The sowers go forth to sow. They lay the foundation for the future harvest and a very picturesque picture they make. They are, in effect, an animated reproduction of Millet's famous painting, "The Sowers," and they reek not of the future. They are absorbed in getting the grain into the ground in the present. The scene shifts suddenly. The audience is introduced to the struggling mass of brokers at the Exchange where the wheat king is engineering a corner which will give him absolute control of the wheat supply. This picture should do much to assist in clarifying the atmosphere when the question of wheat gambling and whether it should be stopped or not comes up for discussion. At last he is triumphant. Through a mass of wrecked fortunes he has succeeded in reaching victory, strewing suffering and privation everywhere he went. The scene changes again. The king is showing some friends through his bins which hold so many thousands of bushels of the grain. He stumbles and falls and is buried beneath the golden grain, feeling indeed the vengeance of the wheat. A fitting title would have been "The Vengeance of the Wheat." Nothing more graphic could have been obtained. The title given it is explanatory, but there is something beyond the corner which is forcibly taught. The vengeance of a Power higher than man is invoked to crush the man or the combination which causes the price of a necessity of life to advance so sharply that the poor must go hungry. In time the vengeance will come. Perhaps not so suddenly as it did in this instance, but it will come and that surely. This picture teaches a lesson worth while. It should serve as a warning to those who undertake to corner and control the food supply and an encouragement to those who see the menace in such illegal and altogether inhuman operations. The picture is worked out with all the skill and attention to details which characterize the Biograph work and deserves a long run. The company is to be congratulated upon producing such a graphic and satisfactory film. - The Moving Picture World, December 25, 1909
Review of A Corner in Wheat
