A Throw of Dice (original title is Prapancha Pash) is a 1929 silent film directed by Franz Osten, an International Coproduction between India, Germany and the UK.
King Ranjit's cousin King Sohat is planning to murder him so he can take over his kingdom. Ranjit is struck by a poisoned arrow, but is nursed back to health by the hermit Kanwa and his daughter Sunita. Ranjit and Sunita fall in love and elope, becoming engaged. Sohat has not given up on his schemes, though, especially after he develops his own attraction to Sunita, and he challenges Ranjit to a round of craps in which they wager the fates of their kingdoms.
Tropes featured in A Throw of Dice include:
- Animal Assassin: Sohat kills Kirkbar by putting a venomous snake in his bed.
- Clashing Cousins: Ranjit and Sohat are cousins, but Sohat holds no affection for Ranjit and plots to murder him so he can have his kingdom and his fiancee.
- Deathbed Confession: Sohat's henchman Kirkbar, who kills Kanwa, threatens to reveal his plot if he does not treat him with due honors. Sohat has him murdered to silence him, but Kirkbar has enough energy to stumble outside and reveal the truth to several people with his last breath.
- Elopement: Kanwa does not approve of Sunita and Ranjit together and beseeches Ranjit to leave them. The two instead run away together and become engaged.
- Establishing Character Moment: Ranjit is established as a good and fair person when he refuses to blame the one who shot him with an arrow, believing it to be an accident.
- Frame-Up: Sohat has Kanwa killed with Ranjit's dagger and has the weapon sent to Sunita so she thinks Ranjit committed the murder.
- The Hermit: Kanwa lives humbly and in relative isolation out in the wild with his daughter. It's implied Kanwa used to enjoy life in the royal court, but left it behind because of how corrupt it was. He tries to keep Sunita away from Ranjit for this reason, only for her to choose to elope with him.
- Lost Him in a Card Game: Ranjit bets his freedom in the game of craps with Sohat. Because Sohat is cheating with a magnet, Ranjit ends up becoming his slave for a brief time before Sohat's cheating is found out.
