The Great Deception
(1926), 61 minutes, b&w
Silent, 6 reels

"The Great Deception"

GERMAN SPY SYSTEM THE BASIS OF PLOT THAT IS STRONG IN SUSPENSE IF NOT IN LOGIC. ENTERTAINING FOR THOSE WHO LIKE TO BE MYSTIFIED.

Cast ... Good cast. Ben Lyon doesn't appear quite the slick operator that the role would make him but he does pretty well with it. Aileen Pringle pretty as his sweetheart. Basil Rathbone rightfully imposing as the German operative. Sam Hardy was several good innings. Lucian Prival does a typical Von Stroheim impersonation as the German officer.

Type of Story ... Mystery drama; adapted from "The Yellow Dove" by Geo. Gibbs. "The Great Deception" is first rate entertainment if you like to be baffled and don't object to the mystery not having a logical basis. There is plenty of suspense. Howard Higgin has succeeded in injecting a completely tense atmosphere into the picture but it is one of those "much ado about nothing things" wherein there is a lot of excitement but you can't find out what it is all about. There is a code translation as the go-between and the German and English secret service agents do their maneuvering in slick fashion with the English hero finally successful in making a big scoop for the Allies. The Germans get the worst of the bargain. The folks in the Fatherland aren't likely to appreciate the humor in the scene where Sam Hardy knocks out a quartette of German soldiers and has a lot of fun doing it. Perhaps it wasn't altogether good taste to label the nationalities so boldly in view of the subject matter at hand. Story: Cyril Mansfield is suspected of being a traitor to England. Germany finds he is a traitor to her and Cyril's sweetheart is caught in the mesh of the system. How they escape is worth seeing.

Box Office Angle ... Good mystery drama and good entertainment if your folks enjoy figuring out mysteries.

Exploitation ... If you played "Three Faces East" and your folks liked it you might say that "The Great Deception," although not as good a story, is on the same order: the secret service system during the world war. Good names in cast to use, also.

Direction ... Howard Higgin: good but gets his mystery a trifle too involved.

—The Film Daily, August 22, 1926

"The Great Deception"—First National
Ben Lyon and Aileen Pringle Head Strong Cast in a Somewhat Familiar Story of the Great War

Coming too late to be offered as a novelty, "The Great Deception" tells a story of another Briton who is suspected of being a German spy. But the familiar ingredients are spiced with big production material and served with extraordinary good cast, though Charlotte Walker and Amelia Summerville, both fine box office names not long ago, are seen in roles so small as to be negligible.

It is Cyril Mansfield, part Garman by birth and wholly German by education, who is suspected of being the German spy, though in reality he is merely pretending to give service to supply false information in return for whatever he can discover.

He is loved by Lois, an American girl, whose favor is sought by a second spy [Rathbone], also in the service of both countries, though he plays wherever he can make the most money.

Lois helps Cyril to escape to Germany with what she believes to be valuable secrets and is herself abducted by Cyril's rival and brought to headquarters in a U-boat. Innocently, she betrays Cyril and both are condemned to die, by they effect their escape and, after a thrilling chase through the air, come down back of the American lines. After the surgeons have done their best a chaplain is called in to complete the cure.

There is small suspense to the story because, even the denser patrons know perfectly will that Cyril would not be the hero were he a German spy, so the suspense arises largely through the question as to how he gets out of his troubles.

Effective use is made of anti-aircraft guns, aircraft detectors, airplanes and the like, and there is a fine battle in the clouds with close-ups of Miss Pringle handling a machine gun. The production is much in advance of the story.

Ben Lyon makes a likeable hero and has fine comedy support in Sam Hardy, as his mechanic; a hard-boiled egg from the Bowery. Miss Pringle has comparatively little to do as the American girl, but wears some stunning gowns. Hubert Wilke plays a German staff officer without making him a caricature, but Lucian Prival is there to offer the usual travesty on the usual German officer. Basil Rathbone is fully competent as the double-crossing secret service official. The rest are largely atmosphere.

The presentation is exciting, but in no way notable.

—Epes W. Sargent, Moving Picture World, August 28, 1926

The Great Deception

Most spy stories are like bedroom farces in that a little explanation would puncture the plots and give them away. Here the central character is established in a mysterious fashion in order to keep the spectators in the dark. this is done for the sake of suspense. As a result the hero is supposed to keep one on the anxious seat trying to place him as either a British or German spy. the mere fact that he cannot be a Teuton and receive the necessary plaudits gives away the whole structure.

"The Great Deception" follows the familiar spy pattern. The young member of the British Secret Service is suspected of being a traitor to his country—and the villain is drawn in such a manner that he appears to be the trusted British agent. After a lot of melodramatic "give and take" he shows himself in his true colors as the master mind of the German spy system.

The director, not having much original material to work with shows his best work with the camera effects. The acting is adequately taken care of by Ben Lyon, Aileen Pringle, Basil Rathbone and Lucien Prival—with the latter standing out with a sort of Stroheim characterization.

THEME. Spy melodrama with hero being suspected of representing the enemy. He frustrates the villains and saves the Allies and wins the girl.

PRODUCTION HIGHLIGHTS. The exterior scenes. The fine photography. The German atmosphere. The war episodes. The escape. the airplane sequence. The love moments. The good performances.

EXPLOITATION ANGLES. Play up principals—and distribute stills of Lyon in his uniforms. Bill as exciting melodrama of the war. Tie up with Legion Posts.

DRAWING POWER. If audience aren't fed up with spy stories this should interest them. Suitable for first runs and other types of houses.

—Motion Picture News, August 21, 1926

Of all the straight out-and-out junky program pictures that have crashed into a Broadway deluxe presentation house this one is about the junkiest. At best, a mighty poor imitation of "Three Faces East," with the latter about 100 per cent a better picture. Rather than play this one, it would be a better bet to return "Three Faces East." Just what Robert Kane must have been thinking of when he tried to sneak this one over is a mystery. And how he got it on Broadway may or may not be a mystery. But the Rivoli's box office must suffer for this week as a consequence.

The story is one of those war tales laid in England and Germany. The kind of war film fiction rampant during 1917-18 and not half as well done as the majority of those seen in those hectic days.

A boy in a German school in English by birth. His dad is an Englishman and his mother German. The story opens with the last night of his student days when farewells are being said. One of his German companions tells him not to forget Germany when back in England.

The next shot shows the war started, and the boy is looked upon as a slacker at home, although he is secretly in the English spy system, while ostensibly in the pay of the Germans. He is flying back and forth between his own country and Germany, slipping the Germans misleading information while his own government gets the low down. His pal of school days is "caught with the goods" in England and "stood against the wall," having been betrayed by another German spy who wanted to strengthen his own position.

It is the latter who plays the heavy in the production and who tries to win the hand of an American girl in love with the hero. The heavy tries to compel her to do his bidding on the pain of having her lover exposed. Finally, he kidnaps the girl and takes her to Germany in a sub. At headquarters he faces the young Englishman, who has flown over to expose him. The Englishman is arrested and ordered shot within a few minutes, but escapes and rescues the girl, the two together with a loyal American mechanic get to their machine and fly back to safety after a battle in the clouds.

Miss Pringle is too mature a heroine to play opposite the slight Lyon. Lyon is far from appearing as heroic as he should in this role. The best work was done by Sam Hardy, who labored under a seeming terrific strain to inject a little comedy and succeeded fairly.

Balance of the cast meant nothing.

Fred.

—Variety, August 18, 1926

THE GREAT DECEPTION—Melodrama—70%

It is only natural that war pictures should abound these days, yet it does seem reasonable to expect something a little more mature and authentic than this hectic tale. It is rambunctious drama, full of spies and double-eyed villains and falling air-planes, and is unique only in the fact that for the greater part of the picture it leads the audience into a very decided sympathy for the enemy. The hero, an English boy who has been educated in Germany, becomes a spy, apparently for the Germans but really of course for "the country he loves best." He gets caught—naturally—and in the midst of all this red-hot action, farce is resorted to in order to get the hero out of an insoluble situation, in the hope of getting the audience to forget the implausibilities in a laugh. Unfortunately, the laughter of the audience, too, is rambunctious, and often breaks out most impolitely in what the director would like to have you regard as stirring moments. Really a dull and silly picture, acted tonelessly by Ben Lyon and Aileen Pringle, and not worth your attention. —First National.

—Motion Picture, November 1926

"GREAT DECEPTION"

Perhaps one should not step from the Randolph theatre and "Men of Purpose" to the Oriental theatre next door and "The Great Deception," even if one permits some thirty hours to elapse between the visits, as this reporter did. "The Great Deception" is what used to be called a spy picture and no doubt is much better than the ones made in the era when that was their classification, but the polished aspect of the fiction picture clashes sharply with the rough realism of the official films projected upon the adjacent screen.

"The Great Deception" is one practiced by an Englishman for the purpose of preserving the unity of the allied nations in the conflict. Ben Lyon is the Englishman. Aileen Pringle is the girl, an American girl if memory serves in that wholly unimportant and captionally alterable detail, whom he does not take into his confidence and who takes him into the jaws of death therefore with the best of intentions. Sam Hardy, whose enactment of Wallingford for Paramount is one of the memorable performances of picturedom, seems out of place but is very funny as Lyon's aid in various adventures. Basil Rathbone, if my record does not err as to name, is the sleek villain who kinks proceedings to precipitate disaster at necessary intervals. Howard Higgin directed the picture, and nothing's wrong with that aspect of it.

England and Germany are plainly named as the nations involved, other parties to both sides of the big argument coming in for occasional mention. Lyon, as the young Englishman apparently serving both governments in secret service capacity, flies back and forth between London and Berlin on missions pertaining to a cipher code keying an all important treaty. The villain makes the same journey by submarine. Eventually everybody gets to Berlin, almost everybody is to be executed at midnight, and then the escape is worked out in a burst of melodrama brilliant enough to banish thoughts of plausibility. The night battle between planes in this section of the film is a pure triumph.

—Exhibitors Herald, October 16, 1926