AllMovie

Most of The Deceiver takes place in the Broadway theater where matinee idol Thorpe (Ian Keith) is starring in a production of Othello. A rat with women, Thorpe has scattered broken female hearts all along the Great White Way, giving lots of people plenty of incentive to murder him. Sure enough, he is murdered, as is another fellow who holds a vital clue as to the identity of the killer. Second-guessing the detectives, hero Tony (Lloyd Hughes) tries to solve the mystery himself, if only to clear heroine Ina (Dorothy Sebastian) of suspicion. The guilty party is tricked into confessing by the cagey Tony.