1915 / 59m - USA
Drama, Romance
1.0*/5.0*
The Cheat poster

Watches

February 10, 2021

1.0*/5.0*

Early DeMille that fails to impress. I've said it before, but silent cinema doesn't work that well for straight drama/crime narratives. Unsubtle performances make it hard to care for the characters, while awkward alternations between scenes and intertitles slow the whole thing down unnecessarily.

Edith is a cheeky woman. She steals money from a charity in invest it in the stock market. What looked like a good deal turns out to be a disaster and Edith loses all her money. In order to pay back the charity she relies on the help of an Asian businessman. He is willing to aid Edith, but wants more than just money from her.

It's a pretty simple story that goes from A to B without too many surprises. Performances are well over-the-top, the cinematography is rather bland and characters are flimsy. In its time it might've been an interesting film, considering all the limitations directors had back then, but films like these just didn't age well at all. It's only an hour long, but it felt much longer.