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Clip description
Paula Marsh’s (Isabel McDonagh billed as 'Marie Lorraine’) attempt to rob the Travers family safe is interrupted by the arrival of Lee Travers (Josef Bambach).
Curator’s notes
Unlike the McDonagh sisters’ two earlier features, which shared much of their interior filming between Drummoyne House and the Australasian Films studio at Bondi Junction (Sydney), most of The Cheaters’ interiors were filmed at Australasian. The McDonaghs’ use of sets was economic, resulting in images that suggested rather than showed luxury settings beyond the edge of frame.
The use of deep shadows in this clip was entirely appropriate to the sequence’s tone as The Cheaters’ emotional climax. The lighting of certain of Paula’s close-ups also suggests a character more emotionally torn than either of the heroines Isabel McDonagh (as Marie Lorraine) had played in Those Who Love (1926) and The Far Paradise (1928).
