The Cheaters

An eccentric wealthy family facing bankruptcy schemes to steal an inheritance, but an alcoholic ex-actor they take in for Christmas charity complicates their plan. A wealthy family is preparing for Christmas in their usual stylish fashion. They hit on a bright idea that will make them outstanding during this holiday season among their friends. They will adopt a "lost man" and bring him to their house for the holidays. They find a news story of a washed-up actor who has attempted to commit suicide and bring him to their home. The actor proves far more than they bargained for and he shows them some real truths about giving and living. —Anonymous The family has a long lost cousin who is to inherit a fortune and they try to hide this information, hoping to gain the inheritance for themselves, by taking her to the family vacation home in the mountains. Their guest, the actor, discovers their plot and tries to reveal the truth through an amazing recital of the Scrooge story in Dicken's "A Christmas Carol". —Louise Kane Wolf ( My father directed this film and I was there as a It's a few days before Christmas. New York businessman James C. Pidgeon has been less than forthright with his family that they are close to bankrupt as they continue to spend uncontrollably on Christmas, he himself in some denial about their financial situation. They are a pretentious and eccentric lot, although their eccentricities differ between individual family members: wife Clara, offspring Therese, Reggie and Angela, and Clara's hanger-on brother, Willie Crawford, who will all be descending on the family's lavish house with multiple servants in Central Park East for the holidays. In wanting even more money regardless of not knowing about their existing money problems, they are all waiting for J.C.'s equally wealthy and eccentric Uncle Harry in Denver to pass, J.C. who would be the natural heir of the $5 million estate, which J.C. sees as the answer to their problems. At the last minute, Therese springs on her family that she, in order to impress her upper crust boyfriend, Captain Stephen Bates of Boston, and his family, would like to invite a down and outer to spend Christmas week with them to demonstrate their mock charity and caring for the season, in it being something that Mrs. Bates routinely does. Who they choose through a social service organization listing such people is Anthony Marchand - initially listed solely as Mr. M - in he being just down and out enough but not too much in being supposedly a once famous actor who fell onto hard times partly by a specific event. When they discover that Uncle Harry has willed ostensibly his entire estate to a young actress whose name and current whereabouts he didn't know, the estate which would otherwise go to J.C. if she can't be located, they decide their most proactive course of action is to find said actress, and present themselves as her long lost family who want her to spend the holidays with them, while really they just want to hide her from the investigators until the time allotted for said investigators to find her for the will runs out. In finding her in New York - she, Florie Watson, a penniless struggling actress, who in turn knows the story of the Pidgeons being her family is untrue but goes along with it if only wanting a nice Christmas away from her own problems - the Pidgeons decide that the best thing to do is transfer their entire Christmas holidays to an empty, rundown, isolated cabin owned by J.C.'s company. In this collective spending a concentrated holiday together with no one else and few creature comforts, they may all come to a different perspective than what they started out with for the holidays. —Huggo