The Userer

The Userer (1910) - This is a virtual remake of A Corner in Wheat, with the same cuts between rich and poor, the same ironic death of the greedy capitalist, and virtually none of the visual poetry that made the first film such a success. One gets the feeling that Griffith was just cranking them out here. Surely, he strongly maintained his moral indignation just as fully as before, but perhaps time was encroaching on him that particular week and little creative or distinctive content resulted.

Actually, there is some ambitious attempts here, particularly in the number of stories being told. The evil Userer (George Nichols, looking unsettlingly Jewish here, with a rotund figure and thick black moustache) has ordered his henchmen to confiscate property on all who cannot immediately pay back their loans. His men visit four separate homes, each of which cannot afford to pay. The jump cuts between the Userer living it up at his banquets (as in Wheat) and those who are suffering to pay for his indulgences, expands the cinematic space and requires the viewers, who must be becoming more sophisticated, to associate cause and effect with a wider world of associations.

There is nothing confusing about The Userer, but there is nothing really compelling about it either. The most poignant scene in the film is when a mother (credited as Kate Bruce, but looking to me very much like Linda Arvidson) is forced to surrender the bed in which her deathly ill daughter is lying. The bed removed, she helps the poor sick girl (a dark-haired Mary Pickford with nothing to do but look as though she is near death) unsteadily to a chair. This scene is nearly unbearable in its pathos, probably because we know that such things did (and continue to) occur.

Another dramatic sequence is a melodramatic jump cut in which one despondent money-ower holds out a gun to shoot himself in the chest. Griffith jumps to the gaiety of the banquet, then back to the man, who slumps to the floor, having pulled the trigger during the duration of the cut. The contrast is thus powerful, and the sense of cause and effect is firmly established.

Finally, though, the film cannot keep that many characters interesting, particularly as there is such repetition in the action. Griffith has expanded his mise-en-scene to over 40 shots here, but very little development of action is revealed - we simply need all these shots to contain all the participants and complete their stories.

Inevitably, the greedy Userer gets his deadly come-uppance by being accidently locked in his own vault overnight. We watch him suffer in his agonizing death throws, as we did the lovers in The Sealed Room (Griffith repeating himself again). But it has nowhere near the emotional impact of the violently unexpected fall of the Wheat King into his grainery. The image was still probably horrific to early movie goers, but for us, what once was dramatic has become dull hack work.

That is probably too harsh. Griffith was extraordinarily prolific, and with his schedule, there is no doubt that he had to resort frequently to self imitation.

As far as his social vision goes, there is no progression. The Userer’s sister (Grace Henderson), resolves after her brother’s horrific death to return all the property and cancel all the debts. That the answers to society’s problems reside in the human heart is nothing new to Griffith or his overly simplistic view of humanity. But shall we castigate him for naivety - or shall we have to conclude that while this view is presented in a hopelessly sentimental manner here, that the basic truth of his assertion rings obviously, clearly true?