The Cheaters

Dir. Paulette McDonagh

82 Minutes

Australia

1929

Starring: Marie Lorraine, Arthur Greenaway, John Faulkner, Josef Bambach

**1/2/*****

The Cheaters is more interesting in discussing its creation than considering its content. The sisters McDonagh—Isabel, Phyllis, and Paulette—made four feature films between 1926 and 1933 in Sydney, Australia (with the country jumping out immediately during the initial scan of the screenings), with Paulette directing and wiring, Phyllis as a producer, art director, and publicist, and Isabel acting under the name Marie Lorraine. The program included the four surviving minutes of their 1926 work Those Who Love before the entirety of the silent version of The Cheaters (which was given sound sequences in 1930 making it Australia’s first talking picture). The crux of the narrative hinges on a revenge plot by Richard Marsh against John Travers for the latter’s involvement in sending him to jail and holding him responsible for the death of his wife. Twenty years later, Marsh is the wealthy head of a large criminal gang, and he enlists his confidence woman daughter Paula to make a mark on Faulkner’s son. She, of course, falls in love with him and begins to question her endeavors.

The Cheaters has a rather mellow plot line considering its rather lengthy prologue detailing the Marsh/Travers conflict, and struggles with narrative momentum mainly by substituting verbose title cards and explanations over a strong visual representation. This is not to complain that there is “too much reading”, but rather lamenting a heavy amount of reliance on the written dialogue to get aspects of the plot twists in order. Tension became nearly non-existent with these breaks, and the more interesting themes are made explicit through the title cards rather than exploring them visually. The performances have a nice amount of melodramatic expression and gesture that is quite fun and exciting, and so it was a bit of a disappointment with the mechanics of the plot would kick in with the level of detail that McDonagh gave these moments.

January 14th, 2020