The same cast and director shift from the world of psychiatry to the world of fine arts, and Claude Rains puts on his other hat, the black one. He plays the pompous villain with the same intelligence and finesse as he does the pompous angel. Bette Davis is a pianist torn between two fellow musicians, her former lover, Rains, and Paul Henreid, whom she marries. Even more so than Now Voyager, Deception is memorable for its “moments"--for instance, “a quarrel between Davis and Rains while Rains sits up in bed reading the funnies, and a splendid dinner-party at which Rains orders more and more bizarre dishes...until he has reduced his guests (Davis and Henreid) to nervous exhaustion.” (Higham and Greenberg, Hollywood in the Forties) Rapper's direction and Ernest Haller's photography are the essence of forties polish.