THE CHEATERS
Australia, 1930, 80 minutes, Black and white.
Marie Lorraine, Arthur Greenaway.
Directed by Paulette Mc Donagh.
The Cheaters was the last silent film of the Mc Donagh Sisters (The Far Paradise, Two Minutes of Silence). The Mc Donagh Sisters were effective film-makers in the '20s and '30s, in this film focusing on a melodramatic and popular theme but giving it an eerie intensity with the arch criminal operating in Sydney. Some commentators have seen echoes of European, and Fritz Lang's German influence on the film.
While the film was completed in 1929, it had some talkie sequences added, including a song. However, these segments are missing from the extant print.
While the material is rather conventional, the film stands up as an interesting example of late '20s Australian film-making.
1. The work of the Mc Donough Sisters? Production, writing, direction? Their sensibility? Silent techniques? Achievement?
2. Transition work from silent to sound? The use of silent melodrama styles, drawing-room romance, crime action?
3. The popular style plot and melodrama? Resemblances to European crime dramas of the 20s? Adaptation to Australia? Content, style? Moralising?
4. The focus on Marsh and his embezzling? His being humiliated by Travers? The intensity of his humiliation, vengeance? The long prison years and his being consumed by hatred? His release? His being found as the mastermind of the criminal group in the city? The impact of the arch criminal? His plots, gang? Headquarters and secret passages etc.? Palatial home? His relationship to Paula, using her in crime? The build-up to the confrontation with Travers? The truth? The hatred between the two men? The complexity of Paula's falling in love with Lee? What had he achieved in vengeance?
5. Travers, big business, ruthlessness, lack of compassion for Marsh? The passing of the years? Business success? His adoption of Lee? The robberies? His being victimised by Marsh? The build-up to the confrontation?
6. Paula and her father, his participation in the robbery set-ups? Her skill? Falling in love with Lee? The holiday and her posing? Her robbing the house and being discovered by Lee? Expose?
7. Lee as romantic hero, relationship with his father, falling in love with Paula, the confrontation with Paula?
8. Marsh and the personalities in his gang? Their experience? The set piece of the woman posing as aristocracy, the set-up for getting the jewellery, the police?
9. Marsh and his relationship with the group? His hold over them?
10. The working out of justice, the intervention of the police?
11. The complexity of relationships, responsibilities, revealing of identities in father son and -daughter relationships?
12. The sombre style of the fates and human destiny, justice and vengeance?
