View source for The Cheat (1915 film)

{{Header| 10/25 The Cheat (1915 film)}}{{DEFAULTSORT:Cheat, The}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = The Cheat
| caption        = 
| image          = The_Cheat_FilmPoster.jpeg
| director       = [[Cecil B. DeMille]] (uncredited)
| producer       = Cecil B. DeMille<br>Jesse L. Lasky
| writer         = Hector Turnbull<br>Jeanie MacPherson
| starring       = Sessue Hayakawa<br>Fannie Ward<br>Jack Dean
| music          = Robert Israel (1994)
| cinematography = Alvin Wyckoff
| editing        = Cecil B. DeMille
| studio         = Jesse Lasky Feature Plays
| distributor    = [[Paramount Pictures]]
| released       = {{Film date|1915|12|13|initial release}}<br>{{Film date|1918|11|24|re-release}}
| runtime        = 59 minutes
| country        = United States
| language       = [[Silent film|Silent]]<br>English intertitles
| budget         = $17,311
| gross          = $96,389 (domestic)<br>$40,975 (foreign)
}}
'''''The Cheat''''' is a 1915 American silent drama film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Fannie Ward, Sessue Hayakawa, and Jack Dean, Ward's real-life husband.

== Plot ==
Edith Hardy is a spoiled society woman who keeps buying expensive clothes even when her husband, Richard, tells her all his money is invested in stock speculation and he can't pay her bills until the stock price rises. She even delays paying her maid her wages, and the embarrassed Richard has to do so. Edith is also the treasurer of the local Red Cross fund drive for Belgian refugees, which hosts a gala dance at the home of Hishuru Tori, a wealthy Japanese ivory merchant (or, in the 1918 re-release, Haka Arakau, a wealthy Burmese ivory merchant). He is an elegant and dangerously attractive man, whom Edith seems somewhat drawn to; he shows her his roomful of treasures and stamps one with a heated brand to show it belongs to him.

A society friend of the Hardys tells Edith that Richard's speculation won't be profitable and he knows a better one; he then offers to double her money in a day if she gives it to him to invest in the suggested enterprise. Edith, wanting to live lavishly and unwilling to wait for Richard to realize his speculation, takes the $10,000 the Red Cross has raised from her bedroom safe and gives it to the society friend.

The next day, however, her horrified friend tells her his tip was worthless and her money is completely lost. The Red Cross ladies have scheduled the handover of the money to the refugee fund for the following day. Edith goes to Tori/Arakau to beg for a loan of the money, and he agrees to write her a check in exchange for her sexual favors the next day. She reluctantly agrees, takes his check, and is able to give the money to the Red Cross. Then Richard announces happily that his investments have paid off and they are very rich. Edith asks him for $10,000, claiming it is for a bridge debt, and he writes her a check for that amount without any reproach.

She takes it to Tori/Arakau, but he says she cannot buy her way out of their bargain. When she struggles against his advances, he takes his heated brand, used to mark his possessions, and [[branding|brands]] her on the shoulder. During their struggle afterward, she finds a gun on the floor and shoots him. She runs away just as Richard, hearing the commotion, bursts into the house. He finds the check he wrote to his wife there. Tori/Arakau is only wounded in the shoulder, not killed; when his servants call the police, Richard claims he shot him, and Tori/Arakau does not dispute it.

Edith pleads with Tori/Arakau not to press charges, but he refuses to spare Richard. She visits Richard in his jail cell, confesses everything, and he orders her not to tell anyone else and to let him take the blame. At the crowded trial, both he and Tori/Arakau, his arm in a sling, testify that he was the shooter but refuse to explain why. The jury finds Richard guilty.

This is too much for Edith, and she rushes to the witness stand and shouts that she shot Tori/Arakau "and this is my defense." She bares her shoulder and shows everyone in the courtroom the brand on her shoulder. The male spectators are infuriated and rush to the front, clearly intending to lynch Tori/Arakau. The judge protects him and manages to hold them off. He then sets aside the verdict, and the prosecutor withdraws the charges. Richard lovingly and protectively leads the chastened Edith out of the courtroom.

== Cast ==
* Fannie Ward as Edith Hardy
* Sessue Hayakawa as Hishuru Tori (original release) / Haka Arakau (1918 re-release)
* Jack Dean as Richard Hardy
* James Neill as Jones
* Yutaka Abe as Tori's Valet
* Dana Ong as District Attorney
* Hazel Childers as Mrs. Reynolds
* Arthur H. Williams as Courtroom Judge (as Judge Arthur H. Williams)
* Raymond Hatton as Courtroom Spectator (uncredited)
* Dick La Reno as Courtroom Spectator (uncredited)
* Lucien Littlefield as Hardy's Secretary (uncredited)

== Remakes and adaptations ==
The film was remade in 1923, with George Fitzmaurice directing and Pola Negri and Jack Holt starring. In 1931, Paramount remade ''The Cheat'' again, with Broadway mogul George Abbott directing and [[Tallulah Bankhead]] starring.

''The Cheat'' was also remade in France as ''Forfaiture'' (1937), directed by Marcel L'Herbier. This version, however, makes significant changes to the original story, even though Hayakawa was cast once more as the sexually predatory Asian man.

An operatic adaptation of the story, La Forfaiture, with music by Camille Erlanger and a libretto by André de Lorde and Paul Milliet, premiered at the Opéra-Comique in 1921. The first opera to be based on a film scenario, it was not a success, playing only three times.

== External links ==
{{wr}}
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLW8U7aP5KA Youtube video] (Branding scene at 35:35

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