The Cheaters

This is a delightful movie that is rarely seen. It's a Christmas movie. A family of rich, self-absorbed people loses everything in the depression. They are visited by a mysterious stranger who helps them to find something more important than the money they have lost. Nicely done.

I have longed to see this film for years and although I scour the TV guides eagerly each Christmas season, it never seems to appear. This is a truly touching and delightful film. Full of amusement and drama. I can remember looking forward to it each year when I was a child. We always made sure that we saw it, since it was one of my mother's favorites. It's the story of an erudite actor who's fallen on hard times, and is taken in by a vacuous wealthy family over the holidays. He reminds them all of the true meaning of Christmas. It's full of touching sentiment that is on par with It's a Wonderful Life. Even better, I think. I would snap this one up in a second if it was available on video.

My husband's family loved this movie and rank it with It's a Wonderful Life. I can't remember seeing it or I saw it and don't remember it. I am like Chris from Philadelphia and have been scouring TV listings and calling all kinds of video stores to get a copy of it. Frake8 in Libertyville has seen it every year for 20 years. I am hoping that someone like Frake8 has a copy of it. I would love to surprise my husband one year with a copy of it. If someone has a copy of it, please email me and I will pay for a copy of it. I would be forever grateful and my husband would be in 7th Heaven.

The Cheaters is one of the best, yet largely unseen, Christmas movies of all time. A winning combination of comedy and drama, it features stellar performances by two of the great character actors of the Forties, Joseph Schildkraut and Eugene Pallette. It delivers a positive message about the holiday, while also offering a cynical edge.

The Cheaters (also known as The Castaway0 is something of an unknown Christmas movie to the younger cinephile. Or perhaps because it came out of the low-budget Republic Pictures? It's simply just a forgotten one. So much so you will be hard pushed to see it mentioned on any Christmas film lists that flourish around the yuletide season. The film is based around an original story written by Frances Hyland and Albert Ray and concerns a sophisticated family inviting a washed up actor to their home for Christmas. As things progress we learn that this family are using the holiday season to secure a rich uncle's inheritance, but naturally all is not going to be plain sailing.

Heading the cast list is Joseph Schildkraut (The Shop Around the Corner), Billie Burke (The Wizard of Oz) and Eugene Palette (The Ghost Goes West). It's directed by Republic house jobber Joseph Kane, with photography and scoring coming from Reggie Lanning & Walter Scharf respectively.

So is the film any good though? Well it's safe to say that anyone looking for another old Christmas movie to boost the crimble spirit can safely add this one to their rota. It's very much in the mold of the likes of The Bishops Wife, which of course is no bad thing at all as a point of reference. My chief irk with the picture is that it flatters to deceive. By the midpoint the film has all options open to it, even threatening to be darker and perhaps leaning towards an ending of some surprise. But sadly, and without me crying out for any Pottersville type misery here, the film reverts to type and settles for a warm mince pie and a glass of mulled wine. Again, that's no bad thing at the season we choose to watch it in, but really it promised to be something more.

Still, it's a comfortable recommendation for the heart warming seeker. 6/10