irving Pichel in a sinister turn, offers to bankroll her - and you can guess the price of his largesse. Harvey Stephens plays her trusting doofus husband who buys any excuse she gives him.

"The Cheat" is an interesting melodrama which becomes less so toward the end. It's OK, but the best part is that it gives you a chance to see TB in a starring role and judge her talent for acting for yourself. She gives it her considerable best and chews the scenery at the appropriate intervals. Since she was primarily a stage actress she didn't make that many movies to judge, so watch it if you get a chance.

This is brilliant! If you love a crazy melodramatic story with larger than life characters and larger than life Tallulah Bankhead, then this is for you. It's everything you could want from a pre-code movie.

This is one of those pictures where you know exactly what's going to happen but actually revel in anticipation of what you know is going to be fabulous fun. Its plot has laser guided focus, its characters are instantly recognisable; it's a brilliantly written, brilliantly acted melodrama. This is one of those films where the clichéd characters and its inevitable corollary add to your enjoyment but even though you know what's happening next, it still has more than enough tension to keep you on the edge of your seat.

Some have criticised this for being too theatrical. Well director George Abbott was a top Broadway man and obviously the theatre was Miss Bankhead's natural home so this does have a theatrical feel. Often that criticism means stagnant, stagey and talky - but not in this case. This is 100% movie with beautiful photography and perfectly fluid transitions from scene to scene which escalate at a perfect pace to one of the most exciting denouements imaginable. This is how to make drama. This is how to make a film. This is how to make entertainment.

What makes this so fabulous is its star: the amazing Tallulah Bankhead. She's in every scene and you can't tear your eyes away from her for a single second and want to savour every single word she speaks. Her screen presence is utterly captivating. She's not pretty-pretty like Loretta Young or cute-pretty like Joan Blondell. No, she's pure, grown-up sex on legs. In real life she was apparently ten times more sexually voracious than the Tallulah we see in this. The real Tallulah would have laughed off the scandal she tries to avoid in this story so in some respect, her screen persona is a diluted version of herself. Even so, she absolutely sizzles with sex. It's an amazing performance in an amazing film.

Not Tallulah's best film however - that's DEVIL AND THE DEEP....even brillianter!

The Cheat (TC) is a very melodramatic story that touches on such themes as foolish behavior of the idle rich, duplicity, revenge and ultimate redemption. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, TC's creators must have been overwhelmed by all the attention it received over the years. This1931 version of TC is the third of four, and the first one from the sound era. The initial TC was made by Cecil B. DeMille in 1915, and featured Fannie Ward, Jack Dean and a young Sessue Hayakawa as the intimidating Oriental villain. A second silent version (now lost) followed in 1923. It was directed by George Fitzmaurice and starred Pola Negri, Jack Holt and Charles de Rochefort as the now Caucasian "heavy." The third version (here under discussion)was directed by Broadway legend George Abbott, and teamed Tallaluh Bankhead with Harvey Stephens and Irving Pichel as the menacing money lender. The fourth and final chapter in the TC saga was made in France during 1937 by director Marcel L'Herbier. It starred Victor Francen, Lisa Delamare and Sessue Hayakawa---who reprised his role from the 1915 version. All four editions of TC more or less follow the basic outline of the plot summarized by previous reviewers. One is left to wonder what there was in this rather turgid tale that motivated interest in its continuing recreation over a period of some 22 years---but there it is! Perhaps if DeMille himself had remade TC with sound (as he did with The Ten Commandments), he might have found something more novel or interesting in the story than was demonstrated in its three subsequent do overs, but that was not meant to be. Some artistic endeavors just do not get better with repetition.

TC (1931) is significant today mainly because it featured Tallulah Bankhead in one of her early sound films. Then just 28 years of age and at the height of her youthful beauty, Bankhead had returned to the USA from a long and successful sojourn to England---where she had become the toast of the London stage. Paramount Studio then offered her a contract for five films at fifty thousand dollars each--and she seized the opportunity. This was during the Depression! Paramount planned to groom her as another Marlene Dietrich and to be America's newest sex symbol. The extravagant publicity that Bankhead's celebrity in England generated certainly made such expectations seem perfectly reasonable. However, her first film for Paramount (Tarnished Lady) was unsuccessful, as were the next two that followed (My Sin and TC)---both directed by George Abbott. Perhaps this result was due to the fact that these films seemed more tailored to suit Dietrich's image rather than Bankhead's. Nobody disputed the fact that Bankhead was considered to be a brilliant actress in her own right, and deserved the right to play roles that would better capture the unquestioned magic she previously demonstrated on the London stage. But this filmmaking phase of her career--lasting around a year and a half---ended unsatisfactorily. She completed her contractual obligations with Paramount, and finding movie making and Hollywood both unattractive, Bankhead headed for New York and opportunities on the Broadway stage.

While TC is not a great film and Bankhead's work in it is not particularly memorable, there is no dispute that her performance is both interesting and entertaining. We are left to ponder just what might have happened to this talented and charismatic young actress if she had been handled more creatively and appropriately at this point in her career. Unfortunately, we will never know.