Cheaters at Play
Cast & Crew
Hamilton Macfadden
Thomas Meighan
Charlotte Greenwood
William Bakewell
Ralph Morgan
Barbara Weeks
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
At the dock of an ocean liner bound for America, Michael Lanyard, a former international crook known as "Lone Lanyard," and Detective Crane, a former sergeant who used to chase him, have a reunion of sorts as they discover that they will be sailing together. They witness a thief, Freddie Isquith, steal a wad of money from an elderly women's purse. Lanyard, who has been a legitimate jeweler for the past twenty years, retrieves the money from Isquith and replaces it in the woman's purse without her knowledge. After the ocean liner sails, a motorboat carrying young, influential bon vivant Maurice Parry catches up to the ship, and Parry comes on board. Parry quickly begins a flirtation with Fenno Crozier, who is traveling with her aunt Fay, an ex-chorus girl who married into wealth. Parry steals the Hapsburg emeralds, worth $375,000, from Fay, who did not put them in the purser's safe because she did not want to pay $300,000 for customs duty on them. Lanyard, an old friend of Fay's, assures her that he can retrieve them, but says he must work alone. After Lanyard hears Isquith tap out a coded message with his pipe, Isquith's cohorts on the ship attack Parry and demand the jewels. Lanyard comes to his rescue, and afterward, when Parry invites him to his cabin for a highball, Lanyard locates the hidden jewels and admonishes Parry for being a bungler. Humiliated, Parry reveals that he is really Lanyard's son and that his goal in life is to be as good a thief as Lanyard was. Lanyard, who believed his son to be dead, explains that he went straight because criminals now operate in packs and says that no man can work alone like he once did, but he fails to convince Parry to go straight. After Lanyard returns the jewels to Fay without revealing Parry's involvement, Fay promises to put them in the purser's safe, but instead she puts them in a sock, and the next morning she finds that they have been stolen again. Crane and the ship's captain question Lanyard, but the interrogation in Fay's cabin is interrupted when Parry throws the jewels through the window. Later Parry tells Lanyard that he gave them up partially to repay Lanyard for not turning him in, but mostly because he was proud to be the son of a man who never has been caught. He does not reconcile with his father, however. Parry takes Fenno into New York in his plane, and they bring the jewels with them, so that Fay does not have to face her husband when he learns of the customs charge. In New York, Fowler, the secretary of Fenno's uncle, takes Parry and Fenno to a hotel where, he says, her uncle is staying. Parry and Fenno are captured at the hotel, however, and they discover that Fowler has been paid off by Isquith, who wants the jewels. Lanyard, still working alone, rescues them, but with his son's help, subdues the gang. Parry, who has realized that he loves Fenno, thanks his father, and Fenno tells her aunt that she and Parry will marry.
Director
Hamilton Macfadden
Cast
Thomas Meighan
Charlotte Greenwood
William Bakewell
Ralph Morgan
Barbara Weeks
Linda Watkins
Olin Howland
William Pawley
James Kirkwood
Anders Von Haden
Dewey Robinson
E. E. Clive
Berton Churchill
Crew
Joseph Aiken
Leo Birinski
Jasper Blystone
Malcolm Stuart Boylan
David Cox
Jed Kiley
J. P. Leister
Hamilton Macfadden
Irene Morra
Ernest Palmer
William Rankin
George Rosener
Harry Ruskin
Samuel Spewack
Leonard Spigelgass
Gordon Wiles
Sam Wurtzel
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working titles of this film were First Cabin, The Lone Wolf's Son and Son of the Lone Wolf. For more information on "The Lone Wolf" series, see the entry below for The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt and consult the Series Index.
