The Man Beneath

Sessue Hayakawa has been studying medicine in Scotland. On the eve of his return to India, he confesses his love to Helen Jerome Eddy. She is terrified of the social stigma that such a marriage would bear, and so Hayakawa returns to India alone, pledging his devotion. It is soon tested, when John Gilbert, who is affianced to Miss Eddy's sister, Pauline Curley, has been studying a secret society of criminals and gotten too close to his subject. They demand he commit a murder for them. He tells Miss Curley the marriage will have to be postponed, and flees to India, shadowed by two agents of the society. He seeks refuge with Hayakawa, and the two take ship back to Scotland. Gilbert falls ill and dies, and is buried at sea. Is it a natural death, have the agents of the secret society enacted their vengeance, or has Hayakawa's frustrated love turned to murderous hatred?

People who know Hayakawa only from his Oscar-nominated role in THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI will be surprised to learn that he was a substantial Hollywood star in the 1910s. He retired from acting in 1966 to become a Buddhist monk, but remained an acting coach until his death in 1973 at the age of 87.

This film stars Sessue Hayakawa as a "Hindu" doctor befriended by a family in Scotland. He's in love with Kate (Helen Jerome Eddy) but she won't accept him because of his race. Meanwhile, her sister (Pauline Curley) is engaged to James (John Gilbert) who is also friends with the doctor.

After the spurned doctor goes back to India, James seeks him out because he has somehow gotten involved with the "Black Hand" society while in Italy and has testified against them in court. Two assassins are on his trail. The doctor takes James under his wing and they go on an extended European tour with the assassins in tow. Onboard a ship, they fake James' death in the hope that the assassins will stop following them.

The doctor turns the tables on the assassins by bribing the man. The woman becomes enraged and accidentally kills her partner. The doctor them blackmails her to leave James alone and forget him. Back in Scotland, the lover are reunited but Kate still spurns the doctor, afraid of becoming a social outcast. The doctor's final comment is that the stars will follow their separate paths but with one love.

The title refers to the man that the doctor is at his core despite the fact that others see him as a Hindu. Even as Kate shrinks back from his touch, another telling scene has the sister rush at him when he tells them James is safe. With arms outstretched, she cannot bring herself to actually embrace the Hindu.

The three stars are quite good, with the 22-year-old Gilbert especially good as James. Fanny Midgley plays the servant and Fontaine La Rue and Wedgwood Nowell play the assassins.