The Cheaters (1945)
Palette plays James Pigeon, an upper-class businessman confronting money troubles who's just learned a distant relative has passed away about a week before Christmas. Said relative has left his sizable estate to an actress who he doesn't even know (he was a friend of the girl's mother). If said actress isn't identified within a week, the fortune will instead go to James. In an attempt to ensure this occurs, the family schemes to track down the actress and invite her to stay with them under false pretenses, reasoning they'll be able to control what she learns.
Meanwhile, Mr. Marchand (played by Schildkraut) is a charity case and former actor who one of James's daughters has arranged to stay with them over the holidays in order to impress her fiancé. Marchand is something of a con artist, and he learns of the plan and worms his way into participating in exchange for a cut.
The actress, Ms. Watson (played by Ona Munson), is down-on-her-luck and jumps at the opportunity to spend Christmas with the wealthy Pigeons, despite secretly believing they're mistaken about her being a lost relative. So, you're left with her falsely thinking she's swindling them while they're actually attempting to swindle her with the assistance of Marchand, who's conning everyone.
All of that sounds like a blast, and had this been made a few years earlier or later, I suspect it would have been. But the film was made in 1945, and it very much feels like a product of its time: a snapshot of America reeling from the end of the war. That's not necessarily a flaw, but it does mean The Cheaters is a great deal less fun than its premise suggests, particularly as the third act kicks in.
By then the setting has shifted from the Pigeons' lavish mansion to a farmhouse they're "borrowing" under false pretenses. Marchand has reached a point where he's ashamed of his involvement, but he's unwilling to turn on the Pigeons directly due to... a sense of honor, I guess? Instead he sort of performs an impromptu one-man version of A Christmas Carol, which guilts them into revealing the truth themselves.
Ms. Watson isn't angry at all, and in a rushed epilogue decides to split the money with the Pigeons (Knives Out, this isn't) and starts a romantic relationship with Marchand. Neither choice is entirely out of left field, but it still comes off as awkward and unfulfilling. Similarly, while the movie was always mirroring aspects of Dickens, the decision to make the connection overt comes off as ham-fisted. But I'll have more to say on Dickens when I get to theme.
My guess is the end of the movie was heavily reworked just before or during production. Marchand's objectives and personality feel jumbled. The movie at times implies he's playing a long game, manipulating events from the start to transition the Pigeons into being better people - he's got an intriguing line at one point about never having played God that feels like setup from something the movie doesn't follow through on. Instead, the film treats his behavior at the end as a generic yuletide transformation.
Likewise, there's an abandoned subplot about detectives poking around that the movie sets up then drops, making me think the script was heavily altered at the last minute.
Thematically, the movie is certainly interesting. If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you'll have seen me explore the shift from Dickensian economic justice to nostalgia for pre-war innocence as the central driving theme in American Christmas media. This could almost be a textbook example of that change in action: in a real sense, both themes appear, though neither are fully developed.
The movie effectively calls out nostalgia directly: at several occasions Marchand invokes the idea in reference to the Pigeons decorating together. As is typical, this was tied to the rural, old-fashioned setting the movie shifts to. The idea that Christmas celebrations are somehow more pure in such a location seems to stem from this era, when soldiers were returning from overseas, nostalgic for the homes they left behind. And of course we still see that echoed in new holiday movies and shows to this day.
Where this deviates from the norm is in the fact the Pigeons aren't actually reenacting their own traditions but instead putting on a show. That performance eventually reveals more depth than had previously been apparent, of course - they were, after all, a family - but this is less a story of people recovering their own Christmas past than being transformed by Christmas into the sort of people capable of getting along and celebrating the "right" way.
But that brings us back to Dickens: this is also (almost) a story of rich, greedy people receiving a lesson on economic justice. Note the "almost" in that sentence - like a disappointingly large number of American takes on A Christmas Carol, this waters down the point of that text to align with politics deemed acceptable. Perhaps this is why The Cheaters manufacturers a narrative in which the upper class family needs financial help, as well, which they receive after placing their faith in a poor woman.
I don't want to be too harsh: while this didn't entirely work for me, I can't deny that the component pieces are generally well-executed. The performances are strong, and the movie sells its sentiment well. I'd have liked more consistent comedy, but there's no shortage of standout jokes.
The nicest thing I can say about this is that virtually any scene in isolation feels like it was cut from a fantastic movie... it's just not always the same movie, which makes this tough to recommend to anyone who's not already interested in the era or stars.
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