Edith Hardy is doggedly pursued by Haka Arakua, a mysterious Oriental businessman recently arrived in New York. The obsession infuriates her husband, Richard, but he is too busy with a high-stakes investment deal to put a stop to it. Learning of her spouse's financial worries, Edith gambles $10,000 in funds that the couple had previously entrusted to charity. To the girl's horror, it is all lost. Seeing no alternative, she begs Arakua to lend her the money. He agrees, but only if Edith becomes his willing sex slave. After weeks of abject humiliation, the desperate girl pulls her husband's gun on Arakua in anger, mortally wounding him. Richard is blamed for the murder, and now only Edith's testimony can save him from the electric chair...if she can bring herself to tell the world of her scandalous enslavement.

Despite being made a century ago, The Cheat is still shocking today, and one of the earliest triumphs for legendary director Cecil B. DeMille. Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa became a sensation after making three pictures with Thomas Ince, The Sacrifice, The Typhoon and The Wrath of the Gods (all 1914). The Cheat only expanded his popularity, to the extent that by 1918, he was producing, directing and starring in his own films. Unfairly regulated to villainous roles after the arrival of sound, Hayakawa nevertheless worked steadily in an over 50-year career. Its highlight was his Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). The name of Hayakawa's role in The Cheat was originally Hishuru Tori, but Japanese-Americans strongly objected to the character's sinister nature. Prints were subsequently altered to make his country of origin Burma, with Paramount executives arguing that not enough Burmese immigrated to the United States to cause a controversy. Regardless, The Cheat would never find release in Japan. It would, however, receive an equally-racy remake in 1931 with Talullah Bankhead.