
Manslaughter / The Cheat (DVD) Kino Lorber Drama
Product information for Manslaughter / The Cheat (DVD) Kino Lorber Drama
In the silent era Cecil B. DeMille stood at the forefront of Hollywood directors a visual stylist who created fashionable fables of women caught in tempests of temptation. Accompanied by a lively score by the Alloy Orchestra Manslaughter stars Leatrice Joy as a pampered debutante who is forced to confront her irresponsible lifestyle when she causes the death of a traffic cop. To emphasize the debauchery of the Jazz Age elite DeMille interwove scenes of champagne-soaked parties and Roman orgies a device that served as a stern warning (while providing a titillating spectacle) to the wayward youth of America. Mixed messages also abound in the Cheat in which a society woman (Fannie Ward) allows a wealthy Burmese trader (Sessue Hayakawa) to settle a debt for her not realizing that in exchange he intends to brand her flesh as his own. Highly influential for it s dramatic low-key lighting and it s frank depiction of extra-marital intrigue the Cheat tapped into a vein of post-Victorian female masochism eroticism and Orientalism of the day exploring the taboo desire to be forcefully seduced and possessed by a man of another (as in Rudolph Valentino s Sheik films several years later).