![]() The change of the character's name and nationality were done because Japan was an American ally at the time. When the film was re-released in 1918, the character of Hishuru was renamed "Haka Arakau" and described in the title cards as a "Burmese ivory king". In particular, a Japanese newspaper in Los Angeles, Rafu Shimpo, waged a campaign against the film and heavily criticized Hayakawa's appearance. Japanese Americans protested against the film for portraying a Japanese person as sinister. Upon its release, the character of Hishuru Tori was described as a Japanese ivory merchant. DeMille, the film cost $16,540 to make, and grossed $137,364. According to Scott Eyman's Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. It grossed $96,389 domestically and $40,975 in the overseas market. Upon its release, The Cheat was both a critical and commercial success. Lucien Littlefield as Hardy's Secretary (uncredited)Įdith Hardy (Fannie Ward) and Hishuru Tori (Sessue Hayakawa) in The Cheat Production and release.Dick La Reno as Courtroom Spectator (uncredited).Raymond Hatton as Courtroom Spectator (uncredited).Williams as Courtroom Judge (as Judge Arthur H. Sessue Hayakawa as Hishuru Tori (original release) / Haka Arakau (1918 re-release).Richard lovingly and protectively leads the chastened Edith from the courtroom. He then sets aside the verdict, and the prosecutor withdraws the charges. The judge protects him and manages to hold them off. The male spectators are infuriated and rush to the front, clearly intending to lynch Tori/Arakau. She bares her shoulder and shows everyone in the courtroom the brand on her shoulder. This is too much for Edith, and she rushes to the witness stand and shouts that she shot Tori/Arakau "and this is my defense". At the crowded trial, both he and Tori/Arakau, his arm in a sling, testify that he was the shooter but will not say why. She visits Richard in his jail cell and confesses everything, and he orders her not to tell anyone else and let him take the blame. Tori/Arakau is only wounded in the shoulder, not killed when his servants call the police, Richard declares that he shot him, and Tori/Arakau does not dispute this.Įdith pleads with Tori/Arakau not to press charges, but he refuses to spare Richard. He finds the check he wrote to his wife there. She runs away just as Richard, hearing the struggle, bursts into the house. In their struggle after that, she finds a gun on the floor and shoots him. When she struggles against his advances, he takes his heated brand used to mark his possessions and brands her with it on the shoulder. She takes it to Tori/Arakau, but he says she cannot buy her way out of their bargain. Edith asks him for $10,000, saying it is for a bridge debt, and he writes her a check for the amount with no reproof. Then Richard announces elatedly that his investments have paid off and they are very rich. She reluctantly agrees to this, takes his check and is able to give the money to the Red Cross. Edith goes to Tori/Arakau to beg for a loan of the money, and he agrees to write her a check in return for her sexual favours the next day. The Red Cross ladies have scheduled the handover of the money to the refugee fund for the day after that. The next day, however, her horrified friend tells her his tip was worthless and her money is completely lost. Edith, wanting to live lavishly and unwilling to wait for Richard to realize his speculation, takes the $10,000 the Red Cross has raised from her bedroom safe and gives it to the society friend. He is an elegant and dangerously sexy man, to whom Edith seems somewhat drawn he shows her his roomful of treasures, and stamps one of them with a heated brand to show that it belongs to him.Ī society friend of the Hardys tells Edith that Richard's speculation will not be profitable and he knows a better one he then offers to double her money in one day if she gives it to him to invest in the suggested enterprise. Edith is also the treasurer of the local Red Cross fund drive for Belgian refugees, which holds a gala dance at the home of Hishuru Tori, a rich Japanese ivory merchant (or, in the 1918 re-release, Haka Arakau, a rich Burmese ivory merchant). She even delays paying her maid her wages, and the embarrassed Richard must do so. Edith Hardy is a spoiled society woman who continues to buy expensive clothes even when her husband, Richard, tells her all his money is sunk into a stock speculation and he can't pay her bills until the stock goes up. ![]()
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