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Recommendations
Senior Film Conservator
Exploring the unique vision in Trick for Trick is a journey into United States cinema, the thematic layers of this 1933 classic invite a wider exploration of the genre. If Harry Cording, Willard Robertson, Luis Alberni impressed you, these next recommendations will too.
With Hamilton MacFadden at the helm, Trick for Trick became to reinvent the tropes of Mystery cinema for a global audience.
Six months after the body of Evelyn Maxwell, who was the assistant to the magician Azrah, is pulled out of a river, the detective assigned to the case, Jed Dobson, is still searching for clues. When he visits Azrah, whom he knew years before on Coney Island, the magician is conducting a seance for Mr. Russell and his daughter Constance. When Constance's fiance, David Adams, arrives at Azrah's house, Azrah's partner, Albert Young, will not let him in, so David enters through an open window. When he finds Azrah, David says that he suspects him of killing Evelyn and produces an envelope containing canceled checks from Azrah to Evelyn. With the help of his trick electrician, Metzger, Azrah creates an illusion that keeps David from confronting him any further. Young comes in and picks a fight with David, so that he can steal the canceled checks. Jed then enters, but before he can question Azrah, La Tour, whom Evelyn had assisted prior to Azrah, arrives. Jed questions La Tour about Evelyn, but he says he knows nothing. Azrah overhears this and suggests that he conduct a seance that evening to get a confession from Evelyn's spirit. La Tour has his two henchmen, a hunchback and a Chinese man, kidnap Constance so that he can give Young money to sabotage Azrah's seance when the others go to rescue Constance. At the seance, after the guests are forced to relinquish their weapons, Azrah is tied to his chair to ensure that he does not leave when the lights go down. After the lights flash on and off, La Tour is found dead in Azrah's chair with a penknife through his heart. The knife belongs to Evelyn's father, who is disguised as a guest, Professor King. Azrah asks to continue with the seance and, with the help of his assistant Maisie Henry, tricks everyone with an illusion, using sound recordings of a conversation he had with Evelyn before her death. In the recordings, she confides that La Tour, who would not marry her, left her pregnant and penniless, and that she was then unable to return to her family. Evelyn's father, who was trying to kill Azrah because he thought that he was responsible for Evelyn's death, confesses to La Tour's murder, and he is arrested. Azrah goes on to explain that he knew all along that La Tour had killed Evelyn because he had originally sent the canceled checks to La Tour knowing that he would have returned them to Azrah to protect him if he was innocent. Azrah reveals that La Tour, however, sent the checks to David in order to frame Azrah. Azrah then orders David to pay more attention to Constance, and the young couple embrace.
Based on the unique unique vision of Trick for Trick, our vault has identified these titles as the most compelling follow-up experiences for fans of Mystery cinema:
Dir: Frank Lloyd
Laura Bruce is married to John Bruce, police commissioner. She discovers her husband is enjoying a drunken revel with another woman, and vows she will obtain a divorce. After doing so she weds Paul Ramsey. His employer, Dick Turner, a libertine, offers his a responsible position in the west, and she faces a long separation. Ramsey later learns that Turner is interested in his wife and engages a man to protect her, who happens to be her former husband. She finds this out, but does not know he is bent on vengeance. She is inveigled to go to Turner's apartment, where she meets Turner's former "flame." One of them leaves the apartment which is "Room 13." Returning from the West, Ramsey is taken to an adjoining room by Bruce, and listens to a conversation in "Room 13" between a man and a woman. He is convinced it is his wife's voice. Maddened he rushes to the room and batters down the door. He confronts Turner and shoots him. At the trial Ramsey will go free if his wife confesses she was in the room She does and he is acquitted. A reconciliation follows. - Moving Picture World 1920
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Dir: William C. Dowlan
At a party thrown at the Metcalf estate, the Marquise D'Irancy's Sultana diamond disappears when the lights go out during a power failure. Suspected of the crime is William Kirkland, the wastrel son of the wealthy Kirkland family, but William's sister Diana comes to his defense. Aiding her in the investigation is Clamp, a wandering peddler. After several misadventures, Clamp reveals that he is a secret service agent on the trail of the international criminals, the de Vallignacs, who are summering at the resort. After proving that the de Vallignacs have stolen the diamond, Clamp arrests his prey, clears William and marries Diana.
Dir: George Beranger
John Fenton visits a fortune-teller to gain insight into his parentage. While there, a police raid occurs, and he climbs the fire escape to the apartment above. There he finds a girl standing over the body of a young man who has just shot himself. The girl, Belle Charmion, explains that her half brother, Gordon Brewster, had stolen some jewels from their uncle and, fearing that the police would capture him, had attempted suicide. Fenton conceals the brother in another room and impersonates him when the police arrive. Later, he and Belle take Brewster to his uncle's home. In the excitement, the jewels have been forgotten, and Fenton returns to search for them. By this time, the family butler, who is a member of an underworld gang, has tipped off his friends, who then steal the Fenton jewels. At the butler's home, a scuffle ensues; Fenton recovers the jewels and learns that he is actually a distant relative of the Charmions, having been kidnapped in infancy by a crook. With both mysteries thus resolved, Belle and Fenton become engaged.
Dir: Marcel Perez
Ralph Barr refuses to lend more money to Trent, who has been rejected by Judith Reynard and is now engaged to Barr. When Trent insults Judith, Barr threatens to kill him. Then Trent calls on Barr, threatening to kill himself and make it appear that Barr killed him if Barr will not lend him the money. Later it seems that Trent has committed suicide and Barr is suspected of the murder, but disappears. A series of complications follows which make it appear that Barr did kill Trent, but it turns out that he was killed from a shot behind the portieres. Another murder takes place and more mystery develops. Finally it is determined that Barr is not guilty, and Judith's loyalty saves him.
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Dir: Dallas M. Fitzgerald
Edith Sturgis, the daughter of a judge, returns from studies abroad to find her widowed father remarried. The new Mrs. Sturgis does not reveal that she has a son Dick, once unjustly jailed by Judge Sturgis, but now working as a reporter while still maintaining an association with the Brownlow gang. Quarrelling with her stepmother, Edith leaves home, meets Dick and falls in love. While Dr. and Mrs. Allen (whom Edith met on the steamer) are visiting in the Sturgis home, the doctor's valuable radium is stolen from the safe, and Judge Sturgis is found murdered. Dick, though with Edith at the time, is accused of the crime. Finally, an old shoemaker confesses that he entered the house to steal the radium, with which to cure his crippled son, and witnessed the judge's slaying by the Brownlow gang. Dick is freed and finds happiness with Edith, and the doctor helps the crippled boy.
Dir: Maurice Tourneur
A thief known as The Hawk has stolen the treasured Garter from the British Museum. One of the men pursuing the thief is mistakenly thought to be The Hawk himself, and so must seek his quarry while himself being hunted.
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Dir: Tom Collins
Tex, a famous detective, recounts the story of how he went into the crime business: While visiting his old friend, Jack Nelson, a dispute breaks out between Nelson and his butler. Later that night, Nelson is murdered, and the next morning the murder weapon, a knife, is discovered next to the body. Edna, the victim's wife, seizes the knife, and Tex, fearing that she is about to kill herself, throws the weapon out the window. Interpreting Tex's actions as incriminating, the police arrest him, and he is sentenced to prison. Two years later, a fire breaks out at the penitentiary, and Tex's bravery in saving the warden's wife and child wins him a pardon. Determining to solve Nelson's murder, Tex searches for the butler but discovers him to be innocent. Summoned to Edna's deathbed, Tex hears her confess to the crime, thus causing him to devote his life to solving crimes and saving innocents from being convicted on circumstantial evidence.
Dir: Harry L. Franklin
Audacious Jeanne works in a book bindery, is given a diary written by one Thomas Dodd to bind. The diary portrays Dodd as a scoundrel who fathered a girl by a woman he never married, and Dodd's family as a nest of vipers. Jeanne decides it is her duty to save this corrupt family and presents herself to Dodd as his illegitimate daughter. In fact, Dodd is a meek old man whose scandalous diary was pure fantasy, and the only hostile member of the family is Dodd's greedy brother Jerry, who was the only sympathetic character in Dodd's diary. Jeanne falls in love with Dodd's nephew Kent, though she dutifully urges him to marry Hazel Jenkins, a woman whom Jeanne believes Kent has wronged. Finally Sarah Ross, the alleged mother of Dodd's child, ends Jeanne's suspicions by denying that she had ever had a daughter. After foiling Jerry's plan to usurp the family fortune, Jeanne confesses her charade and accepts Kent's love. Dodd likewise admits that his diary is a fake and proposes to Sarah.
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Analysis relative to Trick for Trick
| Film Title | Atmosphere | Complexity | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Woman in Room 13 | Ethereal | Abstract | 91% Match |
| The Peddler of Lies | Surreal | Layered | 86% Match |
| The Servant Question | Gothic | Dense | 92% Match |
| A Manhattan Knight | Ethereal | Linear | 96% Match |
| The Way Women Love | Tense | Linear | 93% Match |
This guide was algorithmically generated using the cinematic metadata of Hamilton MacFadden's archive. Last updated: 5/30/2026.
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