The cure for gambling debts is probably not going to be more gambling but Tallulah Bankhead just doesn't learn in 1931's The Cheat. It's not much of a story but it's enough of an excuse to admire Bankhead's charms.
She plays Elsa, a woman happily married to the moderately wealthy Jeffrey (Harvey Stephens). He cautions her not to spend so much, at least not until he makes the fortune he's sure is coming from his stock trading.
Alas, she goes right ahead and loses five thousand dollars gambling and then tries to cut cards with the house, going double or nothing, and loses another five thousand, having to write an IOU for the total ten grand. And it gets worse from there.
Predatory world traveller Hardy Livingston (Irving Pichel) smells blood and decides he can buy Elsa's body. Is he wrong?
This is a pre-code film (it's included in a Pre-Code Divas playlist on Criterion this month) but there's not too much of the salacious in it. Livingston does something to Elsa late in the film that would certainly raise the hackles of the censors.
Watching movies from the late '20s, early '30s, and the '70s makes one aware of how much women's clothing to-day has breast padding. I've always liked large breasts but there's something to be said for variety and there's no arguing Tallulah Bankhead cuts an elegant figure.
The Cheat is available on The Criterion Channel.
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