The Great Deception
1926 film by Howard Higgin
The Great Deception is a 1926 American silent drama film starring Basil Rathbone, Ben Lyon, and Aileen Pringle. It is based on the 1915 novel The Yellow Dove by George Gibbs about World War I era espionage, previously adapted as the 1919 film Shadows of Suspicion. This film is currently a lost film. A New York Times review considered "this photoplay possesses an element of mystery and suspense".
Synopsis
It portrays the activities of a British undercover agent Cryil Mansfield, who is in Germany as part of a plan to feed false intelligence to the German high command. His mission is threatened by Rizzio, a double agent who uses Mansfield's American lover Lois as part of a scheme to entrap and execute him.
Cast
Ben Lyon as Cyril Mansfield
Aileen Pringle as Lois
Basil Rathbone as Rizzio
Sam Hardy as Handy
Charlotte Walker as Mrs. Mansfield
Amelia Summerville as Lady Jane
Hubert Wilke as General Von Frankenhauser
Lucien Prival as Von Markow
Lucius J. Henderson as Burton
Mark Gonzales as Maxwell
References
Bibliography
Parish, James Robert & Pitts, Michael R. The Great Spy Pictures. Scarecrow Press, 1974.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Great Deception” as 1926 film by Howard Higgin. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1926 film by Howard Higgin. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12124649. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1926, 1915, 1919 and 1974.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Great Deception” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.