Deceit (sometimes referred to as The Deceit) is a 1923 American silent black-and-white film. It is a conventional melodrama directed by Oscar Micheaux.[1] Like many of Micheaux's films, Deceit casts clerics in a negative light.[2] Although the film was shot in 1921, it was not released until 1923.[3] It is not known whether the film currently survives,[4] which suggests that it is a lost film. The 1922 film The Hypocrite was shown within Deceit as a film within a film.
A tramp cares for a boy after he's abandoned as a newborn by his mother. Later the mother has a change of heart and aches to be reunited with her son.
Larry Winthrop, the pampered son of an aristocratic Boston family, is loved by his wife, Eleanor, but she wants him to prove himself to her as a man.
Mary Maddock works as a seamstress to bring home money while her husband Steve, unemployed, has no real prospects of earning money. Mary's employers, are trying to strike an oil related business deal with a rich man by the name of Nelson Rogers. The deal does not seem to be on the table, as Mr. Rogers is leaving town shortly and does not have the time to work out the details of such a deal. In an order to entice him to stay, Mrs. Mallory - wife of Mr. Mallory who is proposing the business deal - convinces Mary to be her guest at a dinner party with the intent of making Mr. Rogers fall for her and thus stay long enough for Mr. Mallory to make him agree to a business deal.
Three Outlaws came across a stranded baby and must decide to save the child or escape from the law.
A blind cobbler is able, by dint of his extraordinary hearing, to recognize the identity of a murderer. His own son is accused of the killing, and the old man waits, knowing the murderer will return to prevent the blind man from revealing what he knows.
Janosík, a friar retrained as a bandit, becomes the farmers' symbol of resistance and fight against the feudal conditions.
Hugh Garth hides from the law in the frozen Canadian northwest along with his young brother Pete and Pete's former nurse, Bella, who loves Hugh unrequitedly. When a lost and snowblind girl stumbles into their camp, Hugh falls in love with her and misleads her as to the age and relationship of Pete and Bella, in hopes of keeping the girl's attentions directed at himself. But when the girl's sight returns, she realizes the truth and discovers that Pete has fallen in love with her. But Hugh's cruel nature now threatens them both.
Stranded in the small town of Buckeye Junction young actress Madge Joy crawls upon a load of hay and falls asleep. Knocked unconscious when young farmer Robert Deep hitches up the wagon not realizing she’s inside she awakes in the Deep living room. "Ma" Deep takes to her at once, but old “Pa” Deep looks at her sternly. Claiming to be a runaway orphan rather than an actress she becomes a member of the family. Falling for Madge Robert confesses he dreams of being a playwright, that night his sister Susan, who has run away to be an actress, reappears. Pa Deep is furious when he finds out his daughter has been on the stage, but Madge reveals that she is herself an actress threatening to go away with Robert unless he makes up with his daughter. Eventually Madge finds fame in New York with Robert following with a play he knows is right.
Princess Jones, the niece of a country store keeper, dreams of being a wealthy, glamorous lady. While at an luxurious nearby resort she meets the wealthy Arthur Forbes, who falls in love with her and buys her an expensive coat. This leads her to be mistaken by the other guests as a Balkan princess and attracts the eye of a gang of kidnappers.
Richard de la Croix's brother, Andreas, has been driven insane by a notorious vamp and socialite named Sappho. A friend takes Richard to the Odeon to meet her, but when Sappho actually meets him, he is unaware that she is the woman who drove Andreas to be institutionalised. Sappho genuinely falls in love with Richard, and decides to leave her vampy ways and her older lover behind her so that she can have him.
Lorenzo Carilo selects more-or-less menial jobs at which to make a living, other more "select" jobs not paying enough, and then he meets and falls in love with Vivian Forrester the daughter of a new-rich family. What's a poor boy to do? He might pose as a French Duke.
A typical Pollard-Morrison outing is Rush Orders (1921), in which the pair ride into town on a railroad handcar (with Morrison providing the locomotive muscle). When there it's all about the hustle for food with rivals and advertisement in the café business..
On a farm in up-country Sweden, an enigmatic stranger comes to a conservative peasant community and seduces a farmer's wife.
Camille is a courtesan in Paris. She falls deeply in love with a young man of promise, Armand Duval. When Armand's father begs her not to ruin his hope of a career and position by marrying Armand, she acquiesces and leaves her lover. However, when poverty and terminal illness overwhelm her, Camille discovers that Armand has not lost his love for her.
An alcoholic, abusive ne'er-do-well is shown the error of his ways through a legend that dooms the last person to die on New Year's Eve before the clock strikes twelve to take the reins of Death's chariot and work tirelessly collecting fresh souls for the next year.
The marriage of Jim and Esther spirals downhill rapidly when Esther purchases a sable coat for herself. Hoping to live up to her expensive accessory, Esther soon is keeping company with caddish Morrell. Jim brings his wife's galavanting to an abrupt end by committing suicide. Esther as an object lesson for young Alice Kendall, returns the fur coat that she's bought on impulse.
Carlotta Darley (Dean) is engaged to Homer Carleton (Crosby), but regrets that Homer is not as tall and handsome as the butler Peter (Kerry).
The film is about a woman who experiences frightening visions after visiting an insane asylum where one of the inmates claims to be Count Dracula (here following the Hungarian spelling Drakula). She has trouble determining whether the inmate's visions are real or merely nightmares.
