The Cheat

For 1915, this wasn't too shabby, though it's certainly not subtle and borders on the melodramatic with a racially insensitive edge. A different title might have been 'Materialistic Harlots and the Dirty Foreigners That Desire Them'.

It's a very well made and entertaining film. A strongly paced story, good score, and, for its time, pretty good acting. The biggest problem with it is that absolutely no one here is sympathetic, which makes the ending anticlimactic and somewhat insulting.

So, she's the cheat, right? What's the moral of the story? That all is forgiven if you shoot a Burmese Ivory King? It's historically interesting for jumpstarting Sessue Hayakawa's fame. Fav scene: seeing his body slide down on the other side of the paper wall partition and leaving a blood trail.

This early piece from Cecil B. DeMille is a straightforward and predictable drama about infidelity, competently made but often tedious and dry, with only a couple of scenes offering anything approaching excitement. While it's satisfying to see an Asian actor in a lead role so early in Hollywood, the character unsurprisingly turns out to be a devious, concupiscent reprobate.

The plot's a pure melodrama whose main interest is just how surprisingly lurid it gets as things go on, but the pacing is refreshingly brisk for the period. Also, the extensive use of expressive lighting really does make the direction stand out. All in all, it's an amusingly frantic attempt at cheap sensationalism, building a constant crescendo of (rather poorly acted) hysteria.

I dug this for what it was. I found the use of different tinting (plain B&W, yellow tinting, and blue tinting) really interesting and effective, I thought the acting was pretty impressive, and overall thought the story was handled very well without losing too much to age. At the very least, it's a very interesting look at a unique silent film, that deserves a watch from anybody with an interest in film history and who isn't too wary of films as old as this one is.

Melodramatic Demille film with a good performance by Hayakawa as the villain, though the character itself is leaning into anti Asian racism quite a bit. Not a terrible film, but I was glad it wasn't longer.

DeMille's best film.

a very tedious movie.

There are few movies made prior to '20 that are worth watching, and this is not one of them.

It's pretty silly and racist, especially the morally questionable ending is both. The acting isn't very convincing either. Still, it's oddly interesting and atmospheric at times, containing a couple of pretty good moments.

60

Ah! The branding scene....

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