Summary
Beans (1920) is a sprightly silent comedy of manners and moral fortitude, set against the backdrop of a contentious business rivalry. Brewster, a magnate colloquially titled the 'Bean King,' faces a legal tempest when Ellis, a rival with a canning plant leased to Brewster, refuses contract renewal. Enter Wingate, a disreputable lawyer, who sows discord in Ellis’s camp, while Brewster dispatches his daughter Betty—a spirited, wide-eyed idealist—to negotiate. Betty, however, is duped by Ellis’s manipulator into believing Brewster’s legal counsel is a scheming rogue. What unfolds is a labyrinthine ballet of deceptions and reversals, punctuated by slapstick ingenuity and ethical clarity. Betty’s triumph, rooted not in cunning but in unyielding earnestness, becomes a satire of corporate greed and a paean to quiet virtue. The film’s charm lies in its juxtaposition of high-stakes intrigue with the whimsy of a young woman’s unshakable integrity, rendered with the precision of a well-tuned clockwork.
Synopsis
Brewster, the bean king, has an option of renewal on a certain bean canning plant owned by Ellis. Ellis does not desire to renew and hires Wingate, a shyster lawyer, to help him. Brewster has to send Betty to renew the contract. Later he sends his lawyer to help her and Ellis' man persuades her that he is a plotter. There follows plot and counter-plot, but all-innocently Betty carries the day.
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