A money-grabbing moneylender receives a fitting, ironic comeuppance in The Usurer, a Griffith movie that lacks any kind of subtlety whatsoever in its attempts to tug at its audience's heartstrings. Scenes of moneylender George Nichols partying hard are contrasted with scenes of his impoverished clients having their meagre belongings taken off them for non-payment of their debts. But Griffith doesn't dwell on the social injustice that trapped these people in poverty and at the mercy of unscrupulous moneylenders, choosing instead to use these scenes as a means to lend a sense of justice to Nichols' fate
Review of The Usurer
